In reply to mainlandboy :
Looking good. Glad to see some more progress.
In reply to mainlandboy :
Looking good. Glad to see some more progress.
Good job!
I appreciate the ingenuity and fabrication skills, but I wouldn’t put my family in that on any roads around here. One inattentive driver in a mega SUV and it’s curtains. Maybe you live where there are no bad drivers, or no drivers so it isn’t a worry. There’s a risk I’m willing to personally accept and there is a whole ‘nother level for my kids/grandkids.
Best of luck and stay safe!
maj75 said:I appreciate the ingenuity and fabrication skills, but I wouldn’t put my family in that on any roads around here. One inattentive driver in a mega SUV and it’s curtains. Maybe you live where there are no bad drivers, or no drivers so it isn’t a worry. There’s a risk I’m willing to personally accept and there is a whole ‘nother level for my kids/grandkids.
Best of luck and stay safe!
I will concede that this is certainly not as safe as a modern car, but I do feel that the steel skin welded to a tube cage that I have done is at least (if not more) robust than the construction of the original Ford body from the 30's that that wanted to build for a family cruiser (not that I'm saying that a Ford body from the 30's would be safe either). That being said, I've taken my kids for occasional top down rides in the Miata (one at a time, of course) which has created some great memories, but I have no illusions that my Miata would have faired very well against a mega SUV either.
Some more progress to report. Since I am trying to build this car as economically as possible, it would be way too expensive to pay a body shop to paint the car. At some point, I may consider buying an HVLP gun and proper compressor to paint it myself, but for now, I just wanted to get some color on the car as cheap and easy as possible. I picked up some primer and spray paint at Home Depot and started painting the car. Although not perfect, this car was never meant to be a show winner, and the results are good enough for now.
If by "good enough", you mean "great", I agree.
Creeping closer to completion! I painted the front subframe and the lower and upper control arms. I also painted the grill shell and the grill insert, reinstalled the wiring harness, the steering column, steering shaft and pedals. Brake booster, master cylinder and clutch master cylinder were then bolted back to the firewall before reinstalling the brake lines.
I mocked up the radiator hoses too, just need to get some hose clamps to finish that off. I also finished the pull cables in the door that allow the door latch to be opened by both the inside and outside door handles. That alone was a bit tricky to make work properly. The hood has been cut and formed, but needs a bit more tweaking to fit properly.
The spray adhesive that I used to stick the black vinyl to the dashboard was apparently not strong enough. After a few weeks, the edges of the vinyl started curling up off the dashboard and looked terrible. I also decided that the all-black interior needed some color in it, so I made a new dashboard and painted it the same blue as the outside. I also cut and installed the door cards, but they still need some black covering or painting.
Reached a big milestone. First engine start after 6 years of building!
In reply to mainlandboy :
Sounds terrific and those doors close beautifully, a nice solid "snick" sound. Could I ask where the handles and latching hardware came from? I'm building a Fiat 600 project with external Home Depot hinges and looking for a nice door handle/striker plate set-up. Thanks, and looking great ! !
notsafeforwork said:Sounds terrific and those doors close beautifully, a nice solid "snick" sound. Could I ask where the handles and latching hardware came from? I'm building a Fiat 600 project with external Home Depot hinges and looking for a nice door handle/striker plate set-up. Thanks, and looking great ! !
Thanks! Here are links to the hardware I used for the doors:
https://www.speedwaymotors.com/1932-1934-Ford-Outside-Door-Handle-Kit,379649.html
https://www.homedepot.ca/product/everbilt-3-1-2-inch-zinc-plated-post-gate-hinge-1pc/1000773478
Thank you ! Was it difficult to adapt the rotational aspect of the Ford hinges to the up-and-down actuation of the bear jaws style latch?
notsafeforwork said:Thank you ! Was it difficult to adapt the rotational aspect of the Ford hinges to the up-and-down actuation of the bear jaws style latch?
It was a bit finicky to connect the outside and inside door handles to the door latch. Below is a picture of the inside of the driver's door. There is one cable connecting the inside door handle to the latch, and another cable connecting the outside door handle to the latch.
Below is a close up of the rocker mechanism I made to attach to the square shaft of the door handle. The spring is used to return the door handle to the normal position, and the long vertical bolt at the rear of the rocker makes contact with the bottom face of the door frame to set the normal position of the door handle:
Nice clean solution. The front hinge plates on my Fat 600 body are toast, figured that being so I might as well opt for rear externally hinged doors and your latch assembly makes good sense for what I'm planning. Just have to be sure that the mounting plates that come with the "kit" are big enough to span the bad metal.
Thank you for the links and photos ! ! !
A few small fixes to report. When I fired up the engine for the first time, it would only run for a few seconds, and then sputter and die. After some internet searching, I realized that I had forgot to ground one of the wires on the AFM, which is needed to keep power to the fuel pump after starting. Once I grounded that wire, the engine now runs continuously!
When I removed the shifter to fill the turret with transmission fluid, I broke the brittle plastic bushing at the bottom of the shifter:
I found a brass version of the bushing on Amazon, which arrived today. I installed it tonight and the shifter feels good, with less play than the OEM plastic one. Given that the extension I added to the shifter amplifies any play at the base, this was a welcome improvement!
Time for an update. When I first got the engine running, the hydraulic lifters were ticking quite loudly. I had read some good things about using SeaFoam, so I picked some up and put some in the crankcase. After letting the engine run with SeaFoam for a few minutes, the lifter tick quieted down substantially.
The donor Miata uses a separate turn signal light in addition to the tail/brake light. Because I am using a combination stop/turn/tail light, I had bought a non-powered 3-to-2 wire trailer light converter to combine the functions. It turns out that the original converter I bought did not work properly with the LED stop/turn/tail lights that I am using. When turning on one of the turn signals, the turn signal light would flash as expected, but the opposite side lamp would also flash faintly. Also, when I put on the hazard flasher lights, my high mount 3rd brake light would flash in unison with the 4-way flashers.
The solution was to buy a powered LED compatible 3-to-2 wire trailer light converter. This new converter has a 12 volt input from the battery, and uses the signals from the incoming wires to direct the 12 volt input to control the lights, rather than passing voltage from the signal wires through the converter directly to the lights, as is the case in the non-powered converter. The old and new trailer light converters are shown below.
I also got the windshield wiper installed. Although the wiper is needed to pass inspection, I don't plan on driving the car in the rain, so I just picked up one of the cheap universal hot rod wipers from Amazon.
Getting closer to having it ready for inspection! After reading through the local motor vehicle act regulations, I added mud flaps to the rear of the car. Not pretty, but I think they will be needed to pass inspection, and I didn't want to run full fenders.
I also got the windshield glass custom cut from a local supplier. I won't be installing any other glass in the car for now, but I might consider it later. The roof panels have also been added but need to be painted or covered. You can see in the picture that the rear roof panel and the front roof panel are joined by a piano hinge that runs the width of the car. The rear roof panel is bolted to the top of the car and the front roof panel can fold back to sit on top of the rear roof panel, so that the driver and front passenger can enjoy open air motoring. 
The hood needs a bit of tweaking to fit a bit better before I paint it black to match the upper half of the car.
Got the hood primed and painted. Quite happy with what can be done with a spray can when you're on a budget!
Decided to make a teaser video. 
I should have pushed a bit harder earlier this year to get it on the road this summer, but I'm okay with next summer:
I'm in the process of working with the local vehicle registration office to get the car on the road. I should have started the process earlier so that I would have been able to have it on the road for the start of summer. At this rate, hopefully it will be on the road by the end of August. 
I borrowed my boss's scales to weight the car.
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