Archive for the ‘suspension’ Tag
I forgot to add notes and images from the IRS (standard width) brake installation. Here are some images, plus a link to a YouTube video…
As you can see in the picture above left, an open end wrench can go onto the caliper mounting bolt. This was a button head Allen screw in the past. The emergency brake cable seems very tight and has a sharp bend, but this seems to work OK.
The vintage Halibrand replica wheels fit nicely over the axle-hub-brake assembly, but I don’t have tires yet.
The rear wheels are 17-inches by 10.5-inches, and the tires will be 275 / 40ZR17, probably BF Goodrich g-Force Sport Comp 2, but not sure yet.
A Silent Movie: Rear Brake Installation
Oh – almost forgot. Here is a silent movie about the rear brake installation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVcX8-Nnqfo
I got tired of fiddling with the IRS so I did something different this weekend. Here is a picture of the E-brake ratchet handle that comes with the Complete Kit. Since the parts are plain, un-finished steel, I decided to paint it to prevent rust. The exploded view in the instructions make assembly very easy. I wish The Factory would include an exploded view for the IFS as well as the IRS – makes things go so much better. The finish is white and black appliance epoxy from Rustoleum.
Here are some pictures. . .
I am not sure if I like the location of the E-brake handle, it is on the passenger side of the transmission hump. A popular modification is to use a Pontiac Fiero unit and re-locate it closer to the driver. We’ll see if I want to change this setup. (The sharp-eyed people will notice the e-brake handle is backwards. . . . . . )
Here are some images of the air conditioner and a cardboard aided design (CAD) templates I am making. This requires some cutting of the dashboard and firewall, so I want to mock everything up before I start cutting. I have some very sturdy aluminium plates for the A/C baseplate, and some sheet aluminum for the enclosure. A CAD version will be made first, then transferred to aluminum.
Moving back to the IRS, I received some advice from the veteran builders, and so here is what I did to the lower control arm mounts. The shims (thin black steel washers) F5R supplies are slipped into place and some adjustment is done by placing shims here and there. However, it makes more sense to limit the toe and camber adjusters so that the tweaking can be as simple as possible. By “fixing” one side of the control arm, and limiting it to one adjuster for toe and one adjuster for camber, alignment is simplified and less time consuming.
Currently, this stage is to just “eyeball” the adjustments, and continue the build process. Wheel alignments – both front and rear – may be done after the wheels and tires are mounted. (Probably can be done at the “go kart” stage, when the chassis is complete and the engine, drivetrain, electrics and brakes are installed and running.)
Here are some pictures. As this step gets closer to completion, I will add more details for future reference.
Above left: The Type 65 Coupe IRS lower control arm mounts. One shim on the front side of the mount, six shims on the side toward the rear of the car. The heim joint is threaded on so that 5/8-ths of an inch of thread are showing.
Above right: Here is the trick I use to install slippery washers, shims and spacers onto things – Use a punch or some other tool to poke through the stack of parts together, thus aligning the holes of each part. Then . . .
. . . push the fastener – and the punch – through the stack of parts. Wiggling, pushing and pulling will help. Sometimes a quick-clamp can help, too.
Maker Faire 2013 Update: Application is In!
I turned in an application for Maker Faire Bay Area 2013. Our Maker name is “Not Your Grandpa’s Ham Radio 2” and we will continue the theme my team entered last year. We will have some new projects on display, and we will bring some of the more popular items from last year. Here is a look at some of our projects from last year – as well as some other interesting and amazing things I saw last year.
Above – One of the most interesting exhibits at Maker Faire 2012 — The Electric Giraffe named Russell – it is a scaled-up and enhanced version of a plastic model kit – it is 17 feet tall. Below left: Jeri Ellsworth, aka Circuit Girl, and her electric Key-Tar at Maker Faire 2012. Below right, Maker Alex shows us her finger tip no keyboard keyboard.
More Maker Faire 2012 images are posted on my YouTube channel.
I did not do much work in the garage this past weekend, since I had to pull an all-nighter to get my CQ magazine article finished before a deadline, and there was a Coupe welcome party at a fellow Factory Five builder’s house.
Here are some pictures of a brand new Type 65 Coupe kit that recently arrived at QSL and Mrs QSL’s house. (They just finished a Factory Five Racing Roadster. It looks great and is finally registered and running.)
It was good to meet some of the other builders in the area and see the special parts QSL bought for MRS QSL’s Coupe.
