The Wrenchette: A Girl Buils a Roadster

I finally did it. Today I finally filled out the online order form for an FFR Mk 4 Roadster complete kit and clicked the "submit order" button. Deep breath...and so it begins.

This will be my first car project, as all of my projects before this were of the two-wheeled variety. I learned to ride a motorcycle 15 years ago when my husband (then boyfriend) dug up a 1970 Hodaka Super Rat frame and engine out of my parent's backyard. My husband was always into motorcycles, and since we were both in college, fixing up the little 100cc dirtbike would be the cheapest way to get a bike for me to learn to ride. We cleaned all of the parts, disassembled and re-assembled the engine, and fabbed what was broken. The Super Rats were notorious for having broken side engine cases because you can shift from 5th to 1st in one swoop, at the cost of the shift mechanism hitting the inside of the case. Too many times of that caused the aluminum cases to fracture. My husband, being a mechanical engineer, was able to patch the case back together, and fab up a spring that was missing for the shift mechanism. We made several trips down to Star Cycle, a small motorcycle salvage shop and dug through bins of parts to find anything to make the bike functional. I sewed a seat cover for it and cut foam to bond to the seat pan for a seat. It wasn't period correct, but it was enough to make it work. After a few kicks the bike fired up and came to life. It was annoyingly loud, like a weedwacker on speed. But it moved under it's own power, and that was enough for me to learn how to ride a motorcycle.

My first ride on the Hodaka:
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After a year or so of riding the little Hodaka, I wanted a bike that I could ride on the street. I saw an ad in the paper for a 1972 Honda CL450 scrambler that was disassembled and in boxes. I bought it for $100 and brought it home to start assembling. It had a broken cam chain, but other than that the engine was good enough to put back together. Being a parallell twin, it was perfect for learning engines as my husband could show me what to do on one cylinder, and I could repeat the process on the other cylinder. We made more trips down to Star Cycle for cables, seat pan, and headlight shell. The original seat cover was shot, so I made a pattern off of the rotting cover and stitched my own out of vinyl. The guy that had begun restoring it painted the tank an awful fuschia color, so we sandblasted that off, and I learned how to do body filler on the dents, prime, sand, and my husband did the paint.

Sanding the tank:
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Completed bike!
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A closer look. I'm proud of that seat. :)
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After awhile, I wanted a sport bike. But not just any sport bike. I fell in love with the MZ Skorpion, a bike made in Germany but powered by the Yamaha XTZ660 engine. It was a 5 valve single. Talk about a thumper! This bike was my first big purchase, and I commuted back and forth to college classes with it. Unfortunately, while stuck in homecoming game traffic on the University of Arizona campus, I was rear-ended. I rode out the crash, put the bike on the kickstand, and sat down on the curb as I took off my helmet. As I sat there, at eye-level I could see the subframe had been ripped from the frame. My Barker aftermarket exhaust was folded in half. After I calmed down and dealt with the insurance company of the guy that hit me (I put an impressive dent in his hood), it was time to make lemonade out of lemons. I bought the bike back as a salvage from the insurance company, and purchased the MZ Skorpion Replica, my dream bike, as a replacement streetbike. The little yellow Skorpion was now destined for the track as my first track bike. My husband welded the subframe back to together, we fixed the pipe, and I learned how to ride on the track.

Riding on the track leads to racing...it's inevitable. Being a girl on a lightweight bike was a perfect combo. Over time we started modifying the little MZ. A custom aluminum subframe was made to remove massive weight off the bike. I had the stock 660 bored out to 686cc. The stock carbs were ditched for flatslides. We added a dual exhaust system. It got a wire diet. Suspension got dialed in. We added different wheels and I was able to run slicks. All of this happened over a few years at the track. I learned to troubleshoot issues and what jetting was needed for the different elevations. And I became competitive. We chased race series, points, traveled to tracks all over the west and the championship races at Mid-Ohio and Daytona. Daytona was the Race of Champions for the Championship Cup Series we followed, and I won my race and took home the Amateur Supersingles National Champion title.

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Over the years I'd race several bikes including a TZ250, a Yamaha R6, a Ninja 650R, and even the '72 Honda CL450 scrambler was retrofitted for vintage racing. After awhile our garage got a bit small, and our lifestyles no longer fit with the homeowner's association (they didn't like that our race trailer would be parked out front for loading/unloading on race weekends, and wouldn't let us build a detached garage). So we moved in 2007 to a fixxer upper home (that we are still working on), but it has a 6 car detached garage. Most of the motorcycles in this story I still have, so we needed the garage space! Unfortunately the racing budget had to be diverted to the house, so the bikes have been parked for awhile.

So that was how I got into learning about wrenching on things with engines. A few years ago, I had remarked to my husband that I loved the vintage roadsters, and he told me about Factory Five. I immediately went on the website and ordered a DVD and watched it several times over. In 2007 I attended the Mott Build School, just to feel out how difficult a build like this would be. I had a great time with the class, and there were people in the class that had never even picked up a wrench. The instructors were great, and I walked out with a ton of notes and the feeling that yes, I could build the car.

Graduation!
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We set up a special savings account, and over the years I saved up for my kit. In May of 2010 I was on travel to Boston for work, so I arrived a day early to travel down to the FFR factory. While there I met Brian, and he took me on a tour where I took a billion photos, including one of me sitting in the new Mk 4.

I want one!
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Earlier this year we attended the FFR show at Huntington Beach, and I knew I'd be purchasing the kit this year. Today I finally decided to pull the trigger and order my kit. We are still working on the garage, but this will be the motivation to get it to the point where I'll be able to work on my project car.

This will also be my first solo project. As you can see above, my husband and I have shared many projects together. But the FFR Roadster is one that I want to build myself. I'll use him for quality control, and helping lift things like the body and the engine into place where everyone needs more than 2 hands. But I told him he's not allowed to turn any wrenches on it unless I specifically ask. This is one thing that I want to build and say that I did it.