What did I get? What did I get?

Usually when I get a present I can't wait to open it. I just can't let it sit there.

What you saw in the previous post were the major parts. Stuff you can't really put in a box. But the car has many other parts that fit perfectly fine in a box. So here's the rest of the parts

That's almost all 17 boxes there. I have a few more coming from another source in mail.

I would not lie. I was not as excited as a kid on Christmas to jump into opening them. The sheer number of large boxes deterred me. However, Factory Five asks their customers to perform inventory of the entire contents of the purchase in the first 45 days since the receiving. The paper work package from Factory Five contains a comprehensive packing list. Every nut and bolt is on that list and must be checked off. It all is a lot of tedious work. On the other hand, there's the excitement of opening the boxes and finding some of those "cool" parts. Check this out

That's the fuel filling door. This thing is enormous and makes a loud rattling metal noise when it swings open.

Here are some more funky parts:

The steering wheel is a skinny wooden piece. Feels kind of strange holding it after the normal thicker modern steering wheels. But it looks fantastic. The adjustable upper control arms will be hell to tune in for the wheel alignment people. If one one arm is turned then all of the characteristics are changing simultaneously.

Some nice bling for the cockpit. And noise canceling technology which renders stereo useless (as well as every other sound outside)

Hmm... that muffler is a bit too skinny. I wonder if it's effective. Let's see if this test adds clarity

Let's peek from the big open end

Results: well... the back pressure should be low. There's still a doubt if it makes exhaust any quieter. In fact, I ordered and a set of catalytic converters as an attempt to make the care quieter and a bit greener too.

By now I actually went through all the boxes and checked things over. I am missing a set of seat tracks for sure but I am not sure about the aluminum panels. I can't really match them all to their description. Some of them are labeled but not all. I am planing to try to put them against the car and see what they are. There could be a legend in the manual too. I gotta read that thing.

Journey to the source

Once upon a time I was having a coffee with a friend and we were talking about our usual car stuff. At the time I was looking at all the options of getting my hands on the Factory Five kit. I guess I complained enough about all the costs involved in transporting it over to make him say "just go pick it up". It's not that I did not consider that before but at that moment it occurred to me as plausible. More details to follow. It would cost me about $1200 to have the kit shipped. But it would only come to somewhere a tow truck can pick it up and perform the final delivery. So there's a cost for the tow truck too. Now, since the kit would be coming on the fright train, it would have to be boxed in a crate (read as $600). Put the tax on top and we are in over $2000 just to have it in my garage. In fact, that's probably word to word what I said to my friend over that coffee. The option of picking it up may sound cheaper but is it really? UHaul would charge me over $1200 for the renal of the pickup and the trailer. Add hotel and gas to that and we are getting awfully close to that shipping cost. But at that coffee moment, I remembered that I had a friend whom I haven't spoken to for years and he had a pick up and interested in cars. He just might be up for a little trip to US with me. In fact, I called him right away and to my surprise he got excited about the trip. Turns out, he even knows somebody who could borrow a trailer to us. During moments like that I start to believe that there's someone out there looking out for me. :)

My plan was to go over in April. The main idea was that the weather would be nice enough to work on the car. When it's too cold it's just a teaser: it's there but you'd freeze the minute you'd step outside. Also, the drive would be easier on us if there was no snow. So the date was set! Factory Five was waiting and the hotel was booked with no refund option. Come the day and ...

the freezing rain comes. There is an inch of ice on the road and the truck is cocooned in ice too. The plan was to leave in the morning on Friday. Drive leisurely to the Wareham MA. Check into the hotel and find a pub. Well that was not going to happen. My friend showed up at my door step after 2:00 pm. We quickly dropped all the necessary things into the truck and were off to the US. The most important task at that moment was to get out of city before the rush hour. Which slowly turned into: get over the border. Followed by: make it to the hotel. Google maps assured us that it would take about 9.5 hours. Will's (the friend) GPS was stubbornly showing arrival time early next morning. We drove non stop for as much as we could but the GPS was right and there was nothing we could do about it with cops on the road. By now, we ate all the snacks we had in the truck and had to stop for food. In fact, it was our first stop for the trip for needs other than gas and washroom. It was 12:00 am, however. On the positive note, we where only one hour away from the hotel. (It was sincerely a positive note after 8 hours of driving). What made the things even more hectic is the fact that Factory Five was waiting for us at 8:00 am that morning. With no time to loose we hit the road. But of course, then I missed the exit off of the toll highway and had to make a loop. At the time Will reassured me that if the hotel were to give away our room they would have done so by now. As I was driving, I was thinking of how disappointed I would be if the already paid room was given away and now we would be left to sleep in this truck. However, sleeping in the truck was not meant to be. The room was waiting for us and at 2:00 am we were checking in. Obviously, the beers were not an option anymore but the shower, conformable bed and a breakfast in the morning meant a lot to us. 

