Cool! Let's do that 1200 times!

At this point I have a lot of things done. Wait, I am fooling myself. I have some things kind of taking their intended locations. The fact of the matter is that none of the suspension components are actually "done done". I am still waiting for my coilovers to come in from Whitby. It's taking way too long. It is only after the coilovers are fitted I can torque all the bolts and call the job complete.

In the meantime, I could work on the brakes but I am waiting for the pads to come in. It's not taking long but I am too lazy to go and and pick them up from TougeTuning. A friend of mine was planning on going there anyways and would grab my pads for me at the same time. Whenever that will be. There are a lot of the work involved with running the brake lines from the master cylinder to each wheel. But again, Whitby got the lines as part of the kit and are still not at my door step. :(

So while the parts are making their way, the real building can take place. A normal car these days is based on unibody design. That means that the frame is baked into the shell. The shell would have many other panels included. For example, firewall, floors, roof, etc. In my case, the frame is nothing more than just a frame and everything else comes separate. In fact, everything else is made of sheet aluminum panels which need to be installed together to form firewall, floors, etc.

Again, to prevent the oxidation and weakening of the aluminum I coated it with rubberized paint. Here's my paint booth, sort of:

The sun was of much help to me. I found out that the paint dries much faster in the sun, especially, being mate black. Each panel needs to be sprayed on the side that would not be otherwise covered. For instance, all the passenger compartment panels will be covered with sound deadening from the inside and don't need to be painted on that side.

The next steps are simple but laborious. First, the panel needs to be fitted to it's original spot. Then, I would trace all the supports with a sharpie. The panel is then removed and ready for mock up of the holes. The holes should be about two inches apart. I would measure the distance along one of the supports and do the math to figure out the even hole spacing. Once the holes are marked on the panel, I use a punch to ensure that drill bit does not wonder off. The next step is to drill the hole and clean the rough edges. Now the panel is ready for installation and would go back to the frame. This time I use clamps and self tapping screws to hold the panel in it's soon to be permanent position. I use the drill once again to drill the supports through the holes in the panel. The panel needs to come off one last time to allow for cleaning out the files. Also this is the time when I apply the silicone. I used Permatex clear silicone to prevent any noise from possible vibrations and to ensure that the joints are water tight. At this point the panel is ready for riveting.

Riveting is the easiest part of the job. It's kind of fun too unless the pin breaks loose and the rivet gun cannot take a grip on it. In such cases, it becomes a bit tricky but luckily it's does not happen often. 

Here's the passenger foot box all done! There are in fact 1200 rivets in the supplied box. So I'd have to spend more time doing this. I did some rough math: say I spend 5 minutes on every rivet including measuring, drilling and gluing, that means I can only do 12 in an hour. Looking at the picture above you can see it takes a bit of time. 

To tell the truth, I prepared a few more panels and thought that I would be able to complete the drivers side too but I realized that the firewall needs to be installed before the driver side foot box. Therefore, I need to figure out what to do with my heater which installs onto the firewall. Well, that's my next task then. 

Driver's controls

Once the steering rack is in, the next sensible thing to do is to put on the steering column. At least, so I thought. According to the assembly manual the order of event's should have been reversed. I did not check that until it was too late. :)

The problem with installing steering column was very simple: the steering rack connecting bit would be sticking out too far leaving not enough room to slide the column on. According to the manual, I was to install the column first and then swing the rack in with the driver side connected before installing.

Let's keep it in order. Firstly I needed to put the aluminum panel on. I choose to coat my aluminum with rubberized black paint. That meant that the panel would need be sprayed a day in advance to allow the paint to dry.

Notice that Factory Five does include the little fill plate that is just to the top right of the big bottom opening. It would be perfect time to put this plate on. I simply glued it in with silicon. The main panel was siliconed and riveted in place.   

I did not want to undo the rack so ended up wiggling the column on. It would not go in without a fight, but with a bit of authority, it clicked in :)

The next step is to install driver's pedals:

The donor parts would need to be modified here. The mounting bracket is removed from the pedals. This mod would allow the pedals to sit deeper in the foot well. Also, the angling bracket from hydroboost was removed and another spacer was placed into that spot. This is a critical combination of changes. The end result should have the distance from the brake pedal to the brake booster exactly the same as it used to be on the Mustang.

The gas pedal had to go through a series of adjustments. Both ends needed to be trimmed. The pedal part needs to be moved up and straightened. The top part did not require the adjustment but I trimmed it anyways since the bottom part was shortened. We have some basic physics here: the shorter the bottom part the less foot action is required. This effectively results in drastic throttle actuation with a small foot movement. That's why I cut off just over half an inch from the top too. Frankly, this pedal does not look promising. The fact that guys over at ffcars.com don't believe in it at all does not add any hope either. I'd just have to live to see it in action.

