It’s been a few weeks since I posted an update. Some people have been asking for some news, so here we go. . .
I am preparing the chassis so I can install the engine and transmission. This means that I have to finish the firewall, which means prepping and painting the foot boxes and routing and mounting the brake and fuel lines.
I decided to finish the engine bay with silver Rust-Oleum high temperature BBQ paint. This is a change from my thoughts on powder coating and appliance epoxy. . . The appliance epoxy has an upper temperature limit of 200 degrees F, and I think engine bay heat is higher than an oven. The BBQ paint is good for 1200 degrees F or something like that. Depending on how the engine bay looks, I may strip everything off and re-finish with powder coat later. But for now, the silver BBQ paint looks OK. The nice weather last week allowed me to do some rattle-can spraying outside.
I permanently mounted my first aluminum panel – the driver’s side foot box front. I am using Permatex Ultra Black number 2105 silicone adhesive. This is what Kirkham Motors uses for their builds, so I will use what they use. It can be used as an adhesive as well as a gasket, so this extends its usefulness around the shop.
References: Kirkham online build and Permatex Ultra Black goop
Above right is a close-up of the BBQ paint finish on one of the pedal box panels. Looks OK. There is a slight texture to the finish. The color is actually silver, the blue-ish tint is probably from sunlight diffracting from somewhere.
Above left, a “dry fit” of the driver side foot box front panel. You can see the cookie sheet heat shields in place. Above right, using the panel as a pattern to cut the insulation mat – just place the panel onto the backing side of the mat, press down and then cut with shears or a knife. Final trimming is done with a utility knife.
Cool-It heat and sound insulation is applied to the interior side of the foot box panel. The “bubbles” you see are from the riv-nuts and screws poking out from the other side. On the right, I wanted to make sure the adhesive stuck properly at the top of the panel, so I used some clamps to squeeze evenly. My good friend Norm Abram always says, “You can never have too many clamps.”
The Accelerator Cable and Pedal
I mounted the accelerator cable as well as the Russ Thompson gas pedal, sold by Breeze Automotive. The instructions are different from what is being supplied by Factory Five Racing now. (I am getting used to this. . . )
The picture above shows some of the gas pedal mounting parts that come with the Complete Kit. The Thompson / Breeze pedal instructions say something about a “green plastic barbed clip” at the end of the throttle cable. This green thing is no longer what comes with the kit. Instead, there is a little square “plug” that is too big to fit into the pedal mount.
Rather than cutting off the ball-end at the throttle cable or drill a bigger hole in the mount, I decided to carefully cut some of the plastic from the center barb so it would fit snugly into the mounting hole – not much has to be shaved off, it is something like a sixteenth of an inch or so. Then I made a slit in the square plastic thing as shown so the cable could slip in with the ball intact.
As you can see above, I added a fender washer (painted black) to the throttle cable mounting point, this is just for looks.
This is Irritating
For some reason, this bothered me today, but then I realized not many tubes of caulk gun goop come with caps. Anyway, I used a pen cap to close the tube. I hope this works, I only needed a few beads for this build session.
Some Great Looking Door Panels on Order!
I ordered a set of leather door panels from Levy Racing earlier this week. They look like this:
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