First Drive! Go kart style!

Got home today, and started the prep for first drive! I screwed in the seats, bolted in the 5 pt harnesses, reattached the old shifter, and secured a few loose wires. Josh and I then bled the brakes. After tightening a few loose brake line nuts, it was off to the races! This is the actual first drive - just pulling out of the driveway.

After a quick trip with Josh in the copilot seat, we made a quick adjustment and then it was Diana's turn to ride. Here is the in car video.

Pre-body fittings

Test fitting the rollbars. It's a very tight squeeze, and I have no idea how the final installation is going to be with the body on. But I think it will do in the end.






Here is a pic of the exhaust installed. I'll probably have to take it off again at some point, but I wanted it on for the test drive.










Josh has really knocked out the dash wiring. Everything is going great in this department, left to do are the high/low beam switch, horn, and cruise ctrl.

Final Electrical Routing & Side Pipes

Yesterday after work I began routing what was left of the front wiring harness. I shortened a couple of grounds that were several feet too long. Apparently I didn't splice them tight enough, because one of them separated under the electric tape and the car wouldn't start. This was the first start attempt in several days so it took me forever to track down! The starter was turning, but no fuel pump.

While I was hunting for it, Diana got home and changed into garage clothes. Diana and I fixed the broken ground and tried to crank again. This time, believe it or not, I had fuel pump but no starter! Turns out I originally had 3 grounds at the same location and only rehooked the broken one and one other.

After the electrical problems were resolved, we decided to mount the side pipes. I'm sure they'll have to come off at some point in order to mount the body, but at least this way the hangers will be in place and the next time should go much faster. We cranked it up with the side pipes on and it sounds _good_. Then I looked at the clock and realized it was like 12:30. I had to be at work by 7 am! Ugh.

5.0L vs 4.6L

Found this picture while surfing the forums today. A lot of people have the misconception that the 5.0 is larger than the 4.6L because the displacement is greater. Clearly depicted here with the engines side by side - the 4.6L is CONSIDERABLY larger. Now you know why it barely fits in my car!

Yesterday Josh & I continued ripping through the wiring harnesses. Everything is just about laid out. All that is left to do on that is to lay out the headlights, cleanup the fuse box area, cut a new hole in the aluminum for the front - dash harness connection, and build a bracket for the fuse box. Also attached the hood brackets.

I didn't want to spend much time in the garage today so I just went in and since the trunk silicone is pretty dry, I mounted the fuel evaporative charcoal canister and cut the hole in the front aluminum for the harness connection. I'll just wait until the wiring is all done to upload pics of it. It's hard to make much out until it's complete. And even then, it's a LOT of stuff going on.

Snow!

Man, it was a cold one today! Quite a bit of snow on the ground. BUT, with ChannelAdvisor's mail server down, VPN down, and the build being broken, I couldn't work at all. SO, I spent all day in the garage!

I routed the rear wiring harness in it's final location and wrapped it up real good. I trimmed up a few more extraneous circuits and then employed the help of Diana for the final trunk mounting.






On the left you can see the Fuel Inertia Cutoff switch and the AntiTheft module. You can also see the battery sunk below the trunk deck.

Starting the exterior lighting and more bodywork

Since the first bit of body work is finished, Josh came over to lay fiberglass in the seams. Talk about stinkin'. Diana and I ended up having to sleep in the guest room because our room is directly above the garage and it smelled so bad! *upload smell*

We also got some more of the wiring done. I found the problem with the OBD port - a blown fuse. Must have connected a hot and ground when I cut some wires. It does happen! Josh found the turn signal issue. There was a relay I cut out thinking it was an airbag relay, which turned out to be the turn signal relay. We're not quite done wiring everything up, but we've tested everything and it's ready to be hooked up.

Check it out!! A working turn signal!

Lopping out wires

I'm about done 'dieting' the wiring harness at this point. The car still cranks so that is one in my favor. However a few things don't work.

1. The turn signal relay is not clicking.
2. The OBD port is dead.
3. The driver side tail lights don't work.

It's a mess and a pain in the butt. On the upside, mom and dad came over today and helped prep and sand down the body. I think it's looking pretty good and just about ready for some primer! I got a few 'ridges' that need to get knocked down, but other than that, it's pretty much ready to go.

First Fire!

Josh came out tonight and we did some final preliminary wiring - I realize that doesn't really make sense. Sorry I missed band practice, but I couldn't miss this opportunity! We ran all the grounds and ran the ignition. After a short session of troubleshooting we came to the conclusion that there wasn't any gas left. So we went to the gas station and got 2 gallons of gas. Put that in, had one more short troubleshooting session, and turned the key.

Wiring! OMGatos!

Wellp, when I got home I installed the E-brake and cables and once Diana got home, we went ahead and started to lay out all the wiring. The idea is to lay all the wiring out temporarily and hook it all up, then crank it up!! Once the engine turns over for the first time I'll start cutting out circuits until it's down to just what I need. And if it is still cranking at that point, I'll unhook everything and route the wires for good. Well...wish me luck!

The nightmare is over.

