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Discussion starter · #121 ·
Yesterday I pulled out the engine and transmission. They were only installed for mock-up. Soon I’ll do final assembly of the engine, clutch, bell housing and transmission.
Meanwhile I’ll do some patching and painting on the firewall. Also, I’ll soon be spending the wad for the Coyote Control Pack and study up on installing it.
My buddy Bob came by today to finish weld some of the stuff I had tacked in place over the last few months ... motor mount pedestals tweaked for a little more space between for the oil pan, transmission mount done and parking brake mount done.
We also made plans for some support structure in front of the driver side foot box for a toolbox. Hopefully that will be the last of the grinding and welding. It makes a mess of the garage!
 
Discussion starter · #122 ·
While the garage is a mess ...

My power window solution required that I cut up the doors, jambs and rockers, then put the parts together differently to make the doors deeper and longer. I made similar adjustments to the hood and the pontoons so that the parting lines would match the doors. All of these parts are just bonded together with 3M HSRF for now.

I plan to reinforce these seams with fiberglass on the back side. I've been putting off the prep work for a long time because its such a dirty job. But the garage is a mess today from all of the grinding a welding we did on Saturday, so I figured I'd tackle it now.

Messy chore done! Now to clean up the garage!
 
Discussion starter · #123 · (Edited)
I took time out from the build for one of my favorite activities ... a charity road rally with Rally North America. The route took us from Erie to Ithaca, Poughkeepsie, Concord and Old Orchard Beach ME. Our final checkpoint was at the site of our beneficiary, Camp Sunshine.

My 2006 Mustang served me well on some very spirited laps on Watkins Glen and a few runs on the quarter mile at New England Dragway. I hope to have my coupe on the road and sorted out for next year’s event. Running in one these road rallies has been the vision from the start.

BTW, one of the participants spied a Daytona driving by the Vanderbilt Mansion In Hyde Park the other day. Was it somebody here?

Now, back to the build!
 
Discussion starter · #124 · (Edited)
Noodling around ...

I ordered up some materials for treating the drive line components before final assembly. I intend to use SharkHide for the bare metal surfaces of the engine block, bell housing, transmission and the differential. I'll be coating the exhaust manifolds with Eastwood Hi Temp paint. Satin Black will be in keeping with the color scheme I have in mind. We'll see how well that holds up.

I'm considering adding a bump-out in the driver's foot box that will let me sit a little more straight in the seat. As it is my feet will be aimed outward and I'll have to twist to the right to face the wheel squarely. Most likely the bump-out panel will have to be removable to the inside of the cockpit to allow access to the header bolts. (See first attachment)

Rearranging the roll bars into an X-brace as i did gave me some areas in the ceiling that will never be used for headroom. So I'm thinking about using that space for some overhead storage, radio, dome lights, etc. I taped up some craft paper to get an idea what this space might look like. For starters I'm pretty sure I'll put a bluetooth speaker/microphone up there somewhere. I'm not sure if I'll be able to hear anything or if anybody will be able to hear me. We'll see how that goes. (See second attachment)
 

Attachments

Discussion starter · #126 ·
Odds and Ends

I've been doing a lot of odds and ends in the last few weeks.

I added a bump out on the inner side of the driver side footbox to give me a little more room down there. It includes a removable panel that gives me easy access to the exhaust manifold fasteners. With this extra space for my right leg and foot I might be able to straighten my seating position a bit. BTW, I still haven't settled on seats but I'm considering the Procar Rally seats. I hope I can find one somewhere to try it on for size.

I installed some DEI Gold heat reflective sheet to the sides of the fuel tank and secured the edges with aluminum tape. The mufflers are only about 1-1/2" from the sides of the fuel tank, so I figured some protections was in order.

I rely on my phone for navigation and audio in my cars. I rarely use the radio, even in my daily driver, so I plan to do the same in the coupe. I'll mount my phone to the dash (The units from RAM Mount work very well) and I'll be mounting a bluetooth speaker/microphone on the roll bar above the center of the windshield. I ran the radio wire up there to power the speaker and my Radenso radar detector.

