Hackster's Autocross Track Day Truck (Garage Build)

[hackster]

Originally Posted by rustomatic

Okay, so it's like this:

Horsepower unit: Check.

Springy stuff: Check.

Wires and bolts for above-mentioned contraptions: Check.

Tires: Check.

Gas-moving device: Check (I think).

Shifter: May still require like three bolts or so. (Check soon.)

Seat: There's one somewhere.

We know you do good work, and the thing will be perfecto when done, but USCA does not require perfecto (the last and next iterations of my death trap were and will be evidence). We know it will happen soon enough. A place for the cheeks, bolted down, a couple pedal thingys, and a tiller, and you're good for the weekend.

I absolutely love your enthusiasm my friend and cannot wait to meet you in a few weeks.

I agree, I will get it done, really hope its at least close. I already know that there is going to be a wheel change and some other stuff but I am close.

I appreciate your words of encouragement.

Seat Tracks from mustangs unlimited showed up today along with the hardware to bolt the seats to the tracks and the tracks to the brackets. Its a lot of crap to order all this stuff from scratch.

Got the seats out, bolted the rails to the seats and figured out the latching mechanism. Amazingly enough my hacked together seat brackets from a set of downloaded drawings on the internet bolted right to the truck and the seats bolted right to the brackets.

I had to get these bolted in and see how they fit in the truck.



Look great in there, sit at the right height, arm to window is great as well.



Also managed to spend a few minutes on the seatbelts and got them mocked up in there. They fit great....the cable end near the console might need to be a touch longer but they look great.



The silver looked terrible on these so I painted them black. I am not really sold on the black but it looks a hell of a lot better than the silver did. They go great with the stuff on the firewall. Need to pickup some washers for the hood bolts and I can get the hood bolted down.





I really hope that the weather stays dry and I can get a few road miles on it this weekend.

Sean

[PonchoJohn]

Originally Posted by hackster

Took a little bit of time to work on the beat to #*(& hood that I got off the parts truck. It is very much not straight but its not all rusted out either. Not too sure I can live with all of the dents and stuff on it but it will have to work till I can find a straight one.

Scrubbed it up first of all, hit it with some 800 then 1500 and several passes with the buffer and it doesnt look terrible. Kind of funny seeing how different years or different models of truck have different paints on them. This one appears to just have a black primer over the metal and then color over that. Appears to be original paint as well.



It is just sitting on there, no hinges to bolt on yet.

Get a heat gun and some cans of compressed air (keyboard cleaner, etc.).
Heat up the dent, but not so much that you overheat the paint, then invert the compressed air can and spray the heated area. The inverted can will shoot out super cold spray that will make the dents pop back into their metal memory shape.
It may take small steps to pop a big dent, but it should help you

[hackster]

Originally Posted by PonchoJohn

Get a heat gun and some cans of compressed air (keyboard cleaner, etc.).
Heat up the dent, but not so much that you overheat the paint, then invert the compressed air can and spray the heated area. The inverted can will shoot out super cold spray that will make the dents pop back into their metal memory shape.
It may take small steps to pop a big dent, but it should help you

I have heard of this in the past....I think I am going to give it a shot and see if it makes it any better. Hood is pretty bad though, it came open on the freeway and hit the top of the cab at some time.....also the reason I did not keep the cab on the parts truck =)

Thanks for the tip John!!

Sean

[hackster]

Spent a little bit of time yesterday evening cleaning up the shop. It was long overdue for some cleaning and organizing. I even gathered up all the manuals, paperwork, receipts and anything coyote F100 related 3 hole punched them and got them all into a binder. I know I have a problem...I know.



Although I found a little bit more rust than anticipated in the drivers floor board, I made due with it, a little rust mort and a little aluminum panel to reinforce it for now will have to work.

Managed to get 22 sheets of Hush Mat installed on the floor, firewall and back wall of the cab. I think it turned out really good. It was a pain in the ass. Sorry for the poor photos, the phone seems to be taking worse and worse pics with the update.





I had the carpet laying out for the past week or so to try and get the wrinkles out and it payed off. Carpet pretty much laid right in there. Needed some trimming and was a lot of work but I think it looks awesome.





I tucked the carpet under the firewall panel for the steering column as well as under the gas pedal and behind the reinforcement plate for the clutch pedal.



I also got the holes burned in for the seat mounting brackets and the seat mounting brackets bolted in place. Seatbelt on the drivers side is in.

I need a tap for the seatbelt holes in the center and some proper sized washers for mounting the hood. If its dry enough tomorrow I might get the truck out for a few minutes.

Sean

[hackster]

Got the seatbelt for the drivers side all installed, bolted in the seat for temporary and checked it all out. With the stock foams int he seats they are very comfortable. Great seating position and easy pedal operation.

Got the hood on it and tried to line it up but the hood is pretty messsed up from opening going down the freeway sometime in its life.

Had a little bit of help from some friends and figured out why the speedometer was non operational. Turns out the information I got from Ford Racing was wrong and I had two of the wires on the sender backwards. He is a full time tech and we pulled up the wiring diagram from All Data.....It was awesome.

Swapped the two wires back and forth on the connector and Voila....working speedometer.

