Panels, Rear Axle, Suspension and Pedals

This covers a couple of weeks' worth of work.

Here's the first panels installed back on the car. We have got the chassis lifted up on jack stands now, too. Makes for a better working height.

First bits of the front suspension installed.

Shock absorber and brake disc are in place.

Remember the rear axle? Alan had to take the cover off, to attach the rear brake mounting points on the ends of the axles. You can see all the gearing inside.

We manouvered and manhandled the axle underneath the back of the car to get it into place; this was a bit of a task since it weighs about 300 pounds! We shuffled it forward bit by bit, resting on axle stands, until it was close enough to attach all the suspension parts. At this point we were able to jack it up into position, and Lo! it stayed put :-)

Note to other builders: When the manual says to remove all the parts on the chassis before you start building, that includes this panhard frame, bolted on.... the axle has to go above this, OK?

Look, we have pedals! This is the clutch and the brake; the gas pedal comes in a little bit.

Unfortunately Wilwood (who make the pedals) have changed their design. While the new style is stronger, it also now fouls on the chassis. So Alan consulted the Interwebs, and found that folks either cut the chassis or doctor the pedals, to get enough travel. He figured it was less scary to cut the pedal, and easier to buy a new one if it got screwed up, so he took a Dremel to the side of it; you can see the silver cut mark on the lower part of this picture.

Here you can see the master cylinders for the brake pedals (front and rear brakes), and the clutch cable installed. Note to other builders again: See the panel here, in front of the pedals? This was contained in a box, it is not the one that was installed on the car for delivery! They are similar, but not the same. We think they may send ones for different models of car. Make sure you fit the right one...

Onwards!

Rear Axle

Here's the rear axle. It's pretty substantial. Probably just as well; it will have lots of horsepowers to handle...

Preparation

The first thing one has to do is to remove the bodywork from the chassis. This means you need somewhere to store it. There are plans drawn in the manual to make a body buck; Alan hybridized this with one on the Factory Five forums to add additional shelving, and made this beast which we lifted the bodywork on to:

This leaves the chassis, with the aluminium panels in place underneath.

Another view from the other end. Next, the panels all need to be removed. They are all just screwed on, so you can just whip them off. There are more panels in boxes; this isn't all of them...

All off! Here's the chassis completely bare. Now the fun begins...

Feline approval

Our cat, Smokey, immediately claimed the chassis as a favourite place to sit underneath :-)

Delivery

Alan has always wanted to build a car. He decided to build a Factory Five Mk4 Roadster. Which is pretty awesome.

Here is the monster sized truck that turned up to deliver the car, from Stewart Transport. All the neighbours came out to see what the big truck was doing here ;-)

They have a very cool crane on the back of the truck to lower the cars off the truck. They used to tell people to have six guys waiting to manhandle the cars off until they got this. If memory serves, this is Mark guiding the car down off the hoist.

The cars are delivered with the bodywork on the frame. On to the trolley it goes, to be wheeled down to our garage. Angel is steadying the front end.

And here we are in the garage, after Mark hefted the car up to allow the trolley to be yanked out from underneath. The whole thing weighs about 450 pounds, so this was no mean feat. We didn't know we were meant to have jack stands ready to place the chassis on to. Sorry, Mark. Note to others: Get jack stands!

The mountain of boxes behind the car is just some of the myriad of cartons that accompanied the car. We have a lot of parts.

A closer view of the seating area in the car...