Building it twice

 The 90 minute drive out to the shop is pretty much on autopilot these days. I'm starting to feel like a trail horse that knows every inch of the trail by heart. Two-thirds of the drive is on I-70. The thing about I-70 heading west is that it is excruciatingly boring until you get to the Rocky Mountains. The last third of the drive is on rural country roads. There are a few options for that part of the drive, so it is possible to take different routes to liven it up. I have also started looking at old barns. 

I mean, why not?

On my way out yesterday, I had the convertible top down on my roadster and that turned out to be a great chance to get some of my favorite barns.

Well, maybe not entirely barns... this one looks like an old schoolhouse:

Yeah, off topic again, but old trucks are interesting too:

It was one of those days when Grant was busy with other stuff. When that happens, I try to find something to do that just might fit within my skillset or be easy enough that a simpleton could do it.

The first thing I did was add some more panels around the drivers side footbox. That was pretty easy, and it didn't take mush time.

With the box temporarily in place, it looked like a good time to put the steering column together. How hard could that be?

I started down at the steering rack (let me know if that's the wrong term for it) with a U-joint. Piece of cake.

Next up was to install the part (whose name I do not recall, nor do I recall ever knowing it, but it might have the word 'pillow' in it) that supports the top part of the shaft and assemble the rest of the steering shaft. 

Looked great!

Oh, wait - this might be the 'pillow.' This is on the other since of the firewall.

It was all looking great right up until I tried to make the final connection. No matter how I tried to move things around, they two halves would not join because part of the chassis was blocking it.

I had to call for help. Grant couldn't get it to work either.

I had installed it on the wrong side of the chassis. This is becoming routine: I try to do something by myself, only to have to spend more of Grant's time fixing it. At the end of the day, though, things usually turn out okay.

My wife deals with a lot of this too. Neither of them see the competent work I do on my airplane - I'm now starting to wonder if that's good or bad. None of that matters, though, when it all finally comes together and we can move on to the next step.

I should also mention that we are also going to take another look at our fuel tank installation. One of the benefits of these chronicles is sometimes we get advice and/or help on something we did wrong. It is soooo much better to have people help us now and then while it's still easy to make changes. I'll have more on that subject next week when we fix the problem of the fuel tank "floating" in its straps, but for now I just was to say "Thanks Matt!"

Which reminds me: when I assembled the tank, I put in the fuel pump and a filter. The pump was okay, but what I thought was the fuel filter was actually just the frame that holds the fuel filter. Grant caught that, of course, and while I was somewhat chagrined over having botched another task, it was a lot easier to fix now than it would be to do it when the car is fully assembled.

Work time for this step: 4.5 hours.

Unproductive time: 1 hour.

Frustration Level: 3/10.

Total time of build: 41 hours.

Frustration Five

So, yeah, just as the title of this posting says: a notable level of frustration has intruded into The Build©.

To be fair, I didn't make this week's Build Days (typically Tuesday and Thursday) until Saturday. My annual Spring cold took up a few days and some atypical Tuesday/Thursday familial obligations filled up the week. There was some good news, though: we had received two boxes from F5.

When I first received the FedEx shipping alerts I was hoping for the front brake package and/or the correct caliper for the rear. They were neither. One was the collection of gauges for the dashboard, the other was the shocks for the rear suspension. 

The box of gauges got set aside for "Someday," but the rear coilovers were very welcome. Having those meant we could get the rear axle et al finished up.

The assembly of the coilovers was pretty simple - it was the same process as the front shocks.

As long as we were proctologist end of the chassis we decided to install the fuel tank. That naturally sounded and looked like a simple list & attach operation - when will I ever learn?? The most prominent tell of a part that is going to be a PITA to install is a part that looks like it will be easy, but is not.

It didn't take long at all to run into the first frustration: there was a 4" piece of square steel tubing in the way. What to do about that? Opinions varied. Grant's proposed solution was to simply cut off the extraneous steel. 

My proposed solution was.... nothing. I could not believe that could possibly ne necessary - again I was misled by the difference between this build and the airplane build. With the airplane, if a part didn't fit it meant that you were doing it wrong. Usually. Van's made a couple of mistakes too, but I can count them on one or two fingers. 

I expressed my concerns. 

Grant had none. How could he be so cavalier?? 

That was quickly and sufficiently answered with a terse "I can always just weld it back on."

