Golden Moose Cobra

Nope...

2011-10-23T20:33:00.001-05:00

Nothing.

Maybe this week...

2011-10-17T06:25:00.000-05:00

I've somehow managed to be very busy lately and still haven't found time to work on the Cobra.

No work

2011-10-11T06:57:00.005-05:00

Apparently, I am getting so slothful, that not only have I not been working on the Cobra, but I am delinquent in posting about my slothfullness. Sorry. Maybe this week.

Another busy week...

2011-10-03T09:53:00.001-05:00

that prevented me from working on the Cobra. I did however work on the Passat. Its headlight went out, this time on the driver side. Two years ago, the passenger side went out and I replaced it. This time, it was even easier as there was less stuff in the way. $15 for the light and 15 minutes and the job was done. The hardest part was figuring out how to work around the fact that the rod that holds the hood up so you can work on the engine is broken. Maybe I will buy one of those for $25 bucks and fix that too someday, but a big board I had laying around seemed to do the trick just fine.

RAV work

2011-09-26T09:50:00.001-05:00

I did a lot of carwork last week, all on the RAV 4 though. It had finally gotten to the point it would not run long at all before starting to stumble. The plug wire kept getting loose almost immediately. And I also started to get the check engine light coming on. Interestingly, it happened while on my way to Home Depot to buy a new water heater for the house, but that is a different time-consuming story. Anyway, I ended up buying a cool, cheap OBD2 code reader at Harbor Freight to double check my suspicions about the engine misfires, and when I used it, I learned that there were 5 codes. Two were for the suspect cylinder, two others were for multiple cylinders, and one was for a different cylinder. I also bought a neat Haynes Repair Manual for the RAV 4 at AutoZone. It gives complete illustrated instructions on just about everything you can think to do to the car.

I decided to replace all the spark plugs and bought some at Advance Auto. Nothing special, just your basic NGK plugs. I started with the obviously bad cylinder and could not get the plug out. I could get a grip on it with the long, deep plug socket, but I could not extract it from the hole (about 5 inches or so deep). I tried a long time and moved on to the second plug which came out with no problem. So I buttoned everything back up and the next day, I regrouped and decided to buy a really nice plug puller with a magnetized socket. Eleven bucks instead of 99 cents.

Next, I went to use this on the bad plug and could no longer even get a grip on the plug. It would not push down far enough. It felt like I was hitting on something rubber on top of the plug itself. The kid next door to me came over to help and we tried everything we could think of to get it out and failed. Eventually, I trekked back to Advance Auto and bought this cool super-long needle nose pliers and a good LED flashlight. With those, I was able to see some blockage and was able to break off a piece. Upon closer inspection, I determined that the plug wire boot had broken in place and that 90 percent or so of it was still down there. More poking and pulling loosened it a bit and eventually, I came up with the idea of using a turkey pin (basically, a very thin strong wire) as a type of pick. I bent the end and was able to hook the rest of the stranded boot plug. After that, I had to go back to Advance to buy some new plug wires as the old ones were clearly dead.

Finally, I was able to get the rest of the plugs out and replaced, and put on the new plug wires. Nathan had driven by on his way to his grandma's and actually stopped to help me for a few minutes. It went very smoothly, and now the RAV seems to be purring like a kitten. I just hope that there wasn't much/any leftover junk from the shredded plug wire boot that will find its way into the cylinder itself and possibly cause damage to the piston rings. Time will tell.

No hot water

2011-09-18T14:59:00.001-05:00

No, not the Cobra...my house. After 30 years of fine service, my hot water heater seems to have died. Any free time to work on the car this week instead went into the hot water heater problem. Sadly, I could not get it working again. So in the next day or two I will be buying a new one. Not sure who I will get to install it.

