Journal: February 2000

	Choose Your Month Pick a Month June, 99 July, 99 August, 99 September, 99 October, 99 November, 99 December, 99 January, 00 February, 00 March, 00 April, 00 May, 00 June, 00 July, 00 August 00 September 00 October 00 November 00 December 00 January 01 February 01 March 01 April 01 May 01 June 01 July 01 August 01 December 01 February 02 May 02 August 02 January 03 Final Entry

  Sunday 02/20/00, In the past couple of weeks I've finished off the pedal box by installing an AC pedal on the stock mustang gas pedal arm. It may not be "original", but it looks pretty good to me. While I was waiting for the rivet gun to arrive from Harbor Freight I installed the front brake calipers along with new disks, bearings and pads. The rivet gun finally arrived so I got a chance to play with it this weekend. If you are building a Factory Five kit, BUY THIS RIVET GUN. I really thought that this would be a good place to save a couple of bucks, but it makes riveting so much easier and faster that it is well worth the price. After I got the floor panels installed I took a break from drilling and riveting and worked some more on stripping the original coating off of the dreaded wheels. My experiment with soaking them in lacquer thinner was working great until the thinner dissolved the stuff used to keep the wash tub from leaking. So now I've got two wheels that still need stripped , a nice round stain on my deck and a patch of dirt under the deck that wont grow grass for 200 years. When that failed, I found a guy that refinishes furniture and had him dip them in his stripping tank. The stuff he used changed the color of the clear coat to a nice bronze, but didn't touch it. So at this point I've exchanged my leaking wash tub, bought some more lacquer thinner and I'm trying the dunking routine again. This time I'm taking them out before the tub starts leaking. I hate these wheels!.

  Sunday 02/27/00, Well, the wheels are finally done! I ended up dunking them to soften up the clearcoat and then using ScotchBrite pads and steel wool to remove it. What a pain in the butt. I the spent the better part of Friday painting the recessed areas dark grey. They turned out pretty nice, but in hind sight it would have been much easier and probably not much more expensive to buy a nice set of used turbines. Consequently, the day I finished them I got an E-mail from David Riley that suggested having them blasted with baking soda. He has had a couple of sets done this way and said it works great. I just wish the sandblasters I talked to would have mentioned this! Thanks for the tip David. I'll chalk this up as another learning experience.
On Saturday I bought the recommended BF Goodrich Radial TA's (235-60-15 front and 255-60-15 rear). This allowed me to hit the first major milestone in the build. IT ROLLS!
Mounting the wheels and tires also allowed me to finish up the front end. Had to torque down the axle nuts and shorten the steering rack tie rods so the wheels point in the right direction with the bumpsteer kit installed. I had cut about an inch off each rod. For anyone not familiar with it, the bumpsteer kit is just tie rod ends with heim joints. It allows the front end to track over bumps without effecting the steering as the suspension compresses.
Mounting the tires also forced me to modify my body buck to fit over the tires. I widened it so it's 6 feet 5 inches between the legs and 38 inches from the floor to the bottom edge of the shelf.
I also started riveting the passenger foot box this weekend. It looks the footbox will fit together well, but the joints at the front of the transmission tunnel may take some trimming. Others have indicated that this area sometimes require a little creative tweaking to get it to fit.