Follow the Casey Family Coupe Thread for the latest updates on Mike and Julie’s Type 65 Coupe.
I took a nap shortly after I got home, lack of sleep from the all-night writing session before wore me out. I woke up, and it was dark outside, so I just went back to sleep, and woke up at 3AM on Sunday.
After doing some chores around the house, I decided to prep and paint the other steel parts on the Coupe. Here are some before and after pictures of the steel items painted with gloss black Rust-Oleum Appliance Epoxy. It is a great finish, and looks almost like black powder coat.
For some reason I didn’t take a picture of the hatch hinge parts or the door frame after painting. Oh well.
Hopefully will be able to get some more work done on the chassis and the rear suspension in particular next time.
Stay tuned for more. . . .
Some Body Parts, More IRS Conundrum and a New Microwave Antenna for KH6WZ
Inspired by a post on the Factory Five Racing forum and the dry and sunny weather this weekend, I decided to paint some of my body mounting parts. I am using gloss black Rust-Oleum Appliance Epoxy paint for these pieces. I have used this paint for my electronic and radio projects with good results. The paint dries very hard and is waterproof and washable, perfect for these parts.
Surface prep is easy for this paint, I scuff the surface with a 60 grit sanding disc on my random orbit sander. For the hard to reach nooks and crannies, I use a wire wheel chucked in my hand drill. Then I use liquid dish soap and water to wash off the grit and any oils. No primer is needed for this paint. Then I apply two or three light fog coats first, and then blast a thick coat for the fourth or fifth and final coat.
Here is a “before” and “after” picture of the front nose mounting hinge.
I did the same with the door hinges. Here you can see some weld splatter that will interfere with the mounting bolts, so I used a Dremel tool to grind those weld balls off.
Although many of these parts will not be seen, I do not want them to rust. Other parts will be painted in the same way, and include the door frames, the rear glass hatch hardware and the emergency brake mechanism.
Meanwhile . . .
After spending some time fiddling with the factory-supplied accelerator pedal, I decided to buy an aftermarket gas pedal instead. I ordered one of Russ Thompson’s gas pedals earlier this week from Breeze Automotive, one of the Factory Five Racing Forum supporters. I was amazed the box arrived on Thursday – that was fast!
The new gas pedal is really a machined aluminum sculpture. Pictures on this will be coming later, since I need to get the engine mounted before the gas pedal goes in.
IRS – Finished – Sort Of . . .
The IRS section is now fully “dry-fit” completed, and the bolts will be tightened to specs in the next work session. One thing that is putting this assembly step on hold are the mounting points for the lower control arms – see the gold color on the right of this picture? That is the mounting bolt and as you can see, there is a lot of empty space between the mounting ear and the thin washer (the manual calls them shims). This cannot be correct, and I need to find what is wrong here. . . .
Just after I ordered my Type 65 Coupe kit, I came across a lot of posts on the forums about the IRS shafts (CV joints) coming apart. Those messages made me worry, but when my kit was shipped, the CV axles were on back-order. I called Factory Five Racing technical support, and they assured me that the problem has been fixed.
I am happy to report that my IRS system assembly went very smoothly, after the pumpkin was in place. The CV axles slipped right into the differential, and it felt just like many posts said – you can feel it lock into place. No hammering, no drama and no R- and X-rated words necessary.
Once again, Chris comes to the rescue by posting images of the IRS knuckles and which part goes on the left side and which one goes on the right side.
Here are some additional pictures of the IRS components and system . . . . “R” is for Right side of vehicle (passenger side in the US)
Above left: The IRS upper control arm has another pair of small mounting tabs that are not mentioned in the assembly manual. No pictures are included in the manual, either. After a quick search on the Factory Five forum, I found out the smaller set of tabs point downward, and are used for quad shocks – used to minimize wheel hop during acceleration.
Give Me a Brake – Again
Now, the rear brakes are another story. Seems the Factory sent me the wrong rear brake kit. So now I have to wait for the correct parts to arrive, and then have to send the wrong parts back. . . Stay tuned for more . . .
Another Box Arrived this Week – a 10 GHz Slot Antenna
I received this nicely machined antenna for 10 GHz earlier this week. It is made by fellow SBMS member Dan, W6DFW.
Here’s a picture of this omni-directional microwave antenna. The background is the radiation pattern plotted by another SBMS member, Chuck, WA6EXV.
I am planning on using this to make my roving 10 GHz station even more portable, perhaps getting on 10 GHz FM mobile. More on this item and possible applications at station KH6WZ later.
