I've been pretty busy lately but I'm still managing to get some hours with the car.....
Here's a list of completed items
Hydraulic throw out bearing installed. Had to modify the spacing collar but works now
Fuel line as far as the engine bay
Brake line from rear end to engine bay
Battery cables installed
Installed the manual hidden boot release
Got a box of parts in from the US which included all rubbers and weatherstriping.
Sorted out the heating/cooling dept. (thanks to Craig M)
And most importantly i have found two guys to paint my car!!!!! I heard about two Polish guys a while back that do great work on classic cars, so I have been asking around for about a year to try and get in touch with them. By chance i called a cousin of mine looking for someone to spray one of our drilling rigs and he gave me the number of a Polish guy which turned out to be one of the guys I was looking for. Anyways, long story short I got chatting to him and his mate and went to have a look at their work. I was very very impressed, one of the best buddies is a panel beater and I brought him along to check out their work, he was also very impressed. So I pulled the trigger and they started on the body work last weekend. They are working in my shop and then they will take the car to a spray booth once it is time for paint. I prefer it this way so I can keep control of everything. They work Thursday and Friday evening then all day Sat and Sun which is about 60 hours per week which suits me in terms of spreading out the cost and it allows me to still work on my car mon/tue/wed.
I can safely say that the FG is crap, total crap. To anyone out there if you want to build an E-car and you want the gaps to be anyway in line then plan to spend alot of time and money doing so.
I bought my Kit from South West Fabrications who were the original manufacturers for Unique performance. They made the kit exclusively for UP and only after UP went bust did they start selling to Joe Public. They offered me the first kit at 50% discount in return for an honest review of the kit on the internet. When i sent them my honest review with a break down of all the issues they replied asking me not to post the review. Ok, my review was 2 year late and they tell me that they have fixed all the issues with the kits but i would approach with caution :rant........As Gene in G-tech says "these kits are universal, they need that much work you could fit them to any car"
Here are the list of issues I've had so far and this is not the end of it.
Deck Lid
After having a good look at the FG deck lid I decided not to use it. We estimated about 1 weeks work to get it in good shape. With the car sitting so low to get the lines 100% perfect all the way around the gap would have taken considerable time. I was able to source a cheap OEM metal deck lid and then I bought the Mustangs to Fear bolt/bond on spoiler.
Front Fender
Again after test fitting I decided not to use the FG fenders. I cut the flare and the rocker extension out of the FG unit and bonded it onto the OEM steel fenders. Again I weighed up the estimated work taken to make the FG fenders works compared to the time to modify the OEN ones. I know several other guys on the forums ended up doing the same thing with your FG fenders.
Rear Flare
These worked well.
Headlight panel
The gap on the top of the panel where the hood sits was too narrow for the hood. This gap had to be extended to allow the hood to close. There was a lot of bubbles in the gel coating on this part. I have attached a picture so try and explain these problems. The curve of the centre opening is very different on both sides. The passenger side curves up and goes straight up, however the driver sides curves up and then comes back in on itself. On the underside of the panel the indent for the passenger side light is off centre.
500E hood
The hood was about 8mm too narrow on the passenger side. It had to be extended with FG.
Lower Scoop
This part was generally good.
Lower Valance
The distance between the centre opening and the lower spot lights is different on both sides. Approx 8mm difference. I have highlighted them in the attached document.
Mount Kit
We had to modify the light mounted bar to suit.
Rear Bumper
The Rear bumper had to be heavily modified on the ends to look right. It was too wide for the body so we had to build up the inside of the bumper to allow us to sand it down. And the shape of the bumper was different to the quarter extension.
Rocker Panel
This panels were generally good and did not take much work to fit. However I decided not to mould them into the wings.
Rear Quarter Extension
These were generally good and needed a reasonable amount of work to fit.
Tail Light Panel
This panel was good. It took a reasonable amount of work to make it fit.
Upper Scoop
The upper scoops fit very well.
I have also attached a document illustrating my difficulties.
They asked me not to post this info but I owe it to anyone considering their kit. And i am pissed at how much i have to spend to make this kit work. :rant
Anyways....some progress pics.
 |
| Got my air cleaner cover in. Custom made, Not another one like it in the whole wide world!!! |
 |
| Hyd. Throw out bearing |
 |
| Got all the small FG brackets, sand blasted, primed, painted and installed. |
 |
| Fuel line and inline filter. |
 |
| Battery Cut off switch, I still need to make a cover for this |
 |
| Lines and edges coming together after hacking the kit to bits. |
To Do List
Get the motor back in to check spacing on the new master brake cylinder and booster i got from R&C
Tackle the cabling nightmare.
Source headlights
Order new headers, Rad and Fans.
