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Dash Board Assembly and Wiring
As indicated in the previous few posts I've been working on the dash board. To start off, I have the vinyl padded dash that came pre cut for the gauges. The only holes that I had to cut were for the turn & high beam indicator lights, the Turn & Hazard toggle switches and a hole for the Heater/Defroster control knob. I decided that I was not going to use the hidden fastener option and also had to drill the holes for the fasteners across the top of the dash into the dash hoop. Much like drilling into a completed paint job, it was a bit nerve racking to drill into this dash as there really isn't any easy fix for a mess up that can be covered so there was a lot of measuring and then just before I drilled, I measured a few more times. I guess the biggest thing about the dash is a lot of planning needs to go into this as there is a lot going on. Things like where the wiring harness is laying inside the firewall and where the connectors are at. Remember, that harness is not the most flexible and the less you have to bend it/them around the better and cleaner the area will look. (if there is such a thing as clean looking in there.) Also, the heater/defroster control cable is pretty stiff so I have not actually installed it just yet as I want to know exactly where my heater hoses and engine connections are going to be so I'm holding off on drilling into my firewall until my engine is here and I can either measure it or actually have it in place. But, all the wiring is ready.
Blank Dash and Gauges as delivered:
Attachment 94199
So to start my dash, I actually took a bunch of pictures of each indicator light that I mounted into a piece of black plastic. (in my case it was some of my glove box modification left over plastic) I would use these photos in "Paint" to create a photo of what I would want my dash to look like in final set up. I do not have photo shop, that would have been much easier, but I made due and it actually came out pretty good.
This is the photo that I created by first taking a photo of the new dash with only the gauges installed in my desired location. And then using Paint, I inserted photos of all the other items. (note: I used text box to add the names, I will not be actually putting names on the finished dash)
Attachment 94190
My final version looks very similar, I only made a couple changes to this. I decided to mount my wiper switch under the dash (do not hope to use it very often) and I also decided against the idiot red light in the middle of the gauges. Here is the final actual dash photo. Only thing missing is the heater control knob, but the hole is drilled. (more on that below)
Attachment 94191
So let's talk about a couple items in this install that has cause me some grief, perhaps this will help you avoid the same grief.
First thing, at some point you will put your dash up on the dash hoop to "test fit" it. When you do this, be sure to mark the bottom of the hoop on the back of your dash so that you know where you can or better stated, can not put things. You will be surprised at just how far from the top of the dash back that you can not mount things. Now, I did NOT do that and paid the price in a couple small ways and got real lucky on a couple others.
The first problem actually was not my doing. With the dash in position, as described in the build manual, my tachometer (furthest large gauge to the left) actually has zero clearance to the bottom of the dash hoop with my fasteners are installed. I had to lower my nutsert to the very bottom of the hoop. Fortunately I had only drilled a single 1/8" hole before I discovered this issue so all was good in the end. But even with that 1/8" move, I have to have the gauge mounting color turned just right so that the little grip bumps do not hit the hoop. Whew, glad this worked out as I had all ready drilled my mounting hold through the dash front.
The second problem that I created for myself was that I mounted (epoxied) the small inverter for the gauge lights to the back of the dash board to help create a controlled/clean install. Well, when I did this, I put it on in an area that was "well below" the top of the dash. Actually, it was about 1/32nd of an inch too high and I have actually had to pry it off of the dash in order to mount it. But as it turned out, that is a good thing... (more on the in a minute)
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Ok, those where the two ahhh S#@$ moments...
One of the minor modifications I've had to make was for the hole that the heater/defroster knob is going to go through. This is a combo, turn switch with four positions, off-low-med-high fan speeds. And it is a push in and out for heat adjustment. This is a very stiff solid cable that will open and close the water valve to be attached later to the heater hose from the engine. So, on the vinyl dash it isn't the most conducive to this switch/cable combo. So I had to beef it up a little on the back. First thing to know is that the turning of the knob is actually pretty stiff between indents so they have a anti twist design with one edge of the attachment point flat. Ever drill a hole with a flat edge?