It has been raining off and on all week, and continued through this past weekend. This is a good thing, since I can avoid yard work, and even better – I can spend more time in the garage. However, the garage has been cold, 40 degrees F. This pretty much kills any plans for painting anything.
Since the 80 pound metal medicine ball – also known as the pumpkin, center section, differential and other names – is re-sealed and mounted, the rest of the independent rear suspension assembly is going smoothly.
Learning something from the front suspension experience, I decided to assemble all the pieces on one side of the car first, and only hand-tighten the fasteners. This will prevent time-consuming error-fixing.
There is a saying on the Factory Five Forums – it goes something like, “if there aren’t any pictures, it didn’t happen.”
So, since there aren’t any pictures of the parts I installed backwards, it didn’t happen, right?
Let’s just say the assembly manual lacks good pictures to help us understand how to orient things properly. Many of the pictures are cropped too tightly, and do not show the nearby parts to help us visualize relationships to other parts or reference points.
Here are some pictures of the driver side lower control arm and coil-over-shock being installed. . .
While mounting the lower control arms, I kept dropping a stack of small shims (they look like thin washers) needed between the chassis mounting tabs. Of course, since they are round, they roll all over and under the strangest places. I had to use a small magnet to retrieve several of them.
The magnet made me think of a great way to hold and install these small shims on the mounts. Take a look. . .
The little magnet holds the stack of shims together, and by wiggling, pushing and pulling on the suspension parts, the bolt will slide through the stack. This works great, and it makes me feel happy rather than mad while underneath the chassis.
Of course, this only works if the parts are ferrous. The aluminum spacers are another story.
The spindles, upper control arms, and CV axles are next. Stay tuned . . . .
My go-to car builder friend Spider Larry once again came through for me. Using a Mapp gas torch and a piece of pipe, he separated the ball joint from the top mount for the passenger side suspension. Here are some pictures from the dis-assembly and re-assembly process on the Type 65 Coupe IFS, passenger side.
Here is the correct passenger side upper control arm and ball joint assembly:
The driver side looks like this:
So you MUST ignore the manual when it says to create a “left and a right unit with the ‘solid corner’ pointing to the front of the car.”
Footbox Heat Shields
I located, dry-fit, and drilled mounting holes for the driver and passenger footbox heatshields. The material is cookie sheet steel from the local grocery store. They have a nice rolled edge and will help deflect heat from the engine bay coming into the car interior. I am using riv-nuts and spacers to mount these sheets – er – heat shields to the footboxes.
I used BBQ paint for the shields, but may decide to powder coat the engine bay sheet metal parts, including the heat shields.
But I have to decide this quickly, since the engine is scheduled to be delivered within a few days!
Here’s the driver footbox with riv-nuts installed. All aluminum panels for the engine bay will be powder coated, the others will be painted.
Air Conditioning
Here is a picture of the air conditioner unit and where it will go. It fits behind the passenger side dashboard area, where a glovebox wold normally go. I need to allow space for the ducting and the windshield wiper mechanism, which mounts in the same area. A box to house the A/C unit will have to be fabricated.
The IRS – Independent Rear Suspension
Note to builders: This procedure is quite difficult, even with a helper or two. It is highly recommended to keep small children away to protect them from hearing rated-R and -X words and phrases loudly coming from the underside of the chassis and to keep them safe from thrown objects.
Since my ham radio friend Larry was going to stop by for a visit, I decided it would be a great time to get him to help me boost the rear differential (pumpkin) into the rear suspension cage. The Factory Five Racing assembly manual calls this unit the “IRS center section.”
There are many posts on how difficult this step is. The manual says, “It installs from the bottom with the driveshaft flange pointing straight up and the axle holes lined up front to back with the chassis.”
Err. So that means the giant 70 pound, lop-sided bowling ball like thing must be pushed up sideways, 90 degrees from the way it mounts onto the frame, and then must be twisted 90 degrees in the opposite direction to drop into place. This cannot be done safely with just one person. I found out that this is actually impossible to do with two people.
After several long hours and a phone call to Spider Larry, the pumpkin still refused to go into place.
I began to think about getting a grinder and removing any offending protrusions on the differential case and chassis to make this thing fit. My ham friend Larry had to leave, but a neighbor showed up, who also happened to be a car builder. I put Phil to work right away…
We tried a different route, maybe through the X-member at the rear of the chassis could work. So we used the jack to lift the differential high enough to check. We made a few measurements. No way.
