Engine Rebuild

Our Trip and Progress for this Weekend So we had a great weekend! We picked up our kit in Greensboro on Friday from Whitby Motorcars. Jeff Collins at Whitby was a great guy. He had everything ready for us, and actually let us test drive one of the finished FFR Cobras. We had a terrific time, and made it back with out any problems. Then on Saturday, William worked me to exhaustion. We finally came in about 9:30 and collapsed. I couldn't even stay awake for the Lennox Lewis fight....How crazy is that???
William and I took Friday off from work and drove to Whitby Motorcars in Greensboro, NC. By the way, the camera date is wrong... I didn't figure it out till we got home later that afternoon.	This was a really nice red body that Whitby's had just finished painting. They do beautiful work and changed our minds from a dark green paint color to this candy apple red.	This was one of the finished cars at Whitby's. It was a really good paint job, and had very expensive wheels. I decided that silver doesn't let the side pipes stand out enough.	This was the engine compartment of one of the cobras at Whitby. I was mainly interested in the steering shaft assembly.	That is the back of Jeff Collins. He is a great guy, and was really helpful to us. He had spent a lot of time with us to make sure our questions were answered.
Jeff rolled the red body outside so we could see the paint color in the sun. We were completely impressed, and there was no doubt by this time that our car will be red.	Jeff let us take the blue cobra for a test drive. William had been concerned about the manual steering rack (especially for me). I did okay, but I think we're going with power steering.	Loading the kit on the trailer. It's funny that an entire car fits in 9 boxes (aside from the body and the chassis).	We got back home around 4:30. This was plenty of time to unload and smile from ear to ear!	William was taking off the straps, and getting ready to unload.
There are the 9 boxes that contain all of the kit parts.	It looks like there will be a lot of body work to do.	While we were up at Whitby's we brought back Rick Williams' wheels. He came right over to pick them up, and to chat for a while.	Just as it was getting dark we got the body and chassis off the trailer. I wanted to wait and call some friends, but William decided we could do it ourselves.	We got the car off by using several old tires, a pallet, a floor jack, some chain, a structural support on the house and just the two of us.
I was worried, but William was confident it could be done. This is the smug look to me "I told you so". I should not have doubted....	We are together and very happy to have our kit. We are building FFR-2582. It is completely dark at this point, but it's not time to stop yet!	Pushing the car in for the night.	I'm tired and ready to go in. It's about 9:30 at this point, and I was really hungry.	"Okay you go on - I'll be up in a minute". Famous words of many married men around the world.
Saturday morning, bright and early, Dave showed up to pick up the mustang shell.	Dave was using a come-along to get it up on the trailer.	Up on the trailer and getting ready to go.	Dave was a really nice guy, his son totaled Dave's 5.0 so he was going to use the shell to put one back together using the mechanical parts from his wrecked car.	After Dave left, we ran out to Lowe's and bought all of the supplies to build a body buck. I was in charge of laying out the patterns.
After working really hard, it was nice to take a break in my favorite lawn chair while talking to our neighbor Al.	Coffee break's over - back to work. William kept me really busy!	The finished body buck! Let's hope my measurements were correct!	Again, William decided he couldn't wait for help. He was trying to convince me that I could pick the body up over my head and get it over the body buck... I DON'T THINK SO! So we asked our neighbor Al for some help.	Al helped us get the body on the body buck, and then chatted for a while. We felt really bad because he cut his hand on the fiber glass so we promised him a test drive when it was finished, and he was happy.
It appears that the measurements were correct and we have just enough room to get it in the garage!	Measuring to see if the chassis will fit under the body buck... It's gonna be close!	The Chassis FITS!!!	After a long day of work, we packed everything back into the garage and called it a day!	On Sunday, we labeled all of the aluminum panels, and got ready to take them off.
We took a lot of pictures of the panels so that hopefully we'll be able to put them back on again in the right place.	This is the passenger side seat area and footbox.	Passenger side floor pan. Riveting all of these panels together should be interesting. It may be a source of marital turbulence, but we'll see...	This was after we got all of the aluminum panels taken off, but the chassis is still pretty dirty.	After William cleaned the chassis we let it dry off.
Since it was about 82 degrees and sunny, it dried quickly.	Inside the frame was the kit number. Unfortunately I think either the welder or the paperwork person is dyslexic. Our number is supposed to be FFR 2582 according to the paperwork.	We cleaned the chassis again, using denatured alcohol. It worked really well for getting it ready to paint.	We painted the chassis. I had to stop after a few minutes because I was wasting paint and making too many runs. I put myself in the "time out" chair and figured we would all be better off for it.	After we finished with the chassis, we started organizing all of the aluminum panels that are in the background.
After all was said and done, we had a really good weekend. We took an inventory of what we were supposed to have, and didn't have any major items missing. We had a blast going to Whitby's and definitely will be buying some accessories from them. We are both really excited, and so far have not run into any major arguments. We are looking forward to making progress pretty quickly, and we'll keep ya'll updated.

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