I wired up my interior rear view mirror and license frame with backup camera. These are from Master Tailgaters and have all the bells and whistles, including a 4.3" display for a backup camera.

I finished installing Dynamat Extreme in all of the chassis interior except a few places where I might be doing some more work. I have some DynaLiner and DynaDeck on hand for the future.

I ran AN-4 stainless braided hose from the clutch master cylinder to the area of the hydraulic throw out bearing.

I reinstalled the door frames and tested the wiring for the power windows and door poppers. I also have a turn signal wire going to each door, just in case the mirrors that I settle on include a turn signal indicator.

More of the same to follow while I wait on some assistance assembling the clutch and transmission to the engine.
 
Discussion starter · #127 ·
Just a brief update. This summer's activities limited my coupe time, but I managed to make some progress.

With the help of a friend the clutch, bell housing and transmission are assembled to the engine and dropped into the frame for what might be the final time. I found that the cover for the access hole in the bell housing will interfere with my exhaust pipes, so I fabricated a simple aluminum plate to cover the opening and provide some protection for the hydraulic lines for the throw out bearing.

The chassis wiring is all done and tested. The engine wiring will have to wait until I get the Coyote Control Pack. It's on back order. Ugh.

I've been considering my seating options for a long time. Because of the changes I made for power windows my cockpit is a little different from most. I was able to borrow a couple for seats from a friend and found that, after a simple mod, the Corbeau GTS II is a really good fit. The seat back is rather narrow so it can slide back and even recline a bit with me in it. The Procar Elite has similar dimensions. Some times it's good to be a little on the short side!

Now I'm studying up on the wiring and plumbing of the engine with the Coyote Control Pack and the Ron Francis wiring harness. It's gonna take me a while to wrap my head around all this! The Factory Five and the Ford Performance documents are helpful and I really appreciate Edwardb's build thread of his 20th anniversary roadster! My experience will be a little different as the engine is not a crate engine. It's a pull from a 2015 Mustang. There's a lot to deal with here. One bite at a time, right?
 
Discussion starter · #128 · (Edited)
Radiator, Fan Shroud and Duct

With the engine in place for the final (I hope) time I decided I should get ready for some plumbing. I got a fan shroud from Breeze, realizing that I would need to trim it to fit in my Type 65 Gen 2 frame. Because of interference with my fan shroud and sway bar I had to do some serious trimming to the duct, too. I'm going to leave it in clecoes until the hood is in place so I can finalize the position of the duct.

Here's the fan shroud after trimming and mods.
Modified shroud. by Team Limer, on Flickr

Here's the assembled radiator, shroud and fan.
Radiator with fan and shroud. by Team Limer, on Flickr

Here's the ductwork installed temporarily. I did some trimming at the bottom of the duct to clear my shroud and allow access to the sway bar bolts. I may need to move the duct to align with the hood opening. I'll finalize that later, add something to create a new duct floor, stiffen up the bottom edge and attach it to the frame.
Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr

Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr

Thanks, Glen (gsides9) for the Face Time consultation!
 
That's a good addition Glenn.
Just did that myself too. Looks like you will have to fab a custom bottom piece. Not necessarily a bad thing as my cavity was very narrow due to the power steering tubing on the rack. Because of that I had to mount my fan inside the shroud.

John
 
Discussion starter · #130 · (Edited)
I can't do much more in the engine bay until I get the Gen 2 Coyote Control Pack. It's still on back order from Ford. Ugh.

Meanwhile I installed the heater core, fan and AC evaporator unit behind the dash. Its the unit from Vintage Air that Factory Five supplied with the Gen 2 Type 65. Because of my firewall mod I'm able to install it in front of the 2x2 cowl cross member. It should leave room for a glove box in the dash, and the heat and AC hoses will route conveniently toward the side of the car and then through the front of the passenger foot box.

It's time to tackle a job that I've been putting off for a while ... aligning the rear suspension. I'm using the Thunderbird-based IRS in this car. The suspension members are adjusted by means of the rod ends at their inner ends, so each joint must be disassembled to make an adjustment. I did the initial settings according to the manual when I first installed the suspension. But the toe and camber are visibly out. I guess I have some tedious knuckle-busting work ahead!