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To prepare for the mounting of this, I drilled the hole in the dash a little smaller than what my final size would be. Then I fabricated a backing plate out of aluminum that I epoxied onto the back of the dash. I then used my drimel tool to open the vinyl dash up to match. My hope is the combination of the dash and the aluminum will hold it all in place. Now, for whatever reason, the threaded area on the switch is only about 3/8" deep so it made it difficult to get a bite with the nut on the front side, but I got it to bite and was able to compress the dash padding and tighten it down. I think this will work ok and I'll have to mound a dash to fire wall support just under the switch location to prevent the dash from moving in and out as the heat is adjusted. In the photo, I had all ready used a razor blade to remove the excess epoxy that had "squeezed" out the holes I drilled for that purpose. The switch has a large flat body that those bumps interfered with. And another, I got lucky moment. I had not put the head light switch in before I measured and drilled the hole hole for the heater switch. I was very luck, it had room as the headlight switch is rather large. My saving grace was that I had just measure the distance between the factory holes for the horn, ignition and headlight switch and kept that distance the same between the headlight switch and my heater switch hole.
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So onto the wiring. Back in 2015 when this kit was originally ordered, the version of the Ron Francis Harness was not designed for the new style gauges and did not have the correct plugins. So I had to install connectors on each of my gauge sending unit wires a connector that would allow me to connect to the RF harness. Not a difficult task, just a bit time consuming as I did solder each of those connections as well as put heat shrink tubing on every one. Once my engine is here, I will get to do a similar task for each of the sending units. Here is what that wiring completed and zip tied/cleaned up looks like.
Attachment 94197
Ok... so I eluded to a problem earlier in this post with the location of the gauge lighting inverter box that I had to remove to clear the dash hoop. After I had completed the task of actually hanging my dash in place, installing all the braces, fasteners and admiring my work from a distance, I put battery power to the RF wiring harness. (simulating connection to the starter and ground.) Great... no sparks... or smoke... I turned the key on and every thing looked good. The GPS Spedo acquired satellite, the volt gauge went up to correct voltage and the rest of the gauges made there little start up bump movement. All looks great. Then I pulled out the headlight switch to turn on the gauge lights. They came on, and looked great... Here is where I ran into a problem. When I tried to adjust the brightness of the gauges with the gauge control knob, they did not dim. They did nothing... but they sure looked good.
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When I fiddled with the wiring going to the back of the Potentiometer I found there was a bad factory connection internally. I found that if I held my left foot in one direction and put my finger in my right ear, the knob would then properly dim and control the lights. Bottom line, Speedhut is sending me a complete new harness assembly for my gauges. The bad news, I get to take the back of my dash / wiring apart and re-due it with the new harness... the good news, I get a second chance to epoxy the inverter to the back of my dash in a location that is about 1/8" lower then I had it in the first place....
Final installed photo:
Attachment 94200
I'm so glad that this part of the build is 85% completed and out of the way. I actually enjoyed it, but I guess part of my problem was that I was a bit tired both days that I was working on it so I had a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around some aspects. Once I got to work on it with a fresh / clear, non fatigued brain, it wasn't that bad. I hope something in this post can help someone in the future...
It's time for Lizard Skin Prep....
Went out to the garage tonight and started looking to see what the next step is going to be... Came back inside and ordered Lizard Skin. Read two full post from EdwardB on the stuff and ordered 2 gal of both the sound and the heat shields and the spray gun... It was about $75 less via Amazon vs Lizard Skin's site and free shipping... So I guess the next week will be spent buttoning up all the sheet metal panels, taking out all my dash and wire harness' and scuffing up aluminum panels to get it ready... I could possibly shoot the Lizard Skin in about 10 day... ie next weekend. I can't believe that only 6 weeks into the build and I'm all ready getting ready to spray this stuff... My BluePrint Engine is expected to ship on 10/1 as well.