Just one day's work

2011-09-11T23:20:00.000-05:00

I worked on the Cobra one day this week, and completed a little of the wiring. I spoke to the owner at Haywire, the maker of my wiring harness and got clarification on my alternator exciter wire. It turns out the the mystery connector on that wire was to be connected to a matching one on a wire coming out of the harness that was hidden when I checked for it before. Once I knew how it connected it was pretty simple to thread it through the firewall and terminate it where it belongs. I also learned that the little bump a few inches from the connector end was a covered diode. The diode is a protection on the wire that keeps power from backflowing, like a one-way resistor.

The voltage regulator is now done. I added one additional wire from the alternator field terminal to the voltage regulator and I ended up running some convoluted tubing down the inside of the engine bay on the passenger side to act like a conduit. I also ended up shortening some previously run wires that had too much slack. Next up, I will have to finish the MSD ignition box and starter motor wiring, figure out the wiring I will need to run down the driver side engine bay for things like the horns, the radiator fan, etc. Shortly after that I can mount the fuse box and move onto the dash wiring of the gauges.

My camera seems to be unable to transmit pictures, so don't expect much for a while. I can take them with my good laptop, but that is cumbersome, and I don't like to take it into the garage.

Busy

2011-09-06T11:32:00.002-05:00

I did not work on the car this week. It was surprisingly busy. When I did get around to calling about my wire confusion on Friday afternoon, I found that the techs had already bugged out for a long Labor Day weekend. Oh well...

Here is a picture of the wire in question with a connector which I don't have a clue about. (My old digital camera seems to have had its computer interface die, so I am having to use my laptop to take pics...Ugh)

Wiring progress

2011-08-28T18:53:00.002-05:00

Sorry I did not post last week. Laziness was unbeatable.

This week, my arm felt better than it has in 3 months. I was able to bowl on Monday and work about 5 hours on the car. I made some very good progress on wiring the Cobra. I planned the wire runs that go to the starter motor and did more on the alternator. I got all the wire into the convoluted tubing that works like a wire conduit and was able to mostly use some existing screws to fasten it down. I did have to drill a couple of holes in the frame for a couple of mounting hooks. This was very difficult work, lying on my back under the car with about a quarter inch clearance. Great test of the arms.

Next I had to cut the wires to the right length so they would be able to connect to the starter motor, but not too long to potentially drag or be exposed under the car. Measure twice, cut once.

After that I had to affix various terminators on the ends of the wires. Mostly they were ring or eyelet connectors, or spade connectors. This again required crimping in very cramped space under the car.

I also had to splice on a couple of fusible links to two of the wires. These are basically wires that have a built-in fuse like capability to blow if there are shorts that would threaten to do damage to the electrical parts. This was a little nerve-wracking in that I had to get it right the first time. No simply cutting it off and trying again if I made a mistake. Fortunately, everything went together beautifully.

For the week, I got all the wires terminated and in place, with one exception, so I have not tightened down everything onto the final posts. I will do that soon, after I resolve one wire question I still have about something called an "exciter" wire. Basically, it runs from the key switch to the alternator to tell it to start up right when you turn the key. The wire that came with my kit has a weird connector on it that I have to research a bit more.

So I do not have any final pictures this week. Laziness may have been defeated for the week, but not completely.

Car work resumes

2011-08-14T23:06:00.002-05:00

I actually was able to work on the Cobra twice this week. I did not accomplish a whole lot, but I did 1) mount the voltage regulator, and 2) crimped the connectors on and ran a couple of wires from the alternator to the regulator on the PS footbox. Still have a couple of more wires to go so I did not get any pictures.

I also found a mistake on the giant wiring schematic I am using. It was just a reversal of wire colors, nothing too major. But it is very confidence enhancing that I figured that out and was able to confirm it with the author who already knew about the error and just had not gotten around to fixing it.

Great news on the RAV4...

2011-08-08T06:47:00.002-05:00

but no Cobra work. I got my mom's Toyota to work! I was getting ready to use a can of Seafoam to treat the engine, thinking that the problem was a stuck lifter. The engine was making a terrible ticking noise, which matched the engine RPMs, soundling like it was coming from the front of the engine block. Seafoam is a detergent-like additive that is petroleum based that is supposed to do wonders for fixing carbon deposit problems.

