I once again got some more time today to spend in the garage working on the car — a very hot garage. Summer is definitely not a good time for working on the car. I’ve been struggling with getting the body fitted the last two months, and I think its about as good as I’ll be able to get it. I wanted to get more body-related details done, so I could get the body bolted on and get the remaining sheet metal on the car to ensure the body will not shift any more and I can get the windshield on.
To that end, today I wanted to finalize the fuel filler, and my replacement light showed up from Factory Five, so I wanted to get the tail light swapped out, too.
Its rapidly getting to be the end of July and its been nearly a month since I posted an update on my progress here. Its been a busy month — between trying to enjoy summer, a lot of busy weekends, and a week and a half spent on vacation, I still haven’t gotten a lot done.
For the most part, what time I’ve spent has been fighting with the fitment of the body on the car. The Factory Five bodies are (in)famous for being poor quality — even cheap knock-off fiberglass bodies typically come in paintable gelcoat, whereas the Factory Five bodies take hundreds of hours of prep time to paint. Well, its sort of hit or miss if the things even fit the car properly, and I’ve learned the hard way that paying Factory Five to cut the body openings is hit or miss as well. I’ve wasted a dozen hours or more trying to figure out what parts are okay to have out of alignment and what is important, because the body and frame don’t match well enough for all the openings they’d cut in it to be in the right spot.
Its been a couple weeks since I’ve gotten an update posted on here. Having missed the boat making the Factory Five Open House this year, I’ve been in less of a rush and have been taking care of other things around the house the last few weekends.
I have spent a number of hours here and there working on the remaining list of tasks to do before getting the car registered though. While I’ve not made a lot of progress, I figured it was a good point to get an update posted on here.
Finally, after two weeks of trying to get help with getting the body on the car, my parents were in town this weekend and I was able to get my dad to help me again. Since they’re around, thats pretty much all I did on the car, but that was a big step and it means I can work more easily on doing more items from the punch list over the next few weeks.
I, unfortunately, forgot to double check that the flash card was in my camera when taking pictures. Fortunately, my parents got some photos (and video!) of the process.
Today was a busy day on the car front, but the only thing I got done on the car was replacing the throttle cable and putting a couple bolts in at the front of the footbox that I forgot.
What I really spent the day doing — four or five hours, was pushing the car out of the garage and cleaning the garage. It was a huge amount of work. The garage had become a huge wreck since the last time I did it, and since I couldn’t find help to put the body on, it was a good productive thing to do anyway.
I’ve really run out of any major things to do on the car at this point, at least before I get the body onto the car. I tried to spend some time in the garage today doing some stuff, and I spent more time thinking about things I could do that actually doing anything.
I finished up the high beam switch wiring, and got some photos of the bulb seal from yesterday, though.
Its the end of the week, and unfortunately coming into the weekend, I think I have to step back and just accept that the car isn’t going to be finished by the Open House. I’ve tried really hard the last few months but its just gotten too close.
Things going on at work kept me at the office late Monday and Tuesday, and kept me out of town Wednesday and Thursday, so I haven’t touched the car since last weekend. I did get a bit of time this afternoon to get some stuff done. I have no idea when I’m going to be able to get help with the body, though, and I’m assuming this weekend will be basically a write-off where the car is concerned.
Considering I’m really running out of time to finish the car if I want to be able to drive it to the open house, this weekend was not nearly as productive as I hoped. My goal was to get some help today to get the body on the car, in which case yesterday I would’ve focused on getting the bulb seal on the car. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any help, so I did what I could.
Most of the items on my punch list are things I can’t do before the body was on, but I had some stuff I could do even without it on.
Well, its official. With the exception of the bulb seal which buffers the body from the steel chassis of the car, everything I need to do before the body goes on is done. There’s still a lot left to do once the body is on, but the list of things I even can do before then is getting short.
Last night I got the last bit of stuff I had to do to the body done — mounting the brake ducts.
Now that my laptop is back into full working order, I could focus again after work today on my list of tasks prior to putting the body on the car. My hope is still that I can do it this weekend.
Today’s goal was to knock off two of the items that have been giving me grief or overall concern. The horn has been causing me problems for months because of a general lack of places I can mount it and have it be forward facing. The backup light was just general trepidation over cutting into the body.