Well the good news is the stance is getting close and I finally got my crows foot for the oil lines. The bad news is I don't have steering again. I fired her up today and tweeked the idle. Man she sounds nice:D Look under the car after about 5 minutes and power steering fluid everywhere. I am pretty sure the steering shaft seal blew out of the rack!! Brand new. So looks like I'll be pulling the rack out...otherwise I would have been driving it tonight.:(
If I had it to do over again, it would have an internal pump. It turned out nice and it was to save a few pennies. The exhaust is not done yet. As soon as I get this rack problem fixed it's heading down his way.

Ahh, I hoped only good news! Did you find a wrench for the coilovers?

Tyler at ATS came to the rescue again. He was nice enough to let me borrow his spanner wrench. Had to raise them 6 more turns. Plenty of clearance now. May end up lowering it a touch. Now I have to pull the rack out.

Maybe I won't be loctiting the rack bolts like DSE says:_paranoid

Turns out it's my fault sort of. The rack comes with a red and yellow plug. You guessed it....I assumed the red was pressure. Wrong! I almost called DSE and completley forgot. There are som many little things with these cars. Probably going to need a new rack and pinion. They aren't that expensive so no biggie. Just a little delay.:rolleyes:

Thanks for posting this.

:thumbsup:

Napa's reman looked like it had been drug behind the truck a few miles and painted by a blind man. Going to pull mine. Probably just the seal popped out under pressure.

Sorry to hear about the Rack problem . Their are so many thing to keep in mind when your assembling these car it makes you head spin. I hope its a quick fix for you. Keep us updated
Wayne

Todd...did you get that sucker moving down the road yet?

Keep at it brother....you're almost there!!! :woot:

Curtis......found out the rack was junk so I didn't bother having you cross town. DSE is selling me a brand new rack at cost. They took care of me as always. It should be here today. Depending on how energetic I am tonight...it will be on it's maiden voyage by the weekend. Stance is pretty dialed in at this point. Need to get out the timing light so I can lock down the distributor. Also resealed the oil line fittings and haven't been underneath to see if that pesky drip is gone.

Delays like those are disappointing for sure. Let me know when you get ready to drive it so I can be there.

Not really.....I expected some hicups. The car has only been here about 3 months.

beautiful car. i've been following your build for a while. looks killer. that is definately one of the nicest 69's i've seen. let us know how the maiden voyage goes. :thumbsup:

thats really cool of them to sell it to you at cost since your the one sticking corks in hole they dont belong lol.

Come on over so I can slap you. :unibrow: It's Franks fault he didn't send the instructions. Wait it's a Ford rack and pinion. We'll just leave it at that.:rofl:

Thanks man.....she's getting there. I am a little fizzled out at this point.

Good to hear DSE took care of you!
Is the interior in yet?

Interior is last.....probably going to have an interior shop finish it off for me. I still need to get a sound system and the vintage air in there. I'll be driving it with sound deadener, door panels, DSE dash, dash pad, etc until I decide on back seat, stereo, etc. Shouldn't be a real big deal. The back seat is the only possible snag. Sparco doesn't make the material to match my front seats yet. It's not looking like it will be easy to match either. Waiting on two teflon washers and the rack is back in. I did a bolt check on the entire front end last night to make sure everything is torqued properly.

Shouldn't be too long you'll be driving it . Hope it goes smooth for you .

Great build! Cant wait to see it all finished and hitting the streets!

Car looks sick, did you go with Billet hinges yet? I did not see it in the post anywhere. We have some nice black or brushed that would look sick in there along with our billet Fender braces. I also have a bolt kit. If you are interested I will work you a killer deal for all to get them on your car. I really like the build and like you said you cant go wrong with black. Frank did a kick azz job :cheers:

Hey Chris, Frank already got in my trousers:D This won't be the last project for me. Next time around we'll have to do some business.:cheers:

It's been a while since I updated my project. As some of you know I had some fuel system problems after a few test drives. Very noisy pump and low pressure when hot. Replaced the pump and it was junk out of the box.
I was very burnt out after working on the car nonstop since it showed up in April and haven't done much to it for a few weeks. The 100-110 degree temps will zap you pretty quick. After all this is supposed to be fun. I am ready to dig back in with fall and decent temps around the bend. I have redesigned the fuel system with new components and old. I will be running a return style system with the following components:

Feed: 1/2 npt to 10an
New Aeromotive shut off valve/filter 10an
Mallory 140 fuel pump
1/2 hardline and 8AN after pump
Holley return style regulator(Wanted to use the same bracketry)
1/2 hardline and 8 an return line into the top of the tank
1/2 to 10 an Vent from the top of the tank

I am still waiting on two 1/2 stainless fittings from Ricks so I can have ATS weld them in for my new return and larger vent. Ricks only puts a 1/4 npt vent standard. It should be atleast as large as your fuel line. As soon as I get the tank squared away I'll have it knocked out in a couple nights or a day.
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...9/IMG_0971.jpg
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...9/IMG_0974.jpg

