It’s not pretty, but the fuel tank prep is completed. To prep the tanks 1″ holes were drilled (shown previously) and then filed out gradually to allow a very tight fit for the bulkheads. Before inserting the bulkheads I picked up some 3M 8115 Panel Bonding Adhesive to aid in sealing up the bulkheads completely. You need a special gun to use this adhesive, and they are very spendy – but check if your local autoparts store has a loaner (like mine did). I applied the 8115 to the threads of the bulkhead very generously then inserted them and tightened them into place. It helps to have a 1 3/8″ wrench handy to hold the inside nut in the fuel tank in place so you can really crank down the outside nut to tighten it. Once tightened I applied a bunch more 8115 to the outside of the bulkhead. Better safe than sorry! Fuel tank prep is finished with reassembling the tank innards and plugging off the previous filler holes using the FFR supplied clamps and plugs.

Erik (friend building the engine) emailed me yesterday morning to inform me the pistons were going to be delivered. This was pretty exciting considering the pistons are the last thing we need for the engine.

Later in the day Erik emails me again – the pistons are completely wrong. The awesome guys he ordered the pistons through sent the wrong specs to the factory. EPIC FAIL. Another three week wait. At this point I wish I would have just went with a Katech crate engine – I would have an engine installed and probably be getting ready to send the car off for body work.

Over the last few days I have worked on a few different things. Fuel tank preparation is underway – I need to pick up a wrench that will allow me to get inside the fuel tank and tighten the bulkhead fittings, and then I will be able to reassemble the tanks. Getting them apart was a pain – the driver side guts are like a puzzle. It helped to partially disassemble the float meter connector.

Attached the defrost duct tubing – this was easier than the AC ducts were.

Cruise control wiring is finished for now. I need the clutch pedal position (CPP) switch to complete the CC system. The brake pedal position (BPP) switch and stalk harness wiring is all completed, though. The cruise control harness from the steering stalk uses four wires, three run to the C2 plug on the UHFB at the back of the car, and the other (pink) is a switched power source. The Painless harness supplies a pink cruise control wire that can be used for this. This wire is also used to supply power to the brake pedal position switch’s pink wire. The other wire on the BPP switch purple goes to the C2 plug as well. The cruise harness wires that run to the C2 plug are gray, gray/black, and dark blue. These are color matched with the pins A4, B4, C4. The purple wire on the BPP switch goes to pin B6, which is blue.

Hoping the pistons arrive for the engine this week…

The engine will be a while still so I am slowly ticking off the few things left that I can do before it arrives. Tonight I wired up the fog lights relay and instrument dash lighting wire, cleaned up the wiring a bit, and installed the blower motor into the passenger footbox.

The fog light relay is straight forward, and is wired like the other relays. I did not have a bottom plug for my relay so I just did a quick mock install to ensure I have the wiring right. Once I pick up a plug it will only take a few minutes to do up the final wiring.  The console switches (fog lights and flashers) require an input from the instrument dash wire. This wire comes in the Painless harness and is not attached to anything. I spliced mine into the parking light wire (after it exits the relay) so that the switches will only glow when the lights are on.

The AC blower motor did not take long to install (5 screws) once I trimmed away some Dynaliner that was preventing it from fitting flush with the frame member it attaches to. 

‘Matted and ‘Lined the door sill aluminum this week. I’ve also figured out some wiring I wasn’t sure about (fuel tank harness, ac pressure sensor), so that will be easy once that time comes. It’s time to kill some time until the engine gets here, which probably won’t be until mid-February. I still have some prep work to do  (assembling axles and fuel tanks), and some front-end wiring left (fog lights and flasher/fog switches).

Today I riveted the door sill aluminum into place. Bad day for drill bits, as three snapped while drilling out the frame. Afterwards I applied the Dynaliner to the driver side floor. Next up – door sill ‘mat + ‘liner.

You guessed it – another night of sound dampening. I finished up ‘matting the driver footbox, then applied the 1/4″ Dynaliner to the walls and front-most floor piece of the footbox. I used the 1/4″ on the front-most floor piece because the 1/2″ liner combined with carpet on top of that would interfere with the gas pedal’s range of motion. I did most of the driver floor then realized I should probably put the door sills in place to see how they fit with the Dynamat and liner in place. Everything fine on the driver side (without the Dynaliner in place), but the passenger side took a bit of elbow grease to get the sill to slide down between the frame and the already applied liner and mat. I will permanently rivet the sills into place next, then finish the last part of the driver floor, and mat/line the sills.

Before finishing up the passenger side today I had to cut an aluminum piece to close out the hole left in the front of the passenger footbox created by the lack of AC shroud since I am relocating my blower motor. I used the extra footbox piece that was left out since the car was using AC. A quick cut with the dremel got the piece sized right, and then I riveted it to the frame. With that out of the way I finished up the passenger footbox.

The driver side was more of a challenge since the footbox is pretty crowded (wiring, pedals, steering column, etc), but with some patience it all went smoothly. I completed the floor panels as well, and only have to ‘mat the outside of the footbox where the wire terminals are mounted (didn’t feel like pulling them off tonight). After that I will put down the Dynaliner. When installing the footbox ‘mat I sandwiched the vent’s mesh grill piece between the aluminum panel and the ‘mat, holding it in place.

Got the Xtreme Dynamat and Dynapad in the mail today so now I have something to do for a while. The task list is running low while I wait for the motor to come.

I started on the passenger side tonight by putting down the Dynamat in the footbox, then over the floor. After I finished with the ‘mat I got out the 1/2″ Dynaliner and put that down on the floor and bottom of the footbox. This stuff is really nice and makes the floor and footbox sound extremely solid when you knock on them. I just have to finish putting 1/4″ Dynaliner in the footbox and then I will move over to the driver’s side and repeat. I will put the mat and liner over the tunnel aluminum later after it is installed into place so that I don’t have to worry about riveting through all the extra material.

Today I attached the OBDII sensor to the frame (two 3/16 rivets by the pedal box) and wired it up. Purple wire runs to the back of the car, orange wire gets keyed power, and the black and black/white striped wires get grounded.

After that I extended the black, gray, white, and blue wires that run from the cooling fans at the front of the car to the back of the car where they will be joined into the UHFB. Since I was there, I wired up the Heater Control Valve (HCV). Green wire from the Vintage Air wiring goes on either pin, other pin gets grounded to the frame.

Finally, I spent some time cleaning up the wiring and organizing everything that will run to the front of the car (headlights, parking lights, turn signals, and horn) and started taping those together. I need to pick up some good wire loom so I can do a final cleanup on the main wiring coming out of the fuse panel. It still looks ‘messy’ now, but it is all organized and just needs to be zip tied all together and covered.