I did a crude alignment on the front end ... as good as I can do with a level and a tape. Then set the ride height to 4-1/4" all around, figuring that the additional weight of the body, glass, interior, etc will bring it down to about 4". Tomorrow it'll be going back up on jack stands to set the track width and get on with the alignment.
 
Discussion starter · #131 ·
Still nibbling at the chassis

I have the suspension pretty well buttoned up. I fine tuned the ride height and did a pretty good alignment of both the front and the rear suspension. It ain't perfect, but it will certainly serve to get it on the road. I also mounted the stabilizer bar and lubed everything. The boy-racer in me wants to dial in a little more camber!

I modified the eBrake cables to work with my 2005 Mustang eBrake lever that's mounted on the top of the tunnel. The cable ends needed to be replaced to work with this lever and the cables also needed to be shortened. My measurements must have been spot on because it all works. But I'm not impressed with the amount of grip.

Some weeks ago I borrowed some seats and tried them on for size. With my 5' 6" height it's comfortable but a little snug. To get some more headroom I've been looking at the drop-seat mod that The Traveling Builder did on another Gen 2 coupe. I think I can get what I need without cutting out quite so much material. But I can't know for sure until I have seats and sliders on hand.

There were some posts quite a while ago about relocating the lower steering shaft bearing to make the steering wheel align better with the dash. It doesn't look like this would be difficult to do. It might provide a little more room for an electric power steering unit and could work better with my seating position. More later.

Coyote Control Pack still on back order. No worries. I'll keep nibbling away at the chassis.
 
Discussion starter · #132 ·
Another Update

I finalized a few things this week. It's getting to be exciting!

I installed the AC Condenser to the radiator. I wasn't confident in the provided brackets so I made my own. In the end, the condenser, radiator, shroud and fan make a very solid and tidy assembly. I'm calling this done and ready for plumbing!

The heater and AC evaporator, controls, wiring and vacuum lines are done. I'll figure out a vacuum source, control valve, a trinary switch and hoses soon. Some of this will have to wait for the Coyote Control Pack to arrive.

The big accomplishment this week is that the exhaust system is DONE! You might remember that I'm running the exhaust under the car. Mark Dougherty, The Traveling Builder, modified my headers and fabbed my exhaust pipes and mufflers a few weeks back. Since then I pulled the engine to install the clutch. Now that the engine is back in place for final I installed the exhaust manifolds, connected them to the exhaust pipes and aligned it all. Nice and solid and no rattles!

I took measurements for a drive shaft and figure I'll call Denny's soon to get that going.

While I'm STILL WAITING for the Coyote Control Pack to arrive I'll start to plan the plumbing for the cooling system, heater and AC.

Would I be jinxing things by thinking about a First Start and Go Cart on Black Friday?
 
Discussion starter · #133 ·
Windows v Apple

I've been a bit of a slacker on pictures lately. I made an effort to catch up yesterday and realized that I got caught up in a file format SNAFU on my iPhone. It seems that Apple introduced a new High Efficiency file format (HEIC) some time in August and I (dummy) chose to use it.

Not to get into the details, but I have about 600 pictures to convert from HEIC to JPG (ugh) so that they are compatible with the non-Apple world.

I managed to convert a few pics that show a couple of my recent mods. Here they are:

I added a bump out to the driver's foot box to give me a little more room for my right foot. It's removable to improve access to the exhaust manifold fasteners. Here are a few pics of the mock up:

The area to be cut out is marked:
The cut out seen from the inside by Team Limer, on Flickr

The view of the mock up from the engine bay. It will give me more than an inch more room:
Mock up the bump-out by Team Limer, on Flickr

Lots of foot room!
Mock up from then inside by Team Limer, on Flickr

I added a transitional pieces to the floors of the driver and passenger foot box to make it a little bit more livable.