Fair 'nuff. The Chop didn't take long at all.

This is the point where I have to yet again confess that I would be way in over my head had I tried to do this project alone. I am learning a lot, though, and not just about how to build a car. I'm also learning a different outlook on how things get done when the worst potential result is being stuck on the side of a road somewhere. 

Airplanes notably do not have that benefit. So... The Chop.

It was still a tight fit. I still don't understand why this was even necessary, especially because there was no mention of it in the build manual. 

This makes me nervous too - I think the proximity of the tank to that steel edge is a problem that isn't going to wait very long to puncture the tank, especially since the tank is not held immobile by the straps. It moves around more than I would think it should.

There was a lot of discussion about this. What was eventually decided was that we didn't want a potential napalm bomb situated right behind the seats. We continued with the installation of the provided tank, but it will soon be replaced with a fuel cell similar to this:

This is something to deal with later, but a ruptured fuel tank from a rear end collision is not my only concern about getting hit from behind - there is no headrest on the seats. A rear end hit would splatter my brains against the steel rollover hoops. I've pretty much decided that I will not drive this car without wearing a helmet.

So, we decided to install the tank now and upgrade with a fuel cell asap. 

Still not making jewelry... 

It seemed that we had enough rear end parts to finished it up, but apparently there is a piece of steel somewhere that would fill the rather large gap between the shock and the axle. 

Sigh. Scratch that.... Heavy sigh.

Another little problem that may or may not fix itself: the axle is not centered. 

Unless and until we get more parts, a suggestion to move on with installing the metal panels was proposed. "Fine," I said. I started to identify each piece of aluminum.

That didn't go well. I don't know if I have mentioned that the aluminum parts should have been labeled and photographed before being removed from the chassis to aid in finding the right panel at the right time. Have I also mentioned that Grant insisted that doing so was a waste of time, or words to that effect.

I wasn't in the mood for a puzzle. As I said, I had a pretty crappy week and wasn't looking for a challenge that didn't need to be a challenge on the first place.

I have it on good authority that the panels will be identified and marked by the next time I go out.

Yeah, I don't think I need to be involved in sorting this out. And to be honest, he will very likely breeze through the sorting in 20 minutes. This kind of thing is intuitive to him.

We did make progress, though. It just never seems to go easily. But... even a "bad" day working on the car is a good day. Just like with the airplane, the goal is Education and Recreation. 

There is no guarantee that both will occur on the same day, though. We will soldier on.

Work time for this step: 5.0 hours.

Unproductive time: 0 hours.

Frustration Level: 7/10.

Total time of build: 36.5 hours.

Filling in the gaps

My plan was to finish up the fuel tank by strapping it onto the chassis while Grant worked on whatever he needed to work on, but that isn't what happened. He was free to work on the Cobra, so we decided to mount the rear brake hardware. The tank was unceremoniously pushed back out of the way. 

We still had the problem of two right-side calipers, but that didn't preclude getting the inner plates installed. Sure, that would only take a few minutes and I would be right back to the fuel tank. Or so I thought...

There is a "step" in the mounting plates where by the plates have a shelf/offset as seen below. Rather than machining the plate, F5 went with two plates that bolt together to provide the offset.

We immediately ran into a problem: there was a gap between the plates. They would not sit flush against each other. That caused a lot of head scratching and repeated reference to the build manual. I am developing a deep hatred towards the build manual. Many (if not all) of the photos are reverse images and most of the images are close-ups that don't adequately depict the big picture with regards to the full car. The worst part is how the different options (solid axle vs. independent rear suspension, for example) just kind of mush into each other. Then there is the needless repetition - we only needed to be told how to build up the coil-over shocks once.

There are also blind spots - there was no mention at all about the gap in these plates, much less how to get them to seat together. That apparently is an exercise left to the reader.

The bottom line is that the build manual needs a deep overhaul. As it stands right now, I do not believe someone like me could build this car. Keeping in mind that I was able to build an airplane as a first-timer.... 

And don't even get me started on the packing and inventory. 

I am very fortunate to have an expert to help me with this. I suppose I would be leaning very heavily on peer-level internet support from other builders if I was attempting this alone. To be fair, though, I did a lot of that when building the airplane too.

We eventually ended up shimming them with washers. The washers we used will have to be replaced eventually. Fortunately, washers are easy to find and cheap to buy. 