I need to post updates on the Trunk Drop box, The Trunk battery Box install, foot mounted dimmer switch (Thanks Papa) and some other minor changes that I've made. I'll get those updates soon.
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E-Brake Cable and Handle Install
Spent this afternoon working on the E-Brake system. I wanted to see how FF wanted it to be installed and ran the cable under the 4" frame tube. When it is run that way, not only does it look like a complete after thought, but it would cause the cables to rub drastically against a the very sharp edge of a large frame gusset that is there. I would guess it would not take more than 10-15 pulls on the E-brake handle to wear right through the outer plastic on the cable. I really do not understand why FF would expect any builder of one of these awesome cars to do that. I will be doing the rerouting mod that I know several have done. I'm following EdwardB's lead (CLICK HERE) and have ordered the Lokar Clevis from Summit and will install the pulley. Everything else on the E-brake is installed, just need to get that clevis and fit it all up.
As far as preparing the E-Brake handle, I did a few things to "improve" on it...
The first one is a slight modification that I have not seen anyplace else. I have seen comments that the ratchet teeth are soft and prone to wear down. Or at least I've seen several people caution about that. So I thought I would try and harden those teeth. I'm not a metallurgist, but I have hardened 16 penny nails to use as center punches and I've watched Forged in Steel on TV and I think I even stayed at a holiday in express once or twice.... either way, I heated the teeth area to red hot and held it there for about 10 minutes and then quenched it in Automatic Trans Fluid. I learned that that will quench at a slower rate than water... I don't know, but I did it and I'm certain the teeth are now harder than before. Then I cleaned all the bare metal parts with lacquer thinner and put 3 coats of dark metal rustoleum on them and put it all together.
As EdwardB showed in his thread, I replaced the plastic bushing with the bronze ones from my Hood Hinges. I did a bit of research in the build manual and it states that the hood hinges use 8 of those bushings, and as luck would have it, my hood hinge hardware had 10 in the bag. SCORE!!! A couple minutes on the grinder and the bronze bushings were just as thin as the plastic ones. Cleaned them up a bit with sandpaper and wire wheel and put a dab of white grease on the pivot bolt as I put the handle together.
The rest of the handle assembly went exactly as the build manual stated.
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Charcoal Fuel Vent Canister
Ok, so ever sence I started reading the Roadster build threads I've seen different mods for the Charcoal Fuel Vent Canisters. Most of them involve PVC tubing. I've been waiting to put my twist on this. But to do that I have to explain that about 3 years ago, my 2006 Ford Focus started having troubles with fueling it and I could only get a small amount (and only when done very slow) of fuel to go into the tank. It would take me 30 minutes to fill it up from 1/2 tank. My Focus had been totaled and it sat for about 8 months before I started to re-build it. What had happened is that the Charcoal Canister on it had clogged up with a mold type of growth. So I took it apart and dumped out all the charcoal and then chipped out the moldy part... then put the old, non contaminated charcoal back in, buttoned it all up and it's been great ever since. So I tell you this so you understand my thought on this little mod. First off, I will say that the charcoal in the focus was large pellets, not small grains as you find in most pet store fish filter set ups. Also the large pellet charcoal has very little dust. I did find the large pellet charcoal at a local pet store and grabbed it... You will see it in the photos.
So here goes my mod. I wanted to have a large volume/area for the air/fumes to pass through. I did not want a narrow 1" diameter tubing. So what I came up with is based on 3" PVC pipe fittings and a floor drain cap...
Here is a photo of 95% of the parts used to build my canister. (Note: I was planning to use the large hose clamp to mount it, that plan changed)
Attachment 94338
The next thing I did was to drill out the cap, just in the middle of the square pipe wrench head to mount in the right angle barb fitting. This required a 5/8" hole so I took about 3 or 4 steps up to that size. Hint, mount the pvc cap in a vice as when the drill bit bites, it bites... One thing I also did is that I drilled out the brass fitting from both directions to make it as large as possible to allow for the best air flow possible.