Before:
This transition is a real heel-catcher by Team Limer, on Flickr

After:
Smooth floor transition by Team Limer, on Flickr
 
Discussion starter · #134 ·
I thought that I had plenty of seating room ... until I put an actual seat in for a test fit. Now I'm scrapping for every bit of space I can get!

I borrowed a Corbeau GTS 2 for a test fit. It looks like I could consider the dropped floor mod that The Traveling Builder did on Mike Moen's coupe!
Corbeau GTS 2 Seat Fitment by Team Limer, on Flickr

This relief cut in my striker plate will let the seat move back an extra inch!
Seat Relied Cut Clecoed by Team Limer, on Flickr
 
Discussion starter · #136 ·
Another big project completed!

After some discussion with Mike Moen I decided to go ahead with a seat drop mod, similar to the mod that he and Mark Dougherty did to his coupe. In retrospect, I should have let Mark do it when he did my exhaust system. It would have been better to do build the exhaust around the floor drop rather than the other way around. The area I was able to drop was a bit smaller than Mike's. But in the end, it should be enough to give me a lot more headroom with whatever seating I choose.

Here are a few pics of the process ...

The area to be dropped is constrained on the inner side by the under car exhaust.
Laying out the floor cut out. by Team Limer, on Flickr

A piece of 1/8" steel plate is tacked in place to form the new floor.
Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr

After a lot of welding, here's the finished product.
Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr

That was TON of work! But I think it will be worth it for the better seating position.
 
Discussion starter · #137 ·
The Coyote Control Pack arrived a while ago. I started to plan the routing of the cables and how it would connect to the stock Mustang engine wiring harness. This seems to be easier than I had feared.
I'll mount the PCM low on the passenger side of the front X brace where it will be reasonably well protected, away from the heat, and out of the way. The cables are long enough for the PDM to mount on the firewall. The wires to the alternator and MAF sensor are run to up the passenger side of the engine cover and exit at the driver side of the engine cover.
Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr
It seems that Ford designed the Mustang's engine wiring harness in two separate parts; upper and lower. The upper seems to be the same as the engine wiring harness on the crate engine. I made the appropriate connections to the upper harness. Then I removed the lower harness and harvested a couple of pieces from it; the AC connector and the alternator power lead.
Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr
More on all that later. I'll be taking the week off for the holidays. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year!
 
Discussion starter · #138 ·
I'm getting back into the build after the Christmas and New Year celebrations and a bout with an intestinal virus that ripped through our family. The symptoms were moderate but it took all of us a good week to begin feeling normal again!

My focus for now is the placement for the components of the Coyote Control Pack and planning the wiring for the battery, starter, alternator and master cutoff switch. I reoriented the mounting of the PCM to the front X brace. It is now horizontal and a little bit higher, making for a cleaner run of the wiring to the fan, starter and under the engine cover to the Power Distribution Block that I mounted on the firewall. The fuse is mounted directly below the PDB and the wiring bundle runs along the firewall behind the engine entering the cockpit at the inner side of the driver foot box.

Installing the accelerator pedal is complicated because the pedal mechanism is just too wide and tall for the available space. And I want the pedal depth (toward or away from the driver) to allow comfortable heel/toe action. I started by making the mods to the pedal as recommended in FFR's instructions for installing a Gen 2 Coyote in a roadster (inverting the pedal pad, trimming the pedal arm and trimming the mounting tabs). For easy fabrication I made a few different mounting plates from various thicknesses of wood. I found that a 3/4"mounting plate gave me good pedal depth and allowed me to position the pedal high enough to be comfortable while still clearing the steering shaft. Don't worry! I'll replace that wood block with a steel bracket of some sort.

PCM Mounting
Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr

PDB Mounting
Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr

Harness into Cockpit
Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr

Temporary Accelerator Pedal Mount
Untitled by Team Limer, on Flickr
 
…. and a bout with an intestinal virus that ripped through our family. The symptoms were moderate but it took all of us a good week to begin feeling normal again!
You know the rules: no pictures, it didn't happen! ?
Glad your feeling ok and back at it

John
 
Glad to see you back at it! Keep up the great work(y)
 
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