This past week or so has been spent on getting the pedal box, brake booster and master cylinder installed. The kit is designed to use manual brakes, but I have read about some guys that weren't happy with their brake systems due to the amount of foot pressure required to lock up the wheels. If one was to follow the FFR instructions, they say to bolt the master cylinder right onto the firewall and leave out the brake booster all together. In order to use the brake booster I had to cut a non-load bearing frame member so the booster would fit. I also enlarged a few holes on the steel firewall plating to make room for the brake booster.
You can see the frame modification in the photo below. Notice how the frame "dog-legs" around the brake booster. It used to be straight!
I'm not very happy with my pedal configuration right now, but I still need to bend the brake and clutch pedal arms. I have a small tool (pedal bender) on the way, thanks to the ffcobra forum, that will help me get the pedals in the correct location. I may end up buying a new gas pedal assembly, but I'm going to hold off until after getting the other pedals bent and see how it feels then. Right now my size 10 feet would have a really hard time. The photo is sort of deceiving. There is about a half inch of clearance between the gas and brake pedal. They're not touching, even though the photo makes it look that way. The below photo is the gas pedal that I'm thinking about buying. It's a Russ Thompson pedal and is built specifically for a FFR Cobra car.
http://www.norcal-cobras.com/store/russ_garage/russ_garage.htm
The gas tank went in with no problems at all. It took several hours to clean and paint it, but was an easy bolt in process.
I picked up a new chrome rear diff. cover off of eBay. The original one was pitted from rust and looked awful. I figured I might as well take a photo of the new cover now because once the car is built I won't be able to see the chrome cover. At least I can look at it while I'm building the car!
I also just got started bending some of my brake lines. I remembered to save the Mustang rear axle brake line, so I was able to use it by just changing the bends a little bit. The brake line that does all of the looping is a new line that is provided by FFR. I'm the one that made the loop and bends in that line. It was all made possible by cousin Tim again. He loaned a tubing bender to me and it's working great so far. Some guys really have trouble with the brake lines, but so far everything has gone smooth for me. I'm hoping that I'm not going to have to flare any new connections since all of the FFR provided lines are pre-flared. If I end up messing up any of the FFR lines, pre-flared brake lines at Auto Zone are very inexpensive.
Time to head out to the garage and get to work. I think I'm going to start drilling some of the hundreds of holes required to install the aluminum panels. I've been looking forward to getting to play with CLECKOs! Check back later to find out what a CLECKO is!
I decided to use my FFR front LCAs rather than trying to sell them. The FFR LCAs look really nice since they are tubular, but probably don't really add much to the handling of the car. In order to get the old LCAs off and put on the new FFR ones, I basically had to take the entire front suspension back off of the car and swap them out. Once getting the new ones on, I noticed that the nylon LCA bushing was turning in the LCA housing. I didn't like it working like that since the bushing isn't lubricated and isn't suppose to turn in the LCA. The bushing is suppose to move around the metal sleeve, especially since that is where the lubrication is.
This photo clearly shows that I'm getting plenty of pressure on the steel sleeve once everything is torqued down. Notice the sleeve impression on the steel washer.
The below link is one of the message threads where myself and several other guys had the same problem.
http://www.ffcobra.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/1/t/076001.html#000018
In order to press the sleeves and bushings out of the LCA I had to buy more tools! I found the above Arbor Press at Harbor Freight for less than $30.00.
Pressing the sleeves out!
The LCA with the sleeves now pressed out.
With the sleeves already pressed out, the bushing slides out really easy by hand.
I first attempted to fix the problem by sanding down one of the steel sleeves to a smaller size. Sanding down a steel sleeve in this manner was very labor intensive and didn't really fix the problem, even after taking it down by .015".
Starting measurement.
Sanding down the sleeve the SLOW painful way..
45 minutes later.. whew! Unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem.
After putting things together and taking things apart numerous times, I finally got the problem fixed. As recommended by someone on the ffrog forum, I chamfered the inside edge of the of the LCA housing like shown above. PROBLEM SOLVED!
After getting the LCA issued fixed, I received my brand new Halibrand spinners that are suppose to mount on my Halibrand wheels. I quickly noticed that the spinner attachment was going to interfere with how the front wheels were suppose to mount on the car.
Here's a photo of another builder's car that has the same wheel/spinner/tire combination that I plan to use. He's using different front spindles, so he didn't run into the problem that I have.
I explained my problem to my cousin Tim. He works in a Machine Shop and was able to help out with getting my new Halibrand Spinners to fit over the front wheel rotors. Thanks to his help my wheels will now fit with the spinners attached and I won't have to run wheel spacers or increase the length of the wheel studs!
THANKS TIM!
Newly machined spinner cap.
Rotor after it was machined. I know the dust cap looks really bad, but it won't be visible once the wheel and spinner is mounted.
The spinner cap now fits down over the top of the rotor hub, rather than on top.
So what's next you ask? I've already started playing with the Pedal Box, some of the brake line bending, Power Brake Booster and I still have the gas tank waiting to be installed. Oh yeah, I also get to cut on the frame a little! Check back soon for more info!
The 3-link rear suspension is pretty much done. I still need to torque everything down, but I'm pretty sure everything is together the right way. This was probably one of the more physically challenging parts of the build due to the weight of the rear axle and other components.
Getting that axle with the brake assembly attached through the left triangular area of the 3-link frame was no easy task. I used two jacks, one wife and whole bunch of grunting and groaning before it was finally positioned in the correct location. Sorry, I know it's a "busy" photo and it's hard to make out exactly what you're looking at. The Factory Five manual is absolutely awful when it comes to explaining how to put everything together. I find most of my answers to my questions on the
www.ffrog.com message board. Almost every question has been asked and answered many times and can be reviewed by searching the message archives.
Yesterday I got to work on the steering assembly. Everything went together without too many issues. I discovered that Factory Five failed to provide a needed bolt that is suppose to attach the lower steering shaft to the steering rack. I called them today and they said they would put the needed hardware in the mail to me. That's fine with me since I'm certainly in no hurry.
After putting the steering wheel on the upper shaft I was suddenly overcome with the incredible urge to throw a seat in the car and see how it felt to sit in the car and steer it. Okay, okay, I may have made a "vroom, vroom" noise once or twice.. It felt pretty good!
So I guess that it's for this blog entry. I expect that in the coming days I will finish up putting the proper torque on the rear suspension bolts and then start working on the gas tank. I'll be using the gas tank from the Mustang donor car, which is in serious need of a good cleaning and painting. See ya!