We measured again, and noticed that no matter how you turn this pumpkin, it will not fit past the rear cover mounting plates.
We decided to remove the rear cover.
After unscrewing ten Allen bolts, and giving the rear cover a light tap with a rubber mallet, the cover popped off, very much like breaking an egg. To gain another inch of clearance, we removed the two plastic dust caps from the axle holes. Verifying that the diff does NOT have to come apart to mount the rear brakes, we put it back on the jack. Modifying the instructions, we lifted it with the driveshaft flange pointing up and the axle holes at a 45 degree (not 90 degree) angle, and pumped the jack. Now it went past the offending rear mounting plates, and into place.
Of course, now the differential must be re-sealed, so we tried a dry run with the rear cover. Yes, this will work. I currently have the pumpkin suspended above the mounting location, held in place with the jack, a 2×4, and a nylon strap. I will finish mounting this beast at the next build session.
Here are lots of pictures of the wrong way to do this. A video of this procedure would be most helpful, but I am sure most builders will have enough in their hands to not have a camera operator getting in the way.
So – take my advice, save at least 6 hours and lots of non-child-approved words and thrown objects, and remove the differential rear cover before you install your IRS center section. . . .
The rear mounting tabs (with the nice “5” logo laser-cut into them) are too close – use the threaded rod-expander trick to make it fit.
By the way – anyone else missing two nuts and bolts for the pumpkin mount? My parts list is correct, and yet I am still missing two fasteners for the standard width IRS differential.
I discovered I have the wrong adapter plates for the rear disc brakes, These are for the non-IRS version of the car. Jason at The Factory is sending the correct parts to me……
I am working on several things on the car at the same time. Whenever I get stuck or run into a problem, I move to a different part of the car to build. At some point, things will meet up and progress in a more orderly fashion, but at this stage, nothing is complete.
This Factory Five Racing Coupe project is consuming my life. Even when I am sleeping, I have dreams about the car, the building process or driving the car.
But lately I have been having nightmares about the car….
Front Suspension Re-Do
I managed to install a part on the front suspension upside down and backwards. Of course, like a lot of automotive things, in order to get to that part, a lot of other parts must be removed first. Some parts required a tremendous amount of torque to install. These are parts that should never “fall off” like anything in the front suspension and wheel mounts.
So, one of the chores I had to do was to remove the front wheel bearings and hubs. I tried to remove the mechanical lock nut with my ratchet, but it would not budge. This is a good thing, since this one nut fastens the wheel to the car. Installing these parts required several very hard whacks with my plastic hammer and several Rated R and X words and phrases. I could not help but wonder how those parts would come off if I ever needed to repair or replace them.
Reading the forums made me lose a lot of sleep, since it seems that a lot of fellow builders have had trouble with this part, too. I bought an AC-operated impact wrench and some very large (36mm) impact sockets to remove the hub nuts. As a back-up, I also bought a large 1/2-inch drive breaker bar and a piece of pipe to increase the torque if needed.
I called my friend Larry over for some assistance.
Surprisingly, the breaker bar made the hub nut come right off. Even more surprising is the condition of the spindle where the wheel and bearing mounts – it still looks brand-new and without any distortions or scratches.
After purchasing the impact wrench, Larry sent me an e-mail advising me to not use an impact wrench on the front hubs, because this may damage the wheel bearings. I took this advice, and returned the impact wrench. Good thing I did not open the box. . .
Interior (Cockpit) Aluminum Panels
After the problem with building the IFS, I decided to “dry-fit” all parts from now on. This way I can verify everything is correct – or fix things that are wrong – before tightening the parts into place.
I decided to do some more work on the interior sheet aluminum. Compared to some of the other tasks, fitting the aluminum is easy. I made some diagonal cuts along the floor to make the parts fit easier, and to prevent scratching the nearby interior panels. By cutting the single large pieces into multiple smaller pieces, they will drop into place, rather than bend and scrape into place – preserving the painted surfaces.
The seams and bend directions are hard to see in these pictures, the aluminum sheets do not provide enough contrast. I may use masking tape to show where the parts go and where the seams meet next time. As I said, this is the first attempt to fit the cockpit aluminum. Based on old Factory Five Racing forum posts, it looks like my aluminum panels have been improved somewhat. The only poorly fitting space is this big gap on the driver side, right at the corner of the transmission tunnel.
I may either trim the mounting tab behind one of the panels, or just install some sort of patch over the top. Overall, though, this Generation 2 Coupe seems to have better-fitting interior panels, so far.