All of this took over six hours to figure out. Six hours of multi-level frustration. And at the end of the day we still don't have the calipers mounted because we still have two left-side calipers.

I am getting used to the typical work-day, though. I have a bagel with a couple slices of ham and a slice of America's biggest embarrassment (American Cheese Food, which is not even real cheese) for breakfast, and a 1/2 pound sausage sandwich that I eat while driving home.

Long day, short post. Typical of a difficult day.

Work time for this step: 6.0 hours.

Unproductive time: .5 hours.

Total time of build: 31.5 hours.

Just fueling around

When last we spoke, I was stinging from the mini-scolding delivered by David at Factory Five. I did follow his advice, though, and performed another inventory of the kit. 

I can't definitively state that we now have everything we should have, but I can safely say that we have everything that actually got shipped. I don't know what I don't know - I need at least a packing slip to know what to look for. Not having one makes it a bit lot more difficult.

Even when I have them, the packing slips themselves can be difficult at times. 

This packing list sent me looking for part #13545. That number was nowhere to be found on any of the list of components and parts. I eventually found what I was looking for, though, but the item# is actually #30354. 

Grrrr.

To be honest, I didn't count every nut, bolt, washer, etc. Small hardware bits and pieces like that are available from the auto parts store relatively nearby. 

Coincidentally, I received a call from Madison at F5. She introduced herself went on to asking me which address they should send the missing parts to. With that cleared up, we had a nice chat. That went a long way towards making me feel better about the kit and Factory Five in general. 

Madison said we should have all of the missing parts in the next few days. There are still a couple of things that are backordered, but none of them are showstoppers. 

I felt a whole lot better after her call.

With the inventory done, I was ready to tackle another piece of the puzzle. With no brake components for the front and only half of the calipers for the rear, we jumped ahead to installing the rack & pinion steering thingy. 

Not surprisingly (at this point nothing surprises me) the part did not fall easily into place. The bolt was a riding bit too high.

The Greek philosopher Archimedes once said, “Give me a firm place to stand and a lever and I can move the Earth.” 

We had a firm fulcrum, and a lengthy 2x4 to act as the lever. That worked like a charm.

The other side gave us a bit of wiggle room with regards to the horizontal axis. That was helpful.

Still lacking the bolts ("On their way," says Madison!) we weren't able to connect to the steering to the suspension quite yet.

.

Stopped for lack of parts, I went looking for an independent part to work on. The most obvious (and possibly the easiest) thing was to build up the fuel tank. That would just be a matter of installing some rubber grommets, the fuel level sender unit, and the filler neck.

That sounded pretty easy. Some of it actually was. Some wasn't.

The grommet below will hold the filler neck and seal the hole against leaking gas.

It slipped right in. Things were looking up.

Next up was a little guy.

I think this is some kind of vent, but I don't actually remember precisely what it is. It doesn't matter yet - all that matters now is that it was trivially easy to install.

There were a couple of bigger holes that needed gaskets.

This is the sender that tells the gas gauge how much gas is in the tank. It has to be perfectly positioned for it to fit - that was easy enough, but it felt kind of delicate so I took a little caution when putting it in.

As with everything we've done to far, it is not fully locked into place yet.

This was another occasion of having to mentally reverse the picture in the manual - this has happened over and over throughout. It's like they printed every picture in reverse. It causes a lot of head scratching. An "I'm gonna end up bald because of this" kind of thing.

This looked easy enough.

And it would have been if Mr. Bonehead hadn't put it on backwards. I followed the picture. Rookie mistake.

The filler neck would have to be removed in order to correct the orientation of tab.

That was not at all easy. That grommet is angled such that the pipe goes in relatively easy, but it was next to impossible to pull it back out of there. I tugged on that thing for half an hour, too embarrassed to ask for help. 

It was eventually removed (not by me, to my chagrin) and the brace installed correctly. 

Compare this to the build manual photo above. 

There it is - the fuel tank ready to be strapped onto the rear end of the chassis. 

I think that the horribly bent tab on the front was put there by F5 - there's probably an obstruction that needs to be avoided on the chassis. 

If I'm right, I'm sure glad they bent it for me.

If I'm wrong, well, at least I have Madison.

Work time for this step: 3.5 hours.

Unproductive time: 2.5 hours.

Total time of build: 25 hours.