However form this angle, it does not look bad at all. Perhaps I am wrong about it...

Steering rack

It's time to put on some parts that make the collection of parts a drive-able car. First step is the steering rack. The rack comes from the Mustang but needs to be adjusted. The front track of cobra is not as wide as Mustang's. This means that the inner tie rods would need replaced with shorter equivalents. There's also a variation in suspension geometry that creates need for some steering rack extensions. Now, it's time to make it happen. The steering rack's boots must come off to expose the inner tie rods.

I could not find a tool in my garage big enough to take the nut off. I had to make a trip to local Canadian Tire. I got one of these

I don't know how I lived without it. That thing is amazing! Probably one of the best $$$ I've spent on tools. Now armed with my new tool (and a piece of pipe of extra torque :) ), I took off the tie rods. Here's the comparison of old and new parts:

The left is the Mustang original. You can also see the adapter at the end of the right rod. It effectively moves the point where rods bend.

The rest was simple. The parts come together the same way they came off. I had some stainless steel zip ties left overs that I used for boot clamps.

For some reason the original Mustang tie rod ends did not work with the new inner tie rods. But Factory Five included a set of new ones.

I need that red button: "That was easy".

Yey, first mod!

Friends don't let friends drive stock! I don't know what "stock" is for a custom car however. Anyways, here's what I got in mail:

This is a battery relocation kit from FFMetal.

Let's look at the problem first. The shape of the rear of car and the fact that the gas tank is in the rear contribute to a very small space left over for the trunk. The roll bar loops that you see behind the seats also have one support bar that extends diagonally and into the frame. Insistently, that is too cutting into the trunk space. To take the matters to the next level, the original location of the battery is in the trunk. By now you are probably thinking that the trunk is a busy area. Well, Factory Five did not stop on that yet. In my version of the kit the floor of the trunk is not curved around the fuel tank. What that means is that I get even less space. However, I do want to buy a soft top for this car and be able to store it in the trunk when it's not required. Therefore, the trunk space is a highly sought after commodity. Hence the battery relocation kit you see above.

The idea behind the kit is to move the battery out of the trunk and under the floor. There's actually just enough space between the gas tank and the live axle. Here's how that kit would fit:

There is a small detail here to pay attention too. The battery box must be away from the supports that carry gas tank. In the event of rear end collision the gas tank will swing inwards and should not be restricted. Notice that the box is designed to be just deep enough to hover on top of the gas tank in such event. Frankly, I am very impressed with Linwood's thoughtfulness and workmanship at FFMetal. I did have to trim the support bar slightly to make it fit, however. It was just a minor adjustment.

So with the box mocked up, I drilled all the holes for rivets on the chassis. I also installed the remaining rivets on the box its-self. There were only a few installed out of the packaging to make it keep its shape. Here's the final spot check before it hits the paint

All is looking good so we are off to spray it. This box is made of bear aluminum. Aluminium will oxidize overtime and form a protective layer on the surface. However, that weakens the metal. So I chose to coat my aluminium with Rocker Guard. 

And now here's how it looks installed to the chassis.

But it's not over yet. There's one more thing to do: cutting the opening in the floor. The floor needs to be positioned exactly as if it were installed. I used the clamps to temperately affix to the square tubing. The next step was to mark the area, drill the corners and cut the sides.

You'll notice that the cut out is actually bigger then the inside of the box. The idea was to let the lid sit flat with the floor. There is enough material on the box' sides and square tubing to allow for the rivets to be shifted outwards. Here's the how it looks with the lid on.

Great! The only new minor setback is that the battery I've got from Mustang does not fit into that box. :( I'd have to buy a new one that fits. I also need to put master disconnect switch and battery terminal relocation kit on to complete the setup. The battery is much less accessible in such location and would require those extras to make life easier and safer. All in all: mission accomplished!

Taking it apart

The next step is to actually take some parts off. The car comes with the a large quantity of aluminium panels attached to the chassis with temporary screws. The idea is to cut down on packaging, help the consumer to know where panels should go and ensure that the panels actually fit. I took some pictures for my reference. They should come in handy later on during assembly.

This kind of gives you an idea of what it looks like. The task at hand is to take it apart. This time I needed help from my wife. The panels had to be properly labeled. After all, I do have to put them back together again. My hand writing would only add to the challenge. Look above, there are neat and descriptive labels. A big thanks goes out to her for her efforts. Notice there are even small labels on the overlaps. Those indicate which panel overlaps which.

Well the rest was easy: take all the screws out and things would fall apart. The garage doors were closed so my wife could not run away easily. So she agreed to put in some elbow grease.

The dis-assembly took us only few minutes. All the panels were off and are on the shelf and the bare bones of Cobra were exposed:

Strangely, it is only at the time of writing I realized how many parts are missing from the car and how much is to be done.