Building Tips

[ERA 778]

One of the smartest things I did was to take tons of photos as I took everything apart. You think you can remember the little details, but you won't! ERA ships the car pretty much assembled, but first thing you have to do is take it all apart. Take photos of each area and part before you remove it. For example, the shrouding around the radiator and oil cooler is very complicated and you will save tons of time by capturing everything in photos as you remove each piece.
Bonding the body is not difficult at all; you just need a few friends to help lift it off and to put it back on. As was mentioned earlier, the front inner fender panels will help you align everything perfectly; just make sure you get the original holes to line up.
One thing I wish I had done was to drill more of the rivet holes before I took the car apart. This assures you of good alignment, but you must be careful since you will be drilling blind into round tubing - very difficult to get the alignment correct. Just take your time!

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by ERA 778

One of the smartest things I did was to take tons of photos as I took everything apart.

That is really great advice. And not just for when you're putting it together, but for years from now. I have taken literally thousands of pics of my car over the years, and they have come in handy many, many times. In fact, just this past weekend I was reviewing seven year old pics of part of my car to see if something had changed that I was pretty sure had. As it turned out, it was just my imagination. It's hard to argue with a seven year old picture that shows something is exactly the same as it is today. Not to mention some of the mods/changes I've made over the years and, but for the copious notes and pics, can no longer remember....