Finally, after months of sweating out what I needed to get and taking time to get parts ordered, I went last week and picked up most of the remaining parts for the car. Mike Forte helped me out from Fortes Parts and got me a nice collection of non-donor build parts to work with. I have (in theory) everything I need now to build it, sans the engine, transmission and associated bits like that.
Mike didn’t have the steering rack, so I’m waiting on the front end and I’m finding bits of hardware I don’t have here or there, but in general I have what I need I think. (Considering what it all cost, I sure hope I do!)
I ended up with a few wrong parts. I need to get different master cylinders for the pedal box because he gave me the wrong sizes, and I didn’t get the hardware that I need to mount the front spindles. I also seem to be missing (or can’t find/recognize) the various bits that go on the gas tank.
Mike’s a nice guy, but his ability to provide information to go with the parts he sells seems to be quite a bit below what companies like Breeze have, where they provide detailed parts list and instructions for everything they sell. Get him on the phone and he knows his stuff, but that doesn’t make up for not having real paperwork. I unfortunately have an unidentified boxes of parts with no indication what is what and how its all intended to work together. In hind sight, I probably should’ve gone with Breeze, as I think its going to take me two or three times as long to put the car together with the parts from Fortes because of the total lack of documentation for them. The whole reason I bought everything at once was to save time.
Live and learn.