Now onto the bad news.

I have a noise in the engine that we are unable to locate. It sounds like spark knock or pinging but it sounds pretty mechanical sometimes as well. I pulled the pan a while back and inspected and there was nothing in there. I also did an oil change after running for a couple hours or so and there was nothing in there either.

So I needed to dig further to find said noise....its not healthy.

Pulled Passenger side cam cover to inspect.







I do not see anything wrong on anything that I opened up. The top end on this thing looks like its brand new but I am not a Ford trained technician.

I think it sounds like timing chain to me. The only thing I did see was some whitness marks on the backside of the timing chain that indicate its been running against some plastic, dark colored like black or dark brown. I am wondering if I have a chain guide/tensioner issue but am not too sure how to tell if I do or not.

Oil pressure is excellent 100 psi at startup and around 40 at a hot idle.

Could be spark knock because of the no cats, open exhaust and open element air filter...could be mechanical issues I have no idea at this point.

Any input? Its almost impossible to get video of it since it has to be running and driving.

Pretty sure at this point that I am not going to make Thunder Hill, I just am running out of time to do it all.

Super Bummed out.

Sean

[DBasher]

Just a quick search and I've found that it's fairly common on these motors...passenger side ticking. It seems more noticeable when guys have done headers or cat deletes. It appears ford issued a TSB on the timing chain at some point as well, I'd start there.

Is it RPM related?
What oil? Some folks mentioned hearing it after an oil change.
Can you plug in to see if any codes have popped up?
Check your PS pump and make sure it's got the clearance, Clarence.

I'll look into it some more tonight when I've got more time...don't worry you'll get it figured out.

25 days....just keep swimming, just keep swimming

[hackster]

We thought it was spark knock or Pre ignition being a really lean conditions so I ran some 110 octane through it last night, no change at all.

There is no other signs of damage other than the plastic on the one connector. The electrical connections appear to be just fine inside that one.

Pulled the serpentine belt off last night to rule out alternator, tensioner and water pump. Same noise.

Added in some hyper lube to the engine oil as I have heard good things about it same noise.

Picked up a stethoscope and got it good and warm and tried to pin point the tick. There is literally no noise from the engine. It was loudest near drivers side tire. So I started poking around with the stethoscope around the exhaust and frame then hit the bellhousing and the noise was very clear in the stethoscope.. tick tick tick.

I have no idea if the tick tick tick and clatter are related to each other, they sure sound similar though.

Push in clutch pedal, hot tick goes away.

Going to drain transmission fluid this am and flush and refill with redline MTL.

Interior has to get finished today and over to the upholsterer. Trip permit is going to run out and I need to get it registered so I am playing hooked from work for a little bit today.

Work peeps following along.....thanks for understanding =)

I'll report in in the MTL helped at all.

Sean

So....I had one dry day, and one day to get the upholstery done and get it to the upholstery guy.

Got the MTL swapped in, that was a nightmare by the way. It made no difference in the clatter. I raised up the rearend a little bit and went for a cruise. I put 10 gallons of fuel in the truck and drove it to the DMV.

Well its got a couple really big problems. The driveline vibration is bad. It does go away at some speed not sure what speed that is, it seemed to change around a little bit.

3rd gear, well it does not go into it all the time. Seemed to work about 80% of the time but twice at least I got a grind out of it.

The Clatter that I mentioned before and thought was pinging or detonation is clearly not. It is a mechanical issue, its present in any gear clutch in or out once its warm and has been driven a ways it will make it in the driveway.

Swapped in a brand new set of Motorcraft plugs just to rule that out.Also double checked the coil packs on each plug, verified operation as best I could. No difference.

So I am done with this thing for a bit. I am mentally destroyed between this and my actual work load.

I finished up all the work on the interior since I had a deadline with the upholstery guy tonight.

Here is what I ended up with on the console. I thought it turned out really well for a backyard shop.

Adding a little detail for the side to break it up. This is 1/8" material.



Cut out, mocked up and letting the glue dry



So this piece serves two purposes. Cover the screw holes that hold the thing together and add a little detail to the top of the side panels. The 1/8" piece is about 3/4" shorter than the side, giving a nice little detail when it is being covered. The side will be covered in one piece each. The center panel will be removable for access to run wiring and things like that down the center. Panel will have a french stitch all the way down the middle to keep the theme on everything.



Going to get the shop all cleaned up and push the truck to the side for a while.

Thanks for following along everyone and offering up your help, I really do appreciate it.

Sean

[waynieZ]

"Thanks for following along everyone and offering up your help, I really do appreciate it."

Sean

Thank you for posting!

[andrewb70]

Sean,

If the ticking noise goes away when you push the clutch in, I would be exploring either a clutch or a throw out bearing issue.

Andrew

[rustomatic]

It sucks to hear about issues like you're having, but really, some of them should always be expected with a new build. It will probably be a year of time between when I bought the engine/trans (currently sitting in my Falcon) and when it might be fired. Here's hoping for a lack of issues . . .

Let's take a minute to blame unreasonably optimistic expectations and the need for artificial deadlines on reality TV. These elements added to a hobby will frequently ruin the value--don't let it happen. Just chill. Be the boss.