I woke up this morning determined to solve the 'wrong footbox' problem. I went out there and with a series of drilling and chisel/hammer techniques I got the panel off. After that I decided to do some body work before attempting to attach the 4.6 panels. It was tricky and awkward, but I managed to get the new footbox on without removing the engine!

I took the angle grinder to the seams on the fiberglass body - jesus what a mess. The body work is going to be a real job! Here is a picture of the seams ground out.








Also done today was to cut out the battery box square in the trunk floor. I'm going to put a hinge on it so you can still get to the battery. I'll post a picture of that after it's done. The only other thing to report, is that the fuel lines are fully connected. Here is a picture of the fuel lines with the heater lines hooked up behind it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

NOOOOOOOO NO NO NO NO! I have made a mistake...and discovered the reason my engine is touching the driver foot-box. There is a SEPARATE (unmentioned) panel for the 4.6L foot-box wall tucked away in a box. I looked at it, and I don't see ANY way to swap these panels without removing the engine. REMOVING THE ENGINE!!! Everything is plumbed up and spaced out and ready to go. Clutch, accelerator, cruise, heater, radiator, power steering, will all have to be redone.

I do however, have one hope. I am hoping to jack the engine a small amount and move it left a bit...hopefully giving me enough room to get the rivet tool down in there. Oh the humanity! I hope I don't have to lift it out...it was not fun to get in - though it might be easier with the right panels in place. heh heh heh.

On the upside - I finally changed the oil in my truck. Stink-gook is what it was. Diana also changed her oil so both our regular cars are in good working order...except for my truck's weirdness issues.

Catch up

I've gotten a little ahead of myself on the blog here, being so excited about having the engine in. I need to go back and document a few other things that have happened. And in no particular order they are:

1. Here is the view of the car from the front as it stands right now. The radiator is not completely installed yet.






b) With a bit of riveting help from Diana's brother, Milton, I have completed the battery box mod. This sinks the battery below the trunk so you have more space inside the trunk. It's pretty tightly squeezed between the gas tank and the differential plate, but there is just enough room for movement. (Unlike the driver's footbox - lol, sigh)

D. Thanks to the most excellent welding skills of Mr. Josh Minorics, the EGR was successfully routed to the old smog pump bung and the other 2 open bungs were welded shut for good. In this pic you can see at the bottom where the smog pipe is welded to the larger EGR pipe. Most excellent :-)

The Mystery Oil Sensor

When we put the new, shorter oil pan on the bottom of the engine, we discovered that an oil sensor that was plugged into the old oil pan had no place to go on the new pan.

After some researched I finally broke down and just asked the guys on the forum what the heck was going on. Turns out it's just an oil level sensor that the computer doesn't need. It powers a low oil level warning light.

So I have 2 choices, remove the pan weld in a new bung for the sensor, or do without an oil level warning light. Heh, if you helped me put the oil pan on, and tried to tighten any of the kickout bolts then you know which of these I'm choosing.

http://www.ffcobra.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204950

Installing all the mass air stuff was pretty easy and straight forward. The instructions generally even matched up with what I had to do.






The radiator on the other hand, is a totally different story. Nothing is lining up. Nothing fits. I'm going to have a lot of work to get the cooling system finished. But once it is, all I have to do is add fluids and do some wiring to get to a first crank.

On the road again

But not literally unfortunately. Just moving along real well now. With the engine in I'm freed up to do a LOT more stuff. Yesterday, I did these:
1. Mounted the seats
2. Adjusted and 'set' the steering wheel
3. Finished bolting on the oil pan
4. Installed the driveshaft
5. Installed the clutch cable
6. Installed the accelerator cable


Everything went great until I got to the accelerator. When I was mounting the accelerator bracket to the engine, I broke the bolt off. I had to rig something up to fix this mistake, but only after cutting the broken bolt and nut off the accelerator cable (very carefully!) Here is a picture of the ugly bracket.

While I was bolting my bracket up, I dropped it and it fell. It fell bad. It fell under the intake manifold so I could barely even see it. I couldn't reach it with pliers and couldn't grab it with a hook. So I got a magnet off the fridge and tried to lower it down with a zip tie. It was too big, so I smashed it with a hammer and tied some thread around it. I tried fishing it out, but it kept swinging to the side and hitting some magnetic object. I eventually stuck the magnet to a socket extension and was able to fish it out that way.

Here is the driveshaft - looking down from above.








Thought you might enjoy this picture showing you just how much room there is between the driver footbox and the engine. None! It's pushing it in about a half inch - and that's after I ground away some of the engine material.

The beast has a heart ... but not a pulse.

The engine is in!








It was a slow process, and the engine really BARELY fits. I had to grind away some of the aluminum off the engine and it's pushing against the drivers foot-box a little :-) But we finally got it in there and bolted up - then got the new oil pan bolted up. That was also quite horrible. The bolts were terrible to get to. You could not fit your hand up there - only a finger or two, and you couldn't see the bolts to tell what you were trying to do. Horrible. Also, Josh brought over his buck for the fiberglass body so I can get started on the body now.

It was a long process, but it's in! Stay tuned, a lot should get done in the next few weeks!