Rear Suspension Photos & More!

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!

Rear End Work / More Donor Parts Sold

Sorry, I have no additional photos to post at this time. The rear end work on the car is coming along. This past week I received the rear 250# springs from FFR. They had been on back-order since receiving my kit. I spent quite a bit of time trying to get the rear axle/pumpkin assembly clean so that I could paint it. It is now painted and I just need to get to work putting everything together.

This past week I also sold more Mustang donor parts! The mirrors just sold a few days ago and my 89 Mustang donor cost is now down to $260.00! UPDATE! The steering rack and tires/wheels just sold! Total Donor Cost is now down to $185.00!

The 98 Cobra is now listed for sale in Auto Trader. I've had a few people stop by and look at it, but still no serious bites. I may have to fix a couple of more problems with the car before I can expect to get the $10,000 ($9,995.00) that I'm asking.. It has an undiagnosed oil leak coming from the rear of the engine. I think it's either the rear main seal or the oil pan gasket. Either way, it's at least a weekend of work to get it fixed. The oil pan gasket replacement will require unbolting the lower K-member. Sounds easy, huh?? Well the engine has to be unbolted and then supported from the top before dropping the K-Member.. If it's the rear main seal, that involves unbolting the transmission and moving it away from the engine. I'm thinking it's probably the pan gasket because the clutch in the car seems to work fine. If I understand things correctly, if the rear main seal was leaking, I would have oil running down the flywheel and on to the clutch plates, thus causing problems with proper clutch operation. I may try buying some oil dye and see if I can isolate exactly where the oil is coming from.