I was bringing the engine up to operating temperature and decided to try to isolate the noise better while it was warming up. In doing so, I started poking around and noticed that the plug wire running to the first cylinder was vibrating just a bit. Low and behold, I pushed down on it slightly, and it clicked back into place, ending the tapping noise! Somehow, that wire had gotten loosened over time and must have come completely off a few weeks ago while I was driving my mom home from the doctor. It was bucking a bit and lost a lot of power at the time, which I guess was the effect of turning a 4 cylinder engine into a 3!

I have now driven the RAV about 3 or 4 times on short trips and it is running beautifully. What a relief to not have to spend a dime getting it fixed.

As for the Cobra, I did manage to get to a couple of auto parts stores to buy some needed primary wire. The next thing I am going to do is install the external voltage regulator. Basically, it manages the amount of battery recharging done by the alternator. This week the weather is supposed to be a little cooler, so I should find some time for it.

Heat and Arm Weakness

2011-07-31T20:10:00.002-05:00

It is still damned hot and my arm strength is not back, so I still did not work on the car. I did do some more physical things this week and should hopefully get back to car work this week, although that may be on my mom's ailing Toyota RAV4.

Another week without carwork

2011-07-27T08:26:00.001-05:00

Well, at least my Passat is fixed. A line from the radiator to the cooler went bad. Has anybody else noticed it is really hot?

Now I have 3 non-functioning cars.

2011-07-17T20:23:00.003-05:00

My Cobra got no attention this week. My Passat started alarming with coolant system issues. I have an appointment for a test on Monday. So I borrowed my mom's Toyota RAV4 for the week and it broke down too with a very nasty tapping noise in the engine. Could be a lifter or timing belt problem maybe. That waits til the Passat gets fixed.

Add to that, my 1990 RCA TV died this week. I got a replacement Panasonic from 2001 via Craigslist for $25. Works great, but the one problem I had was getting it put into the cubbyhole of my entertainment center. My neck is still so bad that I can't lift a can of soda, much less a gargantuan old TV. A little ingenuity for a car guy and the problem was solved.

Oh, here is the picture I promised of my ignition system installed on the passenger side footbox.

I got my motor running...

2011-07-11T15:39:00.002-05:00

on my lawn mower! That is the most mechanical thing I did last week and none of it involved the Cobra. The lawn mower had a leaky connection of its gas line to the tank and I tightened it up, so my garage won't reek now.

Slowly getting back

2011-07-04T06:49:00.002-05:00

I did manage to spend a few minutes on the car this week, as the neck pain has pretty well diminished, but I still have very little left arm strength. My physical therapy exercises will hopefully work, but may actually take a couple of months. Ugggh.

Anyway, I had an easy task to do this week. Or at least I thought so. I mounted the ignition control box to the passenger side footbox. There were 4 little rubber feet that cushion it from vibration that simply needed holes drilled and nuts tightened. Simple enough...except the instructions from the manufacturer, MSD, were wrong. They said to use a 1/8" bit, but that was not near big enough for the threads of the feet to pass through, so I had to re-drill them (twice actually as I was guessing at the perfect size which turned out to be 3/16"). I placed it so that I can later install footbox vents if I so decide. Pics will follow.

Another lost week

2011-06-26T19:31:00.001-05:00

I am sure ready to be done with the arm/neck problems. The pain is a lot better, but I have almost no strength in my left arm and cannot raise it above my chest. I start physical therapy on Tuesday.

No Work

2011-06-19T20:51:00.002-05:00

I had my MRI and epidural steroid injection this past week. The results were not all that I hoped for. The pain is greatly reduced, but I am still taking the medications as well as the effects of the shot. I have cut back a bit and the pain does not seem bad. However, I still have very little strength in my left arm. I can only raise it a few inches and cannot keep it up on its own. I am trying some stretching and it seems to be working just a bit, but I may need to take some physical therapy treatments. Anyway, it makes car work too difficult.

I have done a little thinking about whether or not to install fresh air ducts into the footboxes. Many people say they are needed, but they are not part of the kit per se. Now would be a good time to put those in. Still thinking...