Next morning we made it over to the Factory Five. We where not the first ones over. There was already a pickup with a kit loaded onto the trailer. We later learned that the person was also a Canadian and was on his way home to Ottawa. We were advised to load the kit first since one more party would come later and we all would take the tour of the factory. Both, Will and I, were surprised how well the kit fitted into pickup bed and trailer. There were about 14-15 boxes and they all nicely fitted into the truck bed with one box on the back seat. Even the chassis and body fitted nicely on the 12' long trailer. We were thinking it would be overhanging by a foot and a half. It did overhang but it was almost negligible.

By now, the other people showed up for their 33 Ford kit and we took the tour.

The rotisserie frame

The fiberglass molds

The assembly of frame, aluminium panels and fiberglass body

And the lucky Cobras who found their good home awaiting the pick up.

All in all the tour was interesting but the take awaymessage is simple:

These guys have the best job

The following should illustrate my point

The last one is the prototype car based on Subaru Impreza. They get to tweak it until some time this summer before it goes into production. Now they have a few go-karts parked next to the loading door. I am sure I would quit my coffee habit if I were to take those for a spin at my breaks instead. 

We had to part with Factory Five. But before I move on to the boring 950 km, here's one more pic from the show room

And the last one with the shiny big truck

For the next 10 hours we had a small red car following us very closely. But now we both were excited, exhausted but excited. We got some people gave us thumbs up, honks and even a little girl waived. It was a great feeling to see this in the rear view mirror

It actually brightened up our day. The fact that it was raining all day nonstop did not matter. We did complain about the absolute lack of descent food at the road stops but in the end it was pure fun. Luckily, we did not have any problems at the customs and were heading home. We did end up getting home past 10:00 pm. My wife prepared a nice dinner. It was very much needed after all the fast food and snacks that we were surviving on for the past 2 days. We had a beer and called it a day. It was our chance to catch up on some sleep.

Next morning a few of my buddies showed up to help getting the car of the trailer into the garage. I was stunned by their eagerness to get to work. It took us no time to get everything off loaded.

And the end result

It was a long couple of days but the joy of seeing this was overwhelming. The next burning desire is to see what in those boxes. he he ... I hope she does not find out I posted this pic :)

First jewel

Yeah, this is a bit strange coming from me. I rarely think about the beauty adders. The Subaru is the dead give away. However, for this car my opinion is exceptionally different. This toy is not an everyday car. It's unique. It's got too much "me" in it. So I put everything I like to see in cars into this creation.

Rule number one: the brake calipers have to be red. I tried to reason with my wife about this. She couldn't care less about calipers but I insisted. So she came up with "make them black" and "who looks at those anyways" answers. At that point, I figured out I was right and she was wrong and went with the obvious red. As if there could be any other choice.

I know it's March April now but I started this earlier. It was cold out there. The fingers get frozen quickly while holding metal tools or parts. Thankfully, it is not much effort to take the calipers off the front spindles. So here they are in my basement getting worm.

The only tedious part of the process is to get the calipers extremely clean. Otherwise the paint finish would not last. I tried some simple things first: degreaser and brake cleaners. While it's not entirely useless, it does not bring the calipers to the ready state. Some elbow greasing with a wire brush showed good signs of hope and the rotary tool came to mind. A set of various wire brushing bits and 30 min with the tool resulted in a very attractive results.

The shiny caliper has been cleaned compared to the untouched one on the right. Some time later the second one got the same treatment.