Dashboard
Here is an example of something gone wrong —
Notice the odd-shaped hole for the steering column? The mounting location for the steering shaft is not straight and parallel along the ladder structure in the driver side footbox and clutch quadrant. As I examined all the parts in this area, I believe the factory did this because of an interference issue with the brake pedal. If the steering column shaft were to run parallel to the ladder structure, it would block the brake pedal actuator. Moving the mount – but not compensating for this on the dashboard panel – makes this problem look worse than it may be.
I used a nibbling tool, a round file and a sanding drum to enlarge the hole for the steering shaft.
A popular modification to the dashboard is to cut along the bend, making the one long piece dashboard into two long pieces. This enables access to the inside of the dash from the top as well as the front, and will make installing and maintaining dash components such as gauges, air conditioner and plumbing much easier. I will make this cut at the next build session.
I just have to figure out a way to disguise the big and ugly hole in the dashboard. . .
The Racing Seats
I placed the Kirkey high-back racing seats to see how it fits, and although the steering wheel is a bit toward the passenger side, I think it will be all right.
Clutch Quadrant and Pedal Box
Many Coupe builders owe a lot to a guy named Chris, who has documented his Type 65 Coupe build experience with lots of pictures. (I added a link to his flickr photostream in the Automotive Links section.) The Factory Five Racing assembly manual left an entire section out for us Complete Kit builders. There are no instructions for the Wilwood pedal box and clutch quadrant assembly. Thanks Chris for sharing your images!
Anyway – here are some pictures of my Wilwood pedal box and clutch quadrant. I do not have too many fitment issues here, except for the mounting points to the 3/4-inch tubes – I will have to wedge the mounts at the firewall in order to securely mount the pedal box to the ladder structure. I painted my footbox mounting plate with silver Rust-Oleum BBQ paint. I wanted to do a test to see how the color came out and how durable the finish is. I like the color, it is much better than the raw steel and hopefully will prevent any rust from forming inside the car.
A Roadster Driver Visits
Rick, a neighbor and Roadster owner, stopped by for a visit. Here are some pictures of his very nice car. Rick did the paint job by himself in his garage – I am very impressed with the way the finish came out – take a look!
The front steering arms came in the day before Thanksgiving. That meant that I could continue building the front suspension. These little cast iron parts were the things holding my progress:
I installed the steering arms without too much drama. Installing the front hubs onto the spindles was another matter. The instruction manual says something about them being a tight fit, and that is true. I did not want to damage anything, so I used a PVC pipe elbow (remember the body dolly? This was a left-over part from that…) to protect the hub, and I used a plastic hammer to pound the hub into place. A few whacks and it slid right in. I hope that I won’t have to remove them someday – they are stuck on really tight.
And yes, a coupler or a T would have made a better anvil, but all I had on-hand was this elbow. Anyway – the hubs are now mounted to the spindles.
Torque spec for the hubs is 225 to 250 lbs/ft. This is a lot. The nut takes a 36mm socket and I bought one earlier (Coin Star money) just for this step. It took a lot of cranking on my 1/2-inch torque wrench to meet that 250 lb mark. I thought I was going to lift the chassis off the jack stands!
Thanksgiving Ribs
Meanwhile, I prepared some Kansas City Style pork spare ribs for Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s house. I was in a hurry, and forgot to completely trim the ribs (the cartilaginous tips). I did, however, remember to remove the pleura – the silver skin on the back of the ribs.
If you don’t know about removing the skin from spare ribs, then I am sure you may have experienced eating that stuff somewhere. The pleura is the tough membrane that you might see on the back of the ribs. If left on, it blocks the spices and will never get soft after cooking – it is sort of like chewing gum, and ruins the eating experience….
Anyway, they were still very tasty, although I was out of paprika. No one else noticed it missing – but I sure did.
Ribs with a dry rub. I made two racks for Thanksgiving this year.
Smoky goodness.
After Thanksgiving Turkey
Per my tradition, the day after Thanksgiving, I went to the local grocery store and found a good deal on a fresh 12-lb turkey. I decided to try a recipe from Steven Raichlen’s Primal Grill TV show – see Orange Brined Turkey.
Strangely, both the book and the website say this is for turkey breasts. On the DVD, Steven smokes a whole 12-lb turkey. At any rate, I salivated over this since last year, and finally got to try it. Take a look at my version The bird is a hen, just over 12 pounds . . .