Bad week

2011-06-12T21:36:00.003-05:00

I did not work on the car this week. I started out putting time in searching for my nephew's lost dog. Happily, after 83 hours of being AWOL, Snowy turned up over 3 miles from home. She is home and doing fine now.

The really bad news was that I re-injured my neck. Three years ago I suffered a terribly painful couple of months with a some protrusions of nerves in my neck between a couple of vertebrae. Well, this week it came back. Not that surprising; if anything, I was lucky to be good for so long since the last treatment. Anyway, I am set for another MRI and hopefully another ESI (epidural steroid injection) right after that. Last time I got relief almost immediately. Right now I am drugged enough to be out of the worst pain, but I can't really lift my left arm. So the car is back on the back burner for now.

Ignition system begun

2011-06-05T20:14:00.003-05:00

This week, I accomplished mounting the ignition coil to the engine block and connecting it to the distributor. This was not so easy a task as you might think. Most guys attach the coil to the front of the driver side engine heads. In my case, I already had the power steering pump using those bolt holes with the special mounting plate I had Jerry build for me a couple of years ago. There is just one big cable running from the coil to the distributor, and it would not have been a huge deal to locate it far away, but I did not have a cable long enough and did not want to spend any more money than necessary. And besides, it seems like such a natural place to put the coil right on the front of the engine.

I tried lots of ways of reusing the holes that were on Jerry's plate. There were 3 holes with bolts holding the plate and PS pump in place. Normally guys would use the outside ones, but that was impossible for me. And using the 2 inside holes was close to fitting, but just a little too close. Eventually, I widened the coil bracket holes, changed the angles of the bracket a bit, shortened the bolt that closes the coil bracket loop a couple of times and used a bit of oil to lube the outside of the coil just enough to squeeze it into the bracket. It even required a special precise installation order to get everything to clear all of the bolts in the area. Of course, this was only determined by trial and many errors!

Here are a few of the finished pics...

Next, there are a couple of signal wires that run from the ignition box to the distributor and a couple of power wires that run from the ignition box to the ignition coil. So I had to decide where/how to install the ignition box. Most people put it on top of the passenger side footbox. So I spent a lot of time browsing the pictures of every finished Hurricane and every Cobra replica up for sale on the main website where they are sold, Cobra Country. I am pretty sure how I want to run things and that I will indeed put the MSD ignition brain on the PS footbox, but it got too hot and too short on time this week to finish that job.

49.99726

2011-05-29T12:39:00.003-05:00

That is how old I am as I write this post. I had hoped to be able to start the car by tomorrow, but that won't happen. I lost too much time this spring on the windshield wipers. Maybe by the 4th of July; I am back to making good progress.

This week, I finally settled on the right wire twisting and soldering techniques, so the splices for the rear light branch were much easier.

I got all of those wires (brake lights, tail lights, fuel sender, grounds) run through the cockpit to the trunk area. There they sit til later in the build when the trunk gets put into place.

Now I am going back to work on engine wiring. There is SO much involved--battery, fusebox, ignition switch, ignition box, neutral safety switch, alternator, voltage regulator, starter motor, solenoid, ignition coil, distributor, carburetor choke. I am spending a LOT of time reading and trying to get it all straight in my head.

Learned alot; Accomplished a little

2011-05-22T18:48:00.004-05:00

I don't have much in the way of good photography this week, but I did spend some significant time working on the wiring. When I got to the point where I was supposed to splice in extra wires for the front headlights (high beam, low beam, ground, parking) I learned that my soldering skills were really much worse than I remembered. I ended up trying over and over again to get a good clean looking connection that did not have gigantic globs of solder, but it was a struggle.

I ended up trying several different ways of making the mechanical connection of the wires, of soldering, of heat shrink wrapping. I must have done things over 7 or 8 times on one set of wires alone. Later, I tried crimping, but that did not go any better. Multiple tries to get the wires to fit in the connector, to get a good crimp, to get it all heat shrinked. Lots of fishing wires in and out of the loom, too.