This is an almost ready state. I would only apply some spray cleaner right before laying paint. It should degrease as well as get the last dirt and dust off. I went with VHT products. The reasoning was simple: G2 paint is hard to get here in Canada, Duplicolor got some positive and not so positive reviews, VHT has shown good results. I also have to admit that I did see their advertisement at the Toronto Motorsport Park which did contribute to my decision. I also did use their product for exhaust on my Subaru, so I am not entirely new to the brand.

VHT offers the complete solution for caliper painting. Just read up their website http://www.vhtpaint.com/products/caliperpaint/. I did get their cleaner and paint. I skipped the primer and clear. I noticed that the product number on the clear is in the same pattern as the colours. That made me think that there's nothing really special about the clear but ... well clear. On the other hand, the primer might have been a good idea in the retrospect. I will definitely try to use it when i'll get to the rear calipers.

So one fine day the calipers came out of the basement and the spray of red paint was applied. The sun was shining and the calipers were magnificent.

As you can see the paint on the first coat did not quite cover the caliper uniformly. That's what made me think that primer might have been a must. Later, after 2 more coats the calipers were covered completely but not smoothly. The reason for that is that I suck at painting. On the bright side the paint smoothed out itself after about an hour and made me feel better. The next step would be to bake them. VHT requires their paint to be cured.

I had to stick them in the oven. To prevent any sort of chemicals ending up in my food later, I went for baking bags.

Next step is the oven

And they came out looking HOT but with some imperfections. I saw same brake fluid leak damage and some paint peeling off.

So there's more work to be done. I went back to clean up the spots that were in need of help and re-splayed the calipers again. I am not sure that VHT caliper cleaner is a good thing now. They are ready for the second trip to the oven now but would have to wait for the rears to be ready. I want to put them in together.

I guess this is to be continued ...

Warning: The following content may cause temporary speech impediment

This is somewhat special moment. I just got the first 4 boxes with Factory Five logo on them. Inside of those I found these:

And just to put it in perspective:

These are WIDE. In fact, when I pulled the front ones out of the box I've mistaken them for the rears. However, when the rears came out it all became clear. 

Here's an interesting thing about the wheels. They are actually drop shipped by the original manufacturer to the Factory Five customer. So, there's a shipping fee. The fee is usually high for customers in US but for Canadians it's extra high. For cases as such we have cbi usa. They will receive the package for you and allow you to pick it up some time after. A friend of mine was actually doing his run to pick up his parts and brought my wheels with him. Perfect timing. Many thanks to my buddy too.

Now all I need is the rest of the boxes and a trailer load. Which should be coming soon. :)

Santa got a new order

Christmas is a bit different for kids and adults. Kids get to write a letter to Santa, wake up on Christmas day and find the present under the tree. Where as I had to write a letter, provide the credit card and schedule a pick up date way past Christmas. But the heck with that! I am not complaining (the taxes are excepted). The order is in and the little elves at Factory Five are hard at work.

Well, there's not much else to report. We got snow, meaning we are well into the hibernation season for the project. I am planing on doing some minor prepare, clean and paint jobs for donor parts but with out the heater in the garage nothing exciting is down the stream.

April is the tentative time for the pick up of the kit. It takes Factory Five some time to put the kit together and also the Transportation Canada to approve the import. Also there's hope that the weather will be warmer.

For now: Happy New Year everybody!

The dusk of Mustang

It's getting really hard to tell it's a mustang at this point. Some people can't tell the generation of the mustang. Moreover, these are the part buyers, the enthusiast who know their mustangs. The car is light. In fact, it's stopped being a car. Now it's just a shell. I am actually glad that I went with a donor build. This way I got to play with Mustang too. Sure getting all the new and shiny parts is nice but different. Well, that's my opinion for now at least.

The next step is to send the Mustang left overs to the junk yard. That presents the first challenge. How do I get this thing out of my garage if it's missing wheels. I also exaggerated my strength. I pulled out my engine crane and hooked up the rear of the car. Then I when on to lift the front and no dice. The car is still heavy enough. The next challenge is finding somebody to take this shell. I called a couple of car disposal companies and none of those want to take the shell. Autowrekers would take it but at my expense. Some metal recyclers would take it but for free. So after a quick Kijiji search I found the right guy. He offered me $40 for the shell. :) Hell, it's more then nothing. As a bonus, he gave me some tips on how to get the car ready for the pick up.

