Owner lends a hand

 At certain points in the building of a rod, you really need the owner/driver to be on hand - yet we often hear how cars languish in shops for years on end without so much as a call and with little or no consultation between owner and technician. There's seat height, leg room length, pedal and steering wheel placement, console shape and location of the many components and much more. As well, most of the cars and rods I do are owned by those interested in doing some of the work themselves, so along the way they sometimes come over to the E-tek Shop to get their hands dirty, work with me on style and fitment and generally enjoy parts of the process. Such was the case today.

As we were discussing various parts of the built, the owner noted that I had the AC and tranny cooler lines mixed up (not sure what I was thinking there!). The tranny cooler lines from the 5.0L's transmission must have connected to a side-mounted cooler in the original "donor" vehicle and they lined up perfectly with the AC cooler lines on this rad, so I was under the impression that was where the connection was to be made. These were going to be connected by a Rad/AC shop off-site, but with this realization, we were able to cut and bend the tranny cooler lines and now - with some reduction fittings and a couple lengths of hose - I'll be able to get them connected for the initial run-up. The AC cooler (crimped) lines and charge can be done much later.

Also got some metal work done today on the hood in order to bolt up the latch panel. What I'll do this time is add a long piece to reinforce the edge where it attaches so as to stop this from occurring again. The edge obviously moved every time the hood was opened/closed (and maybe even while driving), causing the stress fracture.

Dismantled the headlight pots for sandblasting:

Lots more to come - hope you can come back weekly and join us!