Primer complete, Gauges complete!

Wow, a lot has happened in 2 days on ol' Shelbatoast (aka: Rosemary). Last night we finished up the body work and shot the primer. Sounds easy, but there is a LOT of worked packed into that one little sentence. I think we were in the garage for about 7 straight hours. So nice to see it all in one uniform color.



Over the past week, mom painted the new gauge faces and dad mounted them up to the dash. Another extremely packed sentence!! So I started to install the gauges and wrap the dash in leather tonight. Here they are with tape of the gauge faces in prep for the spray adhesive.




Here they are just after I sprayed the glue on the dash metal and the leather.






Here is a shot of the final product. I think they look really good - very happy with the end result!






Here is a close up of the five 2" gauges.








While I was reinstalling the ampere gauge, I broke the glass. So for now I took a rosemary bottle cap (yes, out of the spice cabinet) and cut it to fit over the gauge. Here is a shot of the cap over the gauge. It's pretty funny and works for now...

Primer

A lot more filling & sanding last night - then we cleaned up and shot primer on the underside of the hood, trunk, and doors. HazMat squad to the rescue!

Panel fitting

Though it's a lot of work, it doesn't really yield a lot of interesting pictures - 'hey look they added some more gook and sanded it back down.' But rest assured, I am not slumping on the job! Josh came out today and armed with grinders and sandpaper, we fitted all the panels and laid in a little more 'schmutz' in key areas to get the doors level.

Next things to do are:
Flatten out the trunk panel a little - the edges are still sharp. The driver side pipe is a little crooked and if I went with it as is, would have to cut a much larger side pipe hole in the body. I'm going to try to redo the rear mount to minimize the pressure pulling back on the pipe. Hopefully this will eliminate the need to cut too much fiberglass from that hole. After that, we pull the body, clean it and prime it. We're hoping for good weather on Thursday. We'll spend time Wed. getting cleaned up and ready for spraying thursday. Things look good!

Here is a picture of the mammoth engine peeking out of the engine bay. You have to look under a lot of the wiring to see the engine heads spanning the entire bay. When you do realize you are looking at engine...you kinda go "oh...OOOHHHHH."

Ghetto gauges - before

I just wanted to post a couple of pics of the crappy ghetto gauges.

Gauge kit finally arrived

Today the body was mounted back on the chassis for the first time since it was first delivered. Josh started trimming the panels for the final fit. The wheels don't look quite as bad as I thought they would. Maybe I wont have to rush to get the vintage replica wheels.

Meanwhile, my gauge conversion kit finally got in from Factory Five. I got 4 words for you about that. I am not impressed. The gauge faces are not big enough to fill in the gauge hole. I'll show you some close ups later - but I'm going to have to either come up with a new, larger gauge face - or I'm going to have to come up with some kind of border to put around the current gauge face to extend it outward. It's a lot of work for something that looks kinda crappy. Right now though, I just want to get it on the road!!

More bodywork!!

Brandon and Josh came over and plowed out another level of bodywork. We're really getting down to it now. Josh is doing some final low level sanding, after which the body can be mounted and the doors, trunk, and hood fitted. While Josh was pounding out the bodywork, I did a few odds and ends like riveting aluminum panels in place over various openings to seal out water, and test fitting the wind shield. Pretty good stuff.

Hopefully tomorrow the gauge kit will be in and I can finish the dash while knocks out the remaining sanding, and then we'll mount the bod. I'm so exited!

Trunk Carpet

Not a whole lot of action going on here lately, mostly just little things that don't look like much. As mentioned previously the wiring is done. I think I'm going to add some fog lights later in front of the radiator, but that will be a project for next winter. Right now I just want to get it registered and on the road. To do that I need to get it primed as soon as possible and get the gauges in as soon as possible. Hopefully this week will prove to make a good divet into the final touches!

Diana helped me lay out, measure, cut, and glue the carpet into the trunk. It really helps hide the battery box and looks a lot better than the aluminum panels with scratches, rivets, and silicon all over it.

Only 1 CEL!

I did some basic testing with the engine running and found the alternator to be doing NOTHING. After about 10 minutes of idling, I had dropped from 11.3v to 10.3v. I called up Josh, who is pretty knowledgeable about this stuff. I'm glad I did because I was ready to buy a new alternator.

Turns out the alternator has a line that runs through the gauge pod. There is something in the pod that gives it some resistance - a light or something - and without this resistance the alt DOES NOT CHARGE. I plugged the gauge pod in and it charged up fine. Since I'm still waiting on my gauge conversion kit from FFR, I just had the pod sitting out - hell it seemed to run fine without it.

Also, I wired the ACC up directly with the ignition ON and it fixed the problem with the windshield wipers not working. So my 'on' switch - 'push button' start combo is all wired up and working now. I'm gonna change out some plugs to some heavier gauge stuff, but it'll be done soon.

Oh here is a piece of good news - After having wired everything crucial up and driven it around the neighborhood several times, I only have 1 engine code - smog pump circuit! That is exactly what I was hoping for (I removed the smog circuit and haven't flashed it out yet) So things are back and track and going well once again - though this one had me a little worried

Body progress

Yesterday Josh and Brandon came over and really hammered out some bodywork. It's almost ready for some primer! I did some rewiring in the meantime, but I need to use heavier gauge wire and re-rewire.

Also, my battery is dead so I either have a bad alternator or a drain somewhere. Josh is going to head out today and see if we can find the source. It will probably be a light day in the garage. Do a little electrical work and call it a day. Thursday and Friday I'll probably wire up my 12v port and a small interior light.

The other day, I didn't really have time to do any work on the car so I decided to turn my engine cart into a roll-a-shelf thingie. I'm tired of having tools disappear so now I can just put all the tools I need.




So I FINALLY got around to ripping open the transmission wiring harness and pulling out the O2 sensors. I re-wrapped them and only had to extend one of them. So they are finally done - finally! I also adjusted the ride height.

Wiring is almost done.

I am done with routing and dieting all the wiring harnesses. Here is a box full of everything I cut out from the mustang. The only things left to do are:
* Horn button
* Hi/Low beam switch
* Cruise Control
Also, I want to do some form of anti-theft metrics. The ignition wires are exposed below the dash making it a pretty highly hot-wirable car. I guess most people aren't concerned because it is mostly a weekend car. But I'll be leaving it unattended for long periods of time at work etc. I'll come up with something...I have a few ideas and Josh has some separate ones.

Here is the dash all mocked up. The only things not attached are the gauges and the cruise control. Also, I'm planning on bolting some kind of a 'glove box' in between the transmission tunnel and the dash.

Last week, The new shift assembly came in so I dropped it in and bolted the FFR shifter up. I took Brandon for a quick spin around the block. Then drove downtown to meet up with Josh and pick up his new air compressor.



We came back to my place and did some body work, grinding off the fiberglass filler and doing some odd jobs on the car. Josh spread putty on the back half of the car, but sanding out the filler took a bit longer than expected so we didn't get the whole thing done. A few more aluminum pieces are in place now, like the transmission tunnel and the door sills.

Diana and I drafted out the control layout for the dash and I'm hoping to get those hooked up tomorrow.