In the end, I did get all 4 splices made and looking halfway decent. Some were soldered and some were crimped. I think I have the hang of the right techniques for twisting the wires together, for soldering, for crimping, for shrinking the heat wrap. Some of my problems are from crappy tools, but mostly its is me.

Anyway, the front light branch is basically in place and next come the front engine branches for power and signals, and the rear light branch. I am probably going to go to the rear light branch next as that is more straight-forward with what is required. Another upcoming step then will be to affix the fuse box under the dashboard. Hopefully I will get to all of that this upcoming week.

Wiring started

2011-05-14T17:35:00.008-05:00

I got a fair amount done this week, although I did lose a couple of very nice weather days thinking that I was missing 2 parts that were really there all along.

The first step was to drill a couple of holes in the firewall for the wires to pass through and to install grommets in the holes to protect the wires. I could not find the grommets. All I did find were 2 very small things labeled grommets that were not on my inventory sheet or covered in the manual, that I could tell. I went to a couple of autoparts stores looking to buy what I needed, but they did not have grommets that big. I posted a question on the Hurricane owners forums and eventually came to believe the grommets I have are for the sidepipe installation that comes much later.

I decided to flip through some old paper catalogs I have from some mail order autoparts stores and came across a picture of a wiring harness, similar to mine, that seemed to show the kind of grommets I would be needing. So I decided to look through my wiring harness kit again and found the grommets I needed all along in a bag with some electrical relays and switches. I felt stupid for overlooking them, but thrilled to be able to get back to working again.

The grommets proved to be just a little bit tricky and I did not have a hole saw or drill bit that was 1 3/8". I had 1 1/4 or 1 1/2. Rather than fiddle around with drilling it small and hand-widening it, I went to Sears and spent a few bucks for a new bit. The other problem was that the slit in the grommets was very small, so it only went around the aluminum sheets attached to the fiberglass on the firewall. So that meant I needed to cut the fiberglass hole about a 1/4" bigger than the aluminum. I did that with some die grinder trickery and now things seem to fit nicely.

Next I unpacked the wiring harness and stared at all of the wires trying to figure out what goes where. The instructions are okay, but there was no wiring diagram included with the harness by the manufacturer. A previous builder had done a beautiful 30"x36" PDF of it though, and Jerry was kind enough to print one out for me on his big plotter.

The next steps are pulling with wires together and through to their various locations. I also had to install some wire clamps to hold the plastic split looms that the wire runs in. Packing the wire into those was more time-consuming than you would think. It is a pretty tight fit. The first branch to be done is the one going to the front of the car for the headlights, bright and dim, turn signal lights, parking lights, and ground. There was also some cutting and splicing which it turns out I am not very good at.

Body is off

2011-05-08T20:25:00.002-05:00

I did manage to get some help this week and get the body taken off of the Cobra. Now I can get on to the wiring work. There really wasn't anything too picture-worthy, but next week should be a good one. I also bought a new soldering iron for $3.99 at Harbor Freight. Wish me luck that it works; I just couldn't see spending 4 or 5 times that for one from Sears.

Still no work

2011-05-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry, but still no work is getting done on the Cobra.

Another workless week

2011-04-25T13:52:00.002-05:00

It is hard to see how I am ever going to make progress without actually ever working on the car. I did nothing this week again. I had a lot of bowling league end-of-year work to do, divying up over $14,000. Maybe this week, assuming Dan Dog gets feeling better.

Still busy with real life

2011-04-17T18:19:00.002-05:00

I put in less than half an hour on the car this week. I did a little test fitting of the wiper system and filed down the two bushings that come with the wipers. They needed to cut to about 45 degrees, but out of the package were only about 20 degrees. I am still leery about making all of the wiper trim pieces and such fit properly, but for now, I need to move on to other parts of the car. And for that I will need to recruit some helpers to remove the body.

No work

2011-04-10T18:21:00.001-05:00

Sorry folks, I did not work on the car this week. Quite a few real life things I need to get done right now.