Orange brine for the turkey.
I need a bigger bucket or something for brining the turkey. I turned her (it’s a hen) over in the middle of the night.
Back to Work on the Coupe
Since the turkey had to soak over-night, I went back to the Coupe project. I started to assemble the front disc brakes, when another delay came along: No “supplied grease” for the disc brake slider pins. So I went onto the Factory Five forums and searched on what sort of special grease this might be. I almost skipped this step, but I am glad I did not. Lots of bad things can happen if the brake calipers stopped sliding on the slider pins.
Turns out the grease is special – the grease must be silicone-based, high temperature and must not affect rubber. So I did some more research and found this stuff: Permatex Ultra Disc Brake Caliper Lube Silicone Formula Item #24115. High temperature, silicone based and intended for brake caliper use.
There are some little spring clips that go into the brake housing, and some rubber boots that fit onto the caliper slider pins. The pictures are not too clear and I had to do some fiddling with the parts to make things look right. Here are some pictures that may help other builders. . .
This is the clip that goes into the long slot in the middle of the housing. If you are struggling to get it in, it is probably backwards. Hold it like this and insert it into the housing from the inside. It will just pop into place with a little bit of pressure.
The caliper slider pin boot is easier to install if you “un-curl” it first, like this.
Then you can push the little lip into the shallow groove in the pin. . .
. . . to make it look like this.
Since I was at the car parts store, I also bought a box of disposable gloves and some adhesive for the aluminum panels. There’s a ton of postings on what adhesive to use on the Factory Five Racing car projects. Many different adhesives are mentioned. But there was one build gallery that I found, and I am going to use the product they used – it is Permatex Ultra Black RTV silicone gasket maker, Item #24105. This is what Kirkham Motorsports uses in their projects, so I figure it would be acceptable in my Coupe build. Kirkham has an online assembly manual posted, it basically follows David Kirkham building one of his cars: Kirkham Motorsports Assembly Manual.
What Good is a Sale on Something When It’s Out of Stock?
Since I was running about getting the grease and other stuff, I decided to go tool shopping. A local hardware store chain had a 50 percent off sale on Makita and Milwaukee power tools this weekend – I thought this was the perfect time to go get that right angle drill I wanted. I got to the store, only to find no Makita or Milwaukee right angle drills available. I went to two stores and wasted half of my day looking for the thing. I decided to look for an alternative to the right angle drill – how about a right angle drive attachment? I did not find one of those, either. So I left the hardware store empty-handed – I think this was the first time that ever happened!
Back to the Turkey
After an overnight soak, the turkey is ready for the smoker.
Getting the Big Green Egg up to temperature (250 degrees F). Hickory chips were added.
I can never resist peeking. Orange brined turkey, after the first hour.
After the 2nd hour. I rubbed the turkey with butter and continued to smoke.
After 4 hours. Almost done.
Total time in the smoker: About 5 hours. Temperature in the thigh 170 degrees F. After a 15 minute rest, time to carve!
Yes, this is as tender and juicy as it looks. The mayo-mustard-triple sec dressing that is part of this recipe is very good. I think I will try this with lemons next time.
So not much work completed on the Coupe today, but the holiday weekend is not quite over. I hope to complete the front end tomorrow.
Remember Jim Carrey as a package delivery man in the movie “Pet Detective”? He must have delivered these two boxes to my house earlier this week.
These boxes look pretty bashed. Notice the bulges? Heavy stuff rattling around inside.
Inside lumpy box one is the differential, with no packing materials in it. The “pumpkin” weighs 69 pounds. It was rolling around inside the box, trying to break out. Lumpy box two contained the rear spindles, 25 pounds.
Differential for the Coupe Independent Rear Suspension. What’s missing? Packing material. There’s 69 lbs of cast metal and lots of gears just rolling around inside a single-ply cardboard box.
Lumpy box number 2 contained the rear spindles.
Amazingly – nothing seems to be damaged. While these items are very robust, I wonder if shipments like this got damaged or lost while in transit – the box containing the spindles had many holes in it – the threaded studs were pounding against the box.
These parts are part of the “drop ship” items for the Coupe build, so Factory Five Racing did not pack the parts this way – their supplier did. I sent a message to the F5R guys as a heads-up, so hopefully this will get corrected.
Halibrand wheels, rear brakes, engine headers, body scoops, radiator bottom mounting piece, CV rear axles and some other stuff have not arrived, but I have enough parts to start building!
wayneyoshidakh6wz 
