The Day We Did A Little of Everything
With our time winding down of work days until we debuted the car, the pressure was ON and we all agreed that we needed one full work day. And boy oh boy are we glad we did that – because after nearly 11 straight hours we have seen some serious progress.
And at the risk of boring you completely – here’s a list of the quick hits:
Purchased an air filter. It’s beautiful. We’re in love with it. (See it here!) But after seeing all of the fins that were exposed between our valve covers and air filter – we decided to ask for yet another painting favor and our dear friend Roger is pin stripping them to match with paint from our truck bed.
WE GOT OUR TRUCK BED BACK. It’s amazing. Perfect. Totally obsessed.
With all the body pieces back we ran to the local auto store to grab some green tape to edge all of the pieces before they went back together to protect from bumps and scratches as we strong armed gently put them in place.
Anti-freeze in the radiator. We’ll need about 4 ½ gallons total before running, but after our transmission fluid overflow fiasco, we started slow and added a gallon at first. We were checking out how we might hook up our expansion tank (mounted next to our radiator) and realized we didn’t really need it. Our style of radiator uses a decorative “T” spin-on cap, not a conventional “pressure” radiator cap. Since it was a completely sealed system, we installed a pressure relief valve (it’s a sexy part, we know) at the bottom of the radiator in place of the drain plug. Pro tip: Anti-freeze expands as it gets hot. If the radiator needs to push out extra pressure (or fluid), an expansion tank will hold the overflow of coolant, but also allows for the coolant to vacuum back into the radiator as it cools. Since we didn’t need the expansion tank, our pressure relief valve will pop open to relieve pressure build-up if necessary.
The body went on! Tricky part about this t bucket, since it already had wiring partially complete is that when putting the body on, there’s so many wires to connect before the body can ‘sit’ on the frame. Which means, four girls hold the body hovering lowly over the frame while one girl quickly attaches the wires. Everyone is stronger now because of it, I’m sure.
We replaced our TALL shifter for a shorter shifter and a beautiful new knob from Lokar that Speedway is the only dealer for! The first knob – straight on our car. That feels pretty cool.
Adjusted the shocks. By ourselves. Like pros. Using a spanner wrench (new fun technical term) we moved them up to get the rear tires to fit under the car correctly. Fun fact – adjusting the shocks? That’s how you jack up your rear end. Who. Knew?!
Headlights on! The car no longer looks like an empty eyed sad face, it’s got big beautiful eyes! Hooray!
Put in the fuel cell, battery cage, and battery back in.
Ordered windshield, shifter boot, rear view mirror, and on and on and on…
Crazy right? It was some serious progress. And what’s more amazing is realizing how lucky/grateful/thankful we are that we get to build this in a random corner of the Speedway warehouse. The number of times we’ve had to order ‘just one quick part’ is insane. For those of you non car builders – it’s like renovating a room – you think you have everything you need to paint a room – then realize you don’t have sandpaper and run to Lowes. When you get back you realize that you used the last roller pad when you painted the kitchen last week and you run to Home Depot. And then mid paint you break your brush trimming and at your wits end you run to the local store right up the street.
Also – we understand why free shipping is such a big deal. We’d have placed about a thousand orders by now and that would save hundreds. Is it nap time yet? We’re so so so close…