Wiper infrastructure done

2011-04-03T20:23:00.006-05:00

This week saw me complete the windshield wiper setup, but not complete the final installation which occurs later. To do this required mounting the body and for that I recruited the most wonderful family members for some badly needed help.

On Saturday, Elaine, Abby and Neo came by to help move the body off of the buck and onto the frame. Here is Abby.

It was light and went fairly smoothly, although the instructions in the manual were pretty sparse. Eventually we got it into place. Then we tried to re-install the windshield that was assembled 3 years ago with very little luck. Eventually, I determined that Phil, Nathan and I had made something of a mistake back when we drilled the holes into the frame to hold the windshield legs.

In looking back over some old pictures and my work spreadsheet, I figured that we started out drilling the holes right, but had so much trouble with my underpowered drill that we switched to drilling the holes with the body off. We must have miscalculated where the legs of the windshield would go. We got them at the proper angle and basic location, but there was just no way to get them to go through the slots cut in the body.

On Sunday, Nathan came over and I jogged his memory from when we originally did the windshield support holes and how to best fix everything. We decided that only 2 things could possibly have been done wrong--either the body/cockpit mounting was wrong, or the original hole drilling was wrong. We decided to completely fit the body with all mounting points in place to make 100% certain that we would be good to proceed safe in the knowledge that the body was right. So we installed a rollbar, the front body mount pieces and the front and rear quick jacks. The bottom line, was that the body/cockpit were fine. (The sidepipe cutouts may be an issue later, but that is pretty common on these cars). Here are some pics...

Rollbar...

Rear quick jacks...

Front body mounts...

Confident that the body/cockpit was fine, Nathan and I next had to decide what to do about the windshield not being mountable as the holes did not line up. We could have re-drilled new holes, but that is very tough at this stage and the sweep angle of the windshield would only have been about 29 or 30 degrees instead of the desired 37. We could have modified the frame and winshield legs to make it work, but that could have slightly reduced their holding strength and that seemed like a bad idea. So we decided to elongate the slots that were cut in the fiberglass where the legs go through the body to tie into the frame. We filed out about 3/8 of an inch or so. Some previous builders had to do this too. If you look at the first picture in this post with Abby, you can see the windshield leg going through the slot at the wrong angle and not lining up with our holes. Now the old pre-drilled holes are very close to lining up perfectly and we have an exact 37 degree sweep. A little more embiggening (Nate said he learned that word in Engineering School) of the holes will make things fit very well.

So at this point, we knew the windshield was very very close to its proper permanent location and we could proceed to drill the 2 holes in the body to accomodate the wiper arm mounts that I assembled last week. The holes had to be 20 inches apart at a 45 degree angle, and according to many previous builders, the manual is wrong about how close to drill the holes to the windshield. The instructions said 3 inches from the engine bay opening, but everybody agrees that they need to be much closes to the windshield itself. After measuring twice we drilled the 2 holes. You can see one in this picture...

Here are a couple of pics showing the body in place, the windshield at the right angle and the wiper arm holes drilled. We test-fit the wiper assembly and it seems fine.

All of this was painfully done knowing that the wipers are unlikely ever to be used! It is an open car not meant to ever be driven in the rain! But the state of Missouri requires them on all cars, so on they go. And from reading the other builders' posts about these wipers, there may be future troubles with the motor sort of shaking the arms too much and not working well. I doubt that the state inspector will even test them, frankly. Anyway, now the body can come off again and I can start the wiring.

Wipers assembled

2011-03-27T08:49:00.004-05:00

This week had me working at the workbench, assembling the windshield wiper kit. It was particularly fun. It was pleasant to work inside the warmth of my laundry room, and sitting on a stool, instead of lying on the cold garage floor. The tasks were well defined in the manual--basically lots of measuring and cutting the aluminum tube that holds the cable that drives the wiper arms, flaring the ends so that they won't move when connected to the motor and arm mounts, and then putting it all together. In the end, I did a pretty good job, I think, on this part. Here are some pictures...