I also had some major concerns about the fuel sender. The needle has always been pegged on Empty. Knowing I had 4 gallons in the tank I checked the resistance at my sender plug and found .5 ohms. That explains why it's pegged on empty. After a call to Hector over at Ricks Tanks I discovered that they have the sender off the tank floor more than I expected. Now that I have the tank out and the entire fuel system apart it was time to test it. I found nothing wrong with the sender. It looks like I'll have one hell of a reserve. :D That could get me in some trouble.
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...9/IMG_0968.jpg
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...9/IMG_0969.jpg
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...9/IMG_0970.jpg

It's been a adventurous few weeks to say the least. Business had been crazy busy and I spent the better part of 2 weeks redesigning my fuel system to a return style system which included ATS welding in some stainless stell bungs. I ended up with a mallory 140 pump and three 1/2 npt bungs. Feed, retun, vent. I ran 1/2npt to 10an feed to the pump and 8an hardline and braided to the regulator, 8an and 1/2 hardline return to the top of the tank, 1/2 vent from the top of the tank. Everybody said it was overkill to run that size vent. I filled my car up tonight with the pump at full blast. With a 3/8 barb it would barely take fuel. Mallory really lead me in the right direction. Highly recommend those guys!

After all my fuel fun it was time to take her down to ATS for exhaust. Frank at prodigycustoms sent me my magnaflow system in stainless with 3" pipes and mufflers. After getting the fuel system dialed in and open headers I decided to drive her down to ATS. It's about 15 miles from my place. The car ran absolutely fantastic and I hadn't calibrated the speedo and was running 90-100mph down the I 15 into Vegas. Car felt so good! I get down to the frontage road to ATS and goose it to show off and slammed on the brakes to make the turn. The engine floods out and the headers catch fire from the excess fuel. Now the air cleaner catches fire. Luckily I grabbed my extinguisher for the ride and Tyler came running. I popped the hood immediately and we got it out before much damage. Well turns out the rear float level on a 850 holley being to high will dump fuel into your engine under hard braking especially to a stop. I had the pleasure of spending 4-6 hours sanding headers with soap, water, and fine steel wool, brushing floor boards, and replacing a couple wire loom nylons. I got so damn lucky . She's about 80% of what she was pre fire. Meaning detail wise.
So I pulled the carb off and ripped it apart to see if any debris was present from my fuel plumbing job. Carb was clean. Had to be rear float level. Put her back on the car and it leaked like a siv. Replaced the float bowl gasket and it leaked. Had to replaced the bolt nylons to get it to quit. This is when I went to school on holley float adjusting. Finally got her dialed in tonight .
Time for the test drive. Take her out and hammer her pretty hard. This biatch flys! Running down the freeway doing 80 and it sputter and dies. Just what I need right now. It's out of gas. Best news I have had in 3 weeks. Old lady bring a gas can and she fires right up and I filled it up dialed in the idle and there she sits.
Springs are settling super fast. I need to crank up the coil overs again to get it to where the front doesn't rub and the back looks proportional.
Pictures and a killer video are coming very soon .

Wow! You are like a 'Camaro Batman' :lol:

Seriously, glad it wasn't worse.:thumbsup:

Good stories Todd! You're getting there! :thumbsup:

Cant wait for pics and video!

Fun working out the bugs in a new build. Glad you are starting to enjoy all your hard work. :yes:

And YES we need PICS!! :thumbsup:

Wow.....15 mi w/ open headers. Music to my ears hehe. :thumbsup:
Glad to hear everything is gettin done.
Can't wait for pics and vids. :yes:

Been taking her on routine little runs. To the gym and for a haircut yesterday. Tonight I went to lowes and ran a big loop on the freeway. I have to say driving my 08 550i is a bore now. :rofl: Walking out of lowes tonight made it all worth it. The flourescent light really made the wheels bling. A nice couple was like what is that thing. First set of jaws dropping. The picture sucks but I couldn't resist and shot it with my cellphone. She looked about 10 times as hot. If I had a lawn chair and a 6 pack well....
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...Lowesphoto.jpg

Awesome Todd! Can't believe you left it in the parking lot and it was there when you got back! I guess you are more trusting than me!!

hey rupp you thought about shooting this car while your out here d for sema and penny beating :unibrow:
i know most readers complain about 69s but who gives a hoot. lol

I am not trusting at all! My first one got stolen. It's very nerve racking. Maybe I'll buy me a pitbull to ride shotgun.

Awesome, Todd. Shoot some more pics!

Looks like I might be home in a few days. Hope to make a cars and coffee run when I get there. Hope your up for it as it may be one of my last.

You got a deal.:cheers:

That is still just a killer looking car. What did you ultimately do about routing exhaust?

Looks awesome, even in the crappy cell pic. You did good with this car, was built pretty quick from what I remember? :thumbsup:

Really appreciate it guys. I dumped it before the axle. It's just really tight especially with my stance. The magnaflow system is just not that loud. I also have plans for more sound deadening when I have the interior finished. It was fairly quick. Frank got the car last fall and I've had it for about 5-6 months. I really worked hard on it for a while. I'll have some killer pictures and video when it's officially done.