My dad came up with a perfect solution for moving the car out problem. He sources some dolly wheels and a thick 3' x 6' plywood. We screwed a 2x4 down the center to strengthen the structure and attached the wheels at the corners. With the engine crane we lowered the car shell on our new dolly and carefully rolled it out the garage. I left the crane attached to take on some weight. I had no faith in the dolly.

And I cheated too, if you look closely you can spot the jack under one side. The car did not rest perfectly on the dolly so the jack kept the unsupported side up. So what do I know, the dolly held up and the car made it to the outside. I really like that crane so why not to use it at every chance.

And just like that, the dolly comes out and the plywood goes under. Time to call the scrap guy over but that for another day. That means I can take some trophy pics:

Once again I had to bust out my engine crane to move the shell over to the first garage stall. It would have been very difficult to load the car from where it was originally placed. I also did not want to get the driveway damaged by unnecessary dragging. The scrap guy was running late so it got very dark. I had nothing better to do so I ended up taking to may pictures. I can almost make a time-laps video.

He was pocking jokes at me saying I would start crying over this car and that's what all those pictures are for. He then came to a reasonable conclusion that I had to gather Facebook material. The guy was nice, friendly and cheap. He only gave me $30 after he realized that the car was too stripped down and he would not be able to make much money on it. Frankly, I just needed it gone. So long Mustang!

I did not get attached to that car at all since I never actually drove it. So even after owning one, I still don't know what Mustangs are like. :) Easy to take apart but that's all I learned. Well next steps are less applied. Now I need to wait for the Factory Five to post a special on the kits. I did miss Black Friday deal already. I suspect next one would be around Holidays. Time to cleanup garage ...

Fear this

See as a kid, I had an accident when I was playing with gasoline. I had a jerry can open and an open flame a garage. Guess what: I was blown back 3 metres and lost the skin on my face and most of my hair. That incident kind of thought me to respect fuel and fire. In fact, when I did my fuel pump upgrade on my Subaru I did that during the winter when it was -20 C outside. See, I read somewhere that fuel does not evaporate much at that temperature.

Oh well, getting on with it. I mentioned before that I could not get the fuel lines to "quick" disconnect. Previously, during the engine pull, I used a tin can and tin snips to cut out a peace of tin. That peace I would wrap around the fuel line and push it into the quick disconnect. It worked for the fuel rail. Here I was faced with 3 connections. Two at the inline fuel filter and one after the fuel pump. They just would not want to play with me.

Luckily, I know a buddy who has a set of those fuel line disconnect tools. I borrowed the tolls and disconnected the lines. All but the one past the fuel pump. I think there's enough dirt and dust in there that would not let me slide the tool inside. It's still November in Canada, so let's wait for the worm weather to come back to finish that off. There a few nice plastic mounts that hold the rails to the body. I took those off too. I may reuse them on the cobra. With the lines disconnected form both ends and mounts removed the lines simply fall on the floor.

I helped them to the shelf.

Fuel tank is the fun part. First I disassembled the filler neck and unhooked all the hoses around. Surprisingly there's no complexity to that. As a matter of fact, the filler neck simply slides into the grommet. The fuel tank is strapped in with two metal straps. Before undoing those make sure you support the tank some how. I used the wood and the jack but once the straps were loose the tank fell down from my support. No harm since everything was disconnected and there's a plastic protective cover. The only difficulty I faces was draining the tank. I did not spot any drain plugs. So I simply tilted the tank and poured fuel from the filler neck grommet. I had my dad hold the funnel and jerry can. Make sure to use some sort of filter if you are planning to use the fuel. There were some debris on the tank even after brushing it off and wiping it with a cloth. It is definitely a 2 men job. The tank with fuel is not light and is hard to aim at the funnel. I topped off my dad's car after we were done. That's it. The fuel system is off too.

For the next couple of days there was a strong smell of gas in my garage. Even with the fuel tank openings tied off with a plastic bags. I think it's from the fuel lines and some spills that I had. I hope the smell would go away after some time.