Next comes mounting that into the car, and the first thing to do there is cutting a couple of holes at a 45 degree angle into the fiberglass body. To get that right, I have to temporarily install the body onto the frame and the windshield as well. Unfortunately, the manual it is now decided amongst the other builders on the Hurricane forum, is wrong about the best place to locate the holes. Not the sort of thing that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Anyway, I am stuck for now until I get a few people over to help lift the body off the buck and put it in place. I had hoped to do that this weekend, but a family friend suddenly passed away and made for some changing plans.

Exactly as expected

2011-03-20T19:06:00.003-05:00

I got no work done this week on the car. I did manage to open the box with the parts for the next step, the windshield wipers. Here is a picture I took to keep you all rewarded for checking back weekly.

Inner fenders finished

2011-03-12T13:45:00.006-06:00

I was able to spend a good amount of time working on the cobra this week. I managed to finish the installation of the aluminum inner fender panels.

The first step was to tape the panels in place.

Next, I drilled some holes and riveted the top of the panel to the frame.

Then came drilling a couple of holes through the front for later attaching the panels to the radiator. Sorry, but I did not get any good pictures of that.

Next came drilling some holes through the bottom of the panel, bolting the panel to the brackets that hold the bottom of the panel against the frame, and finally screwing the brackets into the holes in the frame. Here are some completed pics of the bottom.

The passenger side went quite easily (except for breaking my 11/64" drill bit and having to run to Sears and get another). I did the driver side second, and luckily, it seems that I just barely had the power steering pump clear the panel. Here is a picture of that and another showing the driver side from the outside.

The next step has to be to install the windshield wiper motors under the dash. Unfortunately, I will need help with this as the body has to be installed to drill the holes through which the wipers will eventually get mounted. I had hoped to be able to wait on this step until later, but everybody tells me that they really have to go in now as later there will be too much wiring in place to get the wiper motors in their right place.

These wipers are a notoriously weak part of these cars. They are a fairly complicated install and really aren't that necessary since a topless car shouldn't be driven much in the rain anyway. But Missouri requires them, so on they will go. Given the difficulty of this step, and my upcoming fantasy baseball draft, I don't think I will get much done on them for the next week or two.

Brake lines finished

2011-03-03T15:44:00.006-06:00

I finished the brake lines this week. The final step had been to secure the lines running from the master cylinders to the couplers on the frame that got run a long time ago.

I ended up doing it twice because I was not happy with the way it all came out the first time. Mainly, I did not like that the manual called for the use of #10 screws going into the footbox. I did it the way the manual said at first, but then removed the screws and replaced them with 5/16" rivits. Now there is nothing pointy poking through the footbox around my feet.

I also ended up slightly rerouting the lines to get a little more clearance around the big fuel line. I am still not overjoyed with the way the three lines (front and rear brakes, and fuel) run, but it will do, I guess.

A more troubling clearance matter is that there is only about 1/4" between the brake lines on the footbox and the headers coming out of the engine. The headers get extremely hot, and can do bad things like overheat the brake fluid effecting their performance. Here is a blurry picture of just how little room there is. (The header exhaust holes are covered in green tape and eventually connect to the sidepipes).

I have no idea if there are leaks in the system or not. I suppose I could fill the system with brake fluid to test, but it seems less likely to be depressing to just assume it is okay. And I still need at some point to hook up the brake fluid reservoirs, but that comes much later in the build.

Next up is to attach the inner fender liners. Boy, it is really unclear to me how to make the pieces I have work. Everything is so tight and the clearances around the suspension pieces and power steering pump look almost impossible. Better do the passenger side first.

I'm baaaaack

2011-02-25T16:06:00.002-06:00

Not working on the car just yet, but felt like at least blogging.

This week marked the third anniversary of picking up my kit. It has been a lot of fun so far, though the problems I've run into sometimes get a little depressing. In about 3 months, I will become eligible for the senior tour (turning 50) and it would be kind of nice to make some serious progress on the car before then. My schedule does not look too bad, knock on wood.

