Month: November 2017

Decided to do some seat work today. Its not out in the garage… I did with my dogs help in front of the TV. She mostly watched, but still…

These showed up from the UPS man the other day.

They are Kirkey model 47 Intermediate Road Race Seats. I got the 17″ wide version, which fits me quite well. The belts are RCI Platinum Series Kam-Lok 3″ racing harness’s.

First thing I did was cut the Kirkey label off the seats. They are rubber and I dont feel like doing all that advertising if I’m not getting paid. Then it’s time to install some seat heaters!

I’m installing Cobraheat waterproof seat heaters from Mike Forte at https://www.fortefactoryfive.com/. He’s a great supporter of this industry and sells a quality product.

Some guys had stripped the padding out of their seats to install the heaters right up against the fabric. I wasnt crazy about that and wasn’t sure I could put it all back together correctly. So I decided to install the heaters against the seat frame, but insulate it to project the heat into the seat. After researching some insulation type fabric stuff, I came up with some thermal batting called Insul-Bright., available right down the road at Jo-Ann Fabrics. Off I go and buy 1 sq yard for $7.99.

I cut this piece in half so it gave me a piece that 1.5′ wide by 3 feet long. Test fit it on the seat with a single piece of double sided aircraft carpet tape across the top.

Marked it, trimmed it,

taped the seat with more of the same tape,

…and stuck it all on there.

Next came the heaters.  The back, or upper, heater I decided to install full length. The lower heater wouldn’t fit, so I cut and trimmed it to fit. This is no problem with the elements as long as you are cutting the length. If you try to cut the width, you’ll cut off the power strips inside and then you’ll be cold. These I opted to spray glue onto the insulating batting because I felt the tape on the batting could end up doing something weird when it gets hot and maybe shifting.

So hopefully this will prevent the aluminum seats from becoming big heatsinks and soaking up all my seat heat when I need it the most. I’ve heard from other owners that it still works well and actually works to radiate the heat through all the padding.

Snapped the covers back on and snatched a pic real quick. Tomorrow I’ll get them wired up and see if they work…

By the way, sat in one and watched a movie this evening. They are pretty comfy… cant wait to drive in em. 🙂

 

Hey Guys. Been working on a few small things, trying to wrap up some of the details before i move on to big items. Had a leaking lower radiator hose at the radiator, replaced a 3/4″ heater hose from Auto Zone that had a full length disbond in the hose. Cut that tab off the back of the frame and patched it. Finished drilling my Breeze stainless roll bars and bolting them in.

One thing I’ve put off because I didnt know how I was going to do it is the parking brake. Now this should have been done a long time ago.

I powdercoated and put together the F5 parking brake as supplied in the complete kit. I wasnt crazy about the location, and with it installed, it was too tight on the trans tunnel. The cables wouldn’t pull evenly and didnt really match up with the Wilwood calipers quite right. I decided to go with the Lokar EHB-7000F Universal Floor mount handle and the Wilwoods 330-10993 Universal E-Brake Cables for CPB calipers. The Wilwood cables include a cable equalizer for 2 cables, an adjustable cable housing mount and several tight fitting cushioned Adel clamps.

I removed the 4 angles from the Lokar and the Lokar clevis. Installed the Wilwood equalizer and installed the handle as far aft as I could on the RH side of the trans tunnel. I quickly saw that was a mistake, as there was nowhere to mount the Wilwood cable housing mount. So I moved it forward, using the original front bolt hole as the aft. I mounted it with some 3/8″ countersink bolts I had around and some .250 steel spacers to give the clevis room from the frame.

Since everything in there is at an angle, it became a challenge to mount the cable housing mount. Needed to keep it pretty straight with the handle. I decided to pickup the lower bolt mount through one of the diagonal supports and the upper would just mount to the aluminum using a 1″ steel spacer. I may go back and install a thick mounting plate that will bolt to the diagonal that will give more support to the cable mount.

Attached the Wilwood cables to the brakes, easy peasy, ran them around over the axle to the cable mount. Clamped in a few places. Pulled out the inner cables and cut the housings using a pair of heavy cable cutters. No issues. Installed the inner cables, ran everything up to the handle and locked em down. Cut the cables with a dremel cutoff wheel and duct taped the ends.

Used the adjustable equalizer to tighten up the cables quite easily. First pull, brakes are locked tight at the 3rd click. Easy to pull when seated and doesnt look too bad.

Also cut off the original bracket and patched the trans tunnel hole.

I know I may have an issue with leather boots and trim rings when I finish off the trans cover, but I have something of a plan for that that I hope will look pretty cool.

OK, on to more little stuff…