Boss 427

Friday, 8/16 I get the call. The Boss is definitely ready to come home. Cut the day short at work and drove to Greensboro, NC and met my brother. We had a nice dinner (spicy Thai!) a few good beers and polished the night off with a very good 40 year old single malt.

Next day, we head to Whitby. Turns out, Jeff had a bit of a surprise for me and a select few of the local Factory 5 owners. I met Dave Smith, owner & president of Factory 5 and the #1 F5 Guy.

Then of course, there’s the car. It is freeking gorgeous. Whitby sure does take their time doing the work, but when it’s done, it’s beautiful.

The paint and bodywork is done and beautiful. Lots of compliments from everyone there… even Mr. Smith. 🙂 Roll bars are polished (remember that mess?) Everything opens and closes with a nice click. Heater defrost vent is installed, roll bars are all drilled (they are now just sitting for ease of transport).

I fired it up on open headers and drove it out to the trailer, got her loaded up, paid my bill and headed home.

Made a nice trip home. No issues. Got her home and my good friend was nearby, so she came over and helped offload. We took a great video, but for some reason, cant upload to this blog. Have to work on that.

So anyways, The Boss is home and I’m ready to get started on the final items. Stay tuned, its gonna be a fun fall…

Remember when I was trying to polish these badboys myself? They looked like this:

…and that was after grinding and sanding away for hours on that RH section. I finally gave up and gave em to Whitby’s to polish while they were doing the Boss’s bodywork and paint. Got a picture back today…

How do ya like those? Beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful… just a few days ago, I received and posted this pic of the body after it had been clear coated. The reflections of the shop lights show a surface that’s uneven and although beautiful, it’s not yet quite right enough…

So the next work they do is to wet sand the clear coat to make it perfectly smooth and straight, despite the 3 colors of paint underneath. Once it’s buffed back up… hoo, boy, does she look even better.

Thats it for today. Planning on picking up the BOSS 427 on Saturday, Aug 17. Jeff at Whitby’s says it’ll be ready…

Clear coat applied. Maybe early next week start color sanding and buffing. Hope to bring her home late next week, about Aug 2.

Blue pinstripe masked over the blue paint

Body sprayed with Ford Sterling Gray metallic, over the main stripes, pinstripes, tape and everything.

First reveal as the masking is all pulled back…

And the fully exposed hood. Everything is going to be wetsanded and cleared, so that reflection of the overhead lights is going to be crisp and perfect.

I love the colors, the stripes and the pin stripes. Very happy with my choices, and its still going to get a LOT better… Stay Tuned!

The Boss is getting its color. Not sure what the base is (should be primer, but its shiny?), but the center section of the body and the entire hood and trunk lid are painted with the main stripe color… Ford TN Silver Gray metallic.

Remember those Tangent Lights I got for cheap, but they were kinda fogged? A builder on the F5 forum found some replacement lights (Blazer UW3682) that looked like they would work, and they were only $20 on ebay. Worth a shot, and they showed up today.

Except for a very few small items, they are exactly the same. So far I’m in $70 for a $250 set of lights.

Since I had LEDs in my old lights, I removed the lights from the bracket and removed the LEDs. After tearing all the lights down, there was onr tiny thing I could see different between them… The clip that holds the fog light lamp in place was made with a different bend. This is a tiny difference that makes no difference.

I also stripped the new lights and removed it’s bulbs. I decided to partially assemble and compare the blue lights. When I installed the blue LEDs, they were very tight in the housing opening. My thinking was that it might pull the bulb out of the housing upon removal and leave the LED in the housing. A little bit of work with a 31/64 drill bit fixed that right up. This comparison was an eye-opener

Reassembled all the parts and put the old lights in the Spares Box, just in case I need them or some parts in the future. I’ll get the wiring done tomorrow morning and post a pic of the LEDs in the new housings with nice clear lenses.

Awesome.

Emailed with the bodyshop today… confirmed and settled on the final paint colors.

It may not be for everyone, but this car isnt for everyone. Its for me, and I love this color scheme. I believe its being painted this week.

I’ve deleted my last 3 entries to this blog. They were all about getting the car painted, being excited, wanting to see my car.

Here’s the gist of it. I dropped off the body of The Boss in Feb of 2018. They told me it would take 6-9 months. I left them alone for 9 months.

After 9 months, I started calling and emailing with no response. Finally, in Feb 2019, I got a call that my body was coming into the shop. My guess is that this means it had been sitting outside for the last year with zero work done on it.

In April 2019, I took the gocart down because I was on vacation. They have been hired to do the bodywork and paint, but also to mount the body on the chassis and mount the windshield. They were also hired to drill the passenger roll bar holes and a defroster hole in the dash. I was told at that time, it would be done in 4-6 weeks. I saw the car, body work was being done. It was still in red gel-coat, no primer. They were block sanding, trimming and setting gaps.

Middle of May, I reached out to see how it was going. They said it was in 1st primer and was outside ‘gassing out’ in the sunshine. Said it will sit outside for about a week, come back in, get block sanded and re-primered, then outside for another week, then blocked once more, then ready for paint. I figured Yes Haw, 2 weeks to paint. There was no further contact until June 11 when they said they were still 2 weeks from painting any color.

On June 20, this shop posted a pic on their FB page that looked like my car. Same base color, same stripe layout. I asked several times if that was my car. Never got a response. I wanted to believe it was, but it was earlier than they said and NOTHING has happened earlier than planned, much less on time.

Several unanswered emails later, I finally asked if it would be ready for my next vacation, last week of July. Answered back on July 5 that that was the plan, and that the car was going to be “trimmed out” next week (July 8-12). I asked on July 10 what “trimming out” means… I thought it was installing trim… Door and hood handles, seals, bumpers, etc. No. It means painting the inside of the panels such as doors, hood, trunk, which is done before painting the outside of the body.

So my car still does not have paint on it. They hope to deliver in about 2.5 weeks.

I deleted 3 posts about all this because I counted my eggs before hatching.

I’ll publish back in a few weeks and let ya know what’s going on or if they send me any pictures. I don’t really believe it will be done on time.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Have been using some of this time to fix or change a few things, like the lights I recently posted.

I never really liked how I did the heated seats. I had placed the heaters between the foam and frame, with a layer of insulation between the heater and frame. When trying them, I found they did not get very warm, and my thought is that the heater was heating the frame more than the person due to the thick seat foam and that the heater was much closer (actually glued to) the thin insulation and the seat frame.

So… I tore em apart! At first I was removing the entire cushion, but it’s glued in pretty well. So I decided to mark the heater positions and then carefully cut the foam out with a very sharp blade. Very careful not to cut the seat cover. These things aint cheap.

I then used some 3M 77 spray glue and glued the heaters into the seats. This is as close as I can get them to the person.

Proceeded to glue the foam back into place. I used some tapes to help hold them in place while the glue dried.

On the second seat, I cut all the space needed for the heaters, not removing any more than I had to. With this seat, I used some very strong double sided cloth carpet tape. I taped the heaters into place, then taped the foam back into place.

I got everything back together, sat in each seat to make sure there was no lumpy foam or a heater had folded underneath. Felt very good and exactly how I want to feel in the Boss. Comfy but secure.

Now its just 2 seats, ready to keep their riders warm, but still looking for a home…