Attachment 94339
After getting the fitting threaded in to the pvc cap, I used it like a tap/die and it created some nice threads in the PVC. I then removed the brass fitting to be installed again later after paint...
Next I marked and cut out the scotch-brite pad to fit both the inside of the floor drain and the square in the screw in pvc cap. FYI, I put two layers of scotch-brite in both locations. Most likely over kill, but wanted to keep the charcoal inside.
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After all the pieces were pre-fit, I took it all apart and only put the pvc parts together, scuff sanded all of it and took the whole unit out to my "paint booth" ie my utility box trailer and put several coats of dark gray metallic paint on the unit. After the paint dried, brought it all back in and assembled with the charcoal in place. Also put two small brass screws through the pvc into the floor drain so that they would stay together, but still be able to dissemble in the event I need to clean it up someday. I did not use any pvc cement on this mod. Also, here is a good look at the large pellet charcoal.
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Next, I made a mounting bracket out of an extra dash board bracket that I had laying around, it could have been made from scratch. I used two self tapping screws to mount the bracket to the PVC and in my case, I mounted the unit to the side of my FFMetal battery box. I also had looked at mounting it to the square tube that the fuel tank straps attach to. I mounted it so that the top of the unit (floor drain side) would be about 1" below the upper trunk floor. I wanted it it up away from any debris that could be flying around in there from the tires. Then I simply attached the rubber hose from the top of the tank vent to the canister and that is my take on this modification... All so that I do not smell gas fumes when I'm filling up the tank... The things we do...
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Note: I did not put a hose clamp on the rubber hose to the canister on purpose. This is a very tight barb fit and very low pressure. I did not want to create any more work for myself in the future than necessary.
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Cubby Hole - Carl's Version...
I've had my idea of what I want my cubby hole to be like and I came pretty close. I wasn't wanting one that went the full width of the car as I really did not like the idea of things getting lost in there and having to reach my whole arm in to find it... But I wanted a good amount of space for those things that you need space for. I think that the majority of women's purses can fit I think as well... not that I carry a purse or currently have a woman in my life, I want to be prepared...
So this is by far the largest sheet metal fabrication project that I have every taken on. And in fact with the exception of the dimmer switch bracket, it is my only sheet metal fabrication project that I can remember ever doing.
I started with making the decision as to the shape and location of the opening into the cockpit. I decided that I want to have a basic opening. I have still not decided on a door style or if I will even put one on. I'm thinking of just a black trim material to start with. I began the box with a cardboard template for the sides and then ended with a one piece top and back. I used the normal rivet hole separation just as all the other 83,008 rivets that the roadster has in the sheet metal uses. I will most likely permanently rivet all of the trunk and the cockpit in place tomorrow as I'm hoping to spray Lizard Skin next weekend.
I'll just post the photos as I think they are pretty self explanatory.. In photo #5 I have the side panels with the rivets set up to be on the outside of the cubby, in the trunk... I changed my mind midstream and swapped them so that the rivets will be on the inside of the cubby.
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347ci 427 ft/lbs... BluePrint Engine Numbers
My engine is scheduled to arrive tomorrow... 10/2/18...
Attachment 94521
Until then, check out the torque on this thing...
I can't even imagine the pull this thing is going to have in the 2300 Lb roadster...
I'm grinning ear to ear...
LOL, I was so hoping for 427 HP or 427 Torque... just so I can call it a 427... but I guess 424 ft/lb peak torque is close enough to call it 427.. Perhaps the BluePrint dyno needs a bit of calibration... He He....
