Jenn Learning to Weld

We stopped by the Miller booth and Jenn tried her hand at MIG welding. She was super enthused to try out welding. Have I mentioned how lucky I am to have such an amazing wife?

Jenn got the hang of it pretty quickly and the instructor let her weld for quite awhile since there was no one else waiting.

By the end, Jenn was laying down some pretty nice looking beads.

Factory Five at EAA AirVenture

My daughter Madeline and I flew into AirVenture yesterday and they parked us in homebuilt camping just a few hundred feet from the Factory Five trailer.

Jenn and I stopped by this afternoon and had a nice chat with Dave Smith and a few builders. This is FFR’s first year at Oshkosh, and I think it was a success for them. The booth had a fair number of people in it every time we walked by, and homebuilt plane builders are exactly the kind of people who would be interested in building cars.

Engine Off Assembly Stand

I assembled the storage stand and used the cherry picker to move the engine from the assembly stand to the storage stand. It’s unfortunate that we can’t bolt the bell housing and transmission in place while it’s on this stand since the rear supports bolt to the same flange the bell housing will bolt to, but it’s safer to store and transport the engine on this stand.

Work is going to slow down on the car for a bit. July is fairly packed with other things on the schedule, so updates won’t be as frequent for the next few weeks.

Stored Aluminum and Finished Inventory

I’m out of places to store parts; especially large, fragile parts like all of the aluminum panels. After staring at the lift for a few minutes, I decided to hang a shelf underneath it. I used a 4’x4′ piece of plywood and some cord around the lifting arms and fashioned an adjustable shelf and loaded all of the aluminum. It will be a bit of a pain to scrounge around looking for specific pieces, but it will have to do. There is even plenty of room underneath to store the chassis when we’re not working on it.

Work on the car won’t officially start until after June since Jenn’s job is keeping her swamped until then and she doesn’t want to miss any part of the build. I’ll be spending the time between now and then getting the engine ready for assembly.

After inventorying the final parts last night, I spent some time tonight putting together an email with all of the missing, incorrect and damaged parts. Here’s the list I came up with:

Missing:
  • 2 of 15670 #10-24x 3/4” Carriage Bolt
  • 2 of 15671 #10-24 Nylon Lock Nut
  • 2 of 10635 #10 Washer
  • 10611 Windscreen, Chrome on Brass (Roadster)
  • 2 of 16242 5/8”-11 x 4.25” Bolt (I received 2 of 1/2”-13 x 3” instead)
  • 4 of 10802 Locknut (Retaining Ring)
  • 16004 GPS Gauge Set w/Kit
  • 4 of 33539 Bolt, 12pt, M12-1.75 x 35mm, (Caliper to Spindle)

Incorrect:

  • I received part #13861: 87-95 straight tubes. I should have received the 351W headers.

Damaged:

  • 15173 Upper Handle (there is a gouge in the handle that looks like it happened during shipping)

I’m also going to try and return the wiring harness and heater/defroster as I’m going to go a different direction with those.

Finished Box Inventory and Chassis Dolly

I finished inventorying all of the cardboard boxes. There are a few oversized items tucked away in the garage, but most of the components ended up in these bins.

These are the remaining cardboard boxes that I’ve inventoried but do not plan to unpack.

The chassis has been sitting on jack stands, but that was always a temporary solution. It will eventually end up on the lift, but I’ve put it on a dolly I built for now to raise it up a bit and make it easy to move around the shop. These casters are 8″ diameter and good for 450lbs each, so this dolly should handle 1800lbs. The finished car will weigh more than that, but I expect to move it off of this dolly long before it’s finished.

Started Inventory

Jenn has been feeling sick, so I started the inventory tonight. I unpacked about 10 boxes and fit most of the parts into these 5 bins. These take up much less space and it allowed me to group related parts together that were in separate boxes.

I generated quite a pile of paper and cardboard.

The stack of boxes is considerably smaller now. I don’t plan on unboxing the seats, radiator or fuel tank, so there’s probably only a half dozen boxes left to go through.

Kit Has Arrived!

I got a call from Jerry, the driver from Stewart Transportation, a few days ago saying that the kit would be here on Saturday! The pressure was on to get the shop organized enough to hold the kit. Just after 1 this afternoon, we heard a truck outside and came out of the garage to the site of a giant Factory Five Racing truck parked across the street!

He relocated the truck across the street to avoid blocking driveways and to expose the better looking side of the truck :-).

Jenn is super excited her Cobra is here!

With the help of my dad and a couple of friends, we quickly had the car and all of the boxes safely in the garage. Jenn wanted the front facing out so that people driving by could tell it is a Cobra 🙂

We have a bunch of inventorying to do, but that will have to wait until another day.

10th Annual Factory Five Huntington Beach Cruise-In

My son and I flew down in the plane I built to meet my wife and daughter in Huntington Beach for Factory Five’s Cruise-In. We flew down the night before under clear skies. I grabbed this picture as we entered the L.A. basin.

We spent the entire day at the cruise-in and got to check out every car in some detail and talk to a number of owners. We got a ton of good ideas and are more certain than ever about the decisions that we’re making.

Ordered Kit

We placed the order for the Mk4 Roadster kit today. We ordered the complete kit with the following options:

  • Uncoated chassis
  • 351W ceramic coated 4-port headers
  • 351W engine mounts
  • Upgraded leather roadster seats
  • 18:1 manual steering rack
  • Tubular front lower control arms
  • Independent rear suspension
  • Vintage GPS gauge set
  • Vintage Halibrand replica wheels (17″ x 9″ front and 17″ x 10.5″ rear)
  • Polished stainless steel side exhaust
  • Wind wings
  • Sun visors
  • Heater/defroster
  • Floor mats
  • Front and rear sway bars
  • Chrome driver and passenger roll bars

We also deleted the Mustang front brakes because we’re planning on using the big Wilwood brake kit from levyracing.com. We also deleted the 5pt Simpson Racing Harness because those are date stamped and we won’t need them for awhile. We’ll order them when we’re about ready to drive it so that we can get a later manufactured date.

I heard back from Factory Five pretty quickly with the sales order and a completion date of May 13, 2017. I’ve arranged for Stewart Transport to handle the delivery and the kit should be here by the end of May at the latest.

Getting Started

My wife has always wanted to build a kit Cobra. After discussing it at length over the holiday break, we’ve decided that now is as good a time as any to do this. Her job will keep her busy until late June which gives me time to prep for the build. There is a ton of research to do on kits, components, engines, transmissions, etc. We also need to get the garage ready for this project.

We have a nice three-car garage, but we have a bunch of stuff stored there and the cabinets are junky old particle board ones from a previous kitchen remodel. The drywall is fairly beat up and the concrete floor is pretty stained. We also want to be able to store both the Cobra and our Porsche 911 in the garage plus both of our daily drivers. That means will need a car lift of some sort.