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A VERY exciting day for me
So most people get that exciting delivery of the Factory 5 Semi pulling up in their front drive to unload their roadster, giving them their first peek at the fun they are going to have. Well, I went a different route and bought my roadster 2nd hand and so I had to drive and pick it up, load it in my trailer and drive back with it... Not quite as exciting as waiting on the FF Semi. But today, I got mine... My 347ci beast from BluePrint engines showed up via the FedEx Freight Semi. Same concept, just a bit smaller in size... 831 lbs of box... I live in a quite, rural area where most people have dirt drives up to the house. I'm not the exception so the challenge was to get the beast to my garage, about 75 yards across the dirt/grass of my yard. The driver told me he could not do it and wanted to leave it next to the road in the dirt. I asked him to please at least try to use his pallet dolly to get it over to my garage area. He said he would go until it sank and if it was in the middle of the drive, it was on me. I said lets go. He turned it around and started pulling and myself and one other started pushing... We pushed it all the way to the garage area where it sank into the dirt...
So, now how do I get it into the garage... Simple I lift the entire crate up with the engine crane and set it in the bed of my pickup, then back my pick up up to the door of the garage and lift it off of the truck with the same crane... Except no, the crane has to be under the crate or it will tip forward and the ceiling will not allow me to lift it high enough. Bottom line, worked it out and did just as I said, but in baby steps... It is now in the garage, crate top off and on two sets of furniture dollies. I can move it around anywhere I need. And I just needed to take the photo of the engine with the chassis behind it and the body up and behind that...
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This photo is most likely the best photo of me and a genuine smile I've seen in a very long time...
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and the money shot!!!
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Also want to give a shout out to Dave ( DadOfThree) for allowing me to borrow his engine hoist for my build.... Had the chance to drive down to his cobra cave and pick it up this past weekend and spent a little time looking over his Mk3.
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Lizard Skin Complete - What a Difference
Ok the Lizard Skin job is complete. All the tape and paper removed and the "Paint Booth" is down. Now it's time to get back to it.
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Lets have some meat for the BBQ
Today I received my tires and of course they went straight to the shop to have them mounted. That's a lot of meat... and they don't give them a lot of room between the tire and the springs... When all was done, I put them next to the BluePrint 347 in hopes that they would learn to get along... :-)
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56 Days Completed, time for the Power Train
It's time... I have not posted a lot over the past few days, but the work has been continuing. After the Lizard Skin, I of course had to remove all the tape and paper. I received the new wire harness for my dash board from Speedhut and was able to get that installed. I've completed the riveting of the back trunk side pannels, Installed wiring for my 3rd brake lights that I installed in the top of both roll bars. Also pre-drilled the mounting holes for the roll bars so that I would not be drilling with the wires in place. Now its just a couple of quick connects and the wires will all be inside the bars, completely hidden. I picked up some really bright red LED clearance lights from a Flying J truck stop. (you can find a lot of cool things at the truck stops). I have also completed wiring for the Heater and the Wiper. Connected power and EVERYTHING Electrical is working as it should. :cool:
I also have been waiting for my engine to arrive before I cut holes in my firewall for engine wiring. So that is all completed as well.
I also applied Shark Hide on all the bare aluminum panels, not very many, but figured now is a good time and they will stay nice and shinny for awhile.
SO on to today's project. I'm going to rearrange my garage setup a little so that I can get the car down off the dolly and in roller configuration. That just means I'm going to move the body around and rather than going side to side in my garage, the car will be more angled toward the door. This will give me the room for the engine hoist and the BluePrint engine and trans. If all goes well I'll have the car all set up, rear end up in the air and ready to fit the power-train in place later this afternoon. I'm not in a rush, but dam I want it in there... LOL
Here are some photos I took around the car today 10/13/18 (56 days into my build) to show the progress up to this point.
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Well..... One thing led to another and there it was....
Honestly, All I was planning to do today was to get the motor up out of the crate and do some prep work. Put on the motor mounts, fill the transmission, look at other things like water line connections, remote oil filter mounting, etc... and then next thing I knew I was done installing the drive train...
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