First, let's summarize where I am. The car is getting close to being a go-kart. The only system that has not had substantial work is the electrical. Frame, fueling, suspension, brakes, engine, transmission, exhaust, steering are pretty far along. Cooling needs pretty much work. Going by the manual, I have completed about 102 pages out of 200 or so. That is 17 out of 37 chapters.

So I think it is probably reasonable at this point to set a goal of starting the engine and actually riding it as a go-kart at least down the street by the end of May. I have always refrained from setting any kind of timetables or goals because I never wanted to turn this project into work instead of just a hobby. But it seems now that a significant milepost is attainable with some consistent efforts. So pray for decent weather and keep checking back here now. Weekly posts should be reliable again.

Next up...affixing the inner fender liners to the frame. After that, according to the manual at least, is the windshield wiper assembly.

Car Work halt

2010-11-28T19:15:00.001-06:00

With my mom's skull injury, I doubt I will be getting back to the Cobra very much. I am way behind on real life stuff and don't like working on the car much when it gets down into the 30s.

No report

2010-11-21T21:29:00.002-06:00

I did nothing on the car this week. I did get new batteries for the camera, and it seems to be working well again.

I won't get anything done on the car this coming week. My mom fell and fractured her skull and will be hospitalized for a few days. Then the holiday, etc. Maybe the following week, if I am lucky.

Little work done

2010-11-15T07:34:00.002-06:00

I only got an hour in on the car this week, although I did spend a LOT of time researching and trying to figure out what parts are used for the next step. That step is to install the inside fender liners. The aluminum panels will get riveted to the engine bay frame, but like everything else, the fit is very tight. I got them test fit and it was so-so. It will just take more time than you would think to get them perfectly lined up. I had some trouble figuring out how the bottom connects and which were the right brackets to use.

I did apply the POR-15 rust preventing paint to the spots on the bottom of the frame that I had missed (twice) earlier. I still need to install the clamps that will hold the brake lines in place, but that is just a couple of screws and will just take a couple of minutes. But it should be done before hanging the aluminum fender liners.

My camera is acting up again, so no pictures. I had gotten new batteries a few weeks ago, but they must not be good. (They were very cheap). The camera shuts itself off very quickly, and was not cooperating when I tried to upload some other pictures to my computer.

No Car Work

2010-11-07T18:30:00.003-06:00

I did not get to work on the car this week. Too many real-life things to do. I did purchase another small can of POR-15, the rust-proofing paint, to cover up the last set of spots that I have missed on the frame. Third time is the charm, I hope.

Trouble?

2010-10-31T20:47:00.001-05:00

I managed to basically finish off the brakes this week. I got the pushrods connected to the brake pedal easily after taking off the brake light switch that I had installed earlier. Essentially, I needed to be able to move the brake pedal up more than it was allowing in order to connect everything. Simple enough; I just wish the manual had said to wait on the brake light switch until after the master cylinders were in. There was no reason not to, and it made the MC install much easier.

I then ran the brake lines from the master cylinders to the previously run hard lines from a couple of years ago. Not much of a problem with that. I have not clamped everything down, but everything is run and tightened, so there won't be any trouble there. A small concern is that the lines running from the master cylinders are very very close to the exhaust headers coming off of the engine. Boiling the brake fluid is a bad idea, so I may end up doing something to keep them from getting too hot.

I should have taken a picture or two of the brake stuff, but while I was down under the car connecting the brake lines, I noticed a rather serious crack in the engine block. It is the bolt that connects the mechanical fuel pump to the engine block. The whole thing is cracked. I must have over-tightened this in November 2008 when I installed the fuel pump. I have a picture of that crack, but it does not show it very well.

I will have to wait and see if there is an oil leak. I am not that close to filling the engine with oil, so I guess I just mush on. I think the worst case is that I may have to have someone weld it back up. My guess is that I may be okay since the crack seems to all be on the outside of the block.

My Dumbest Move Yet

2010-10-24T20:34:00.005-05:00

Without a doubt, I did the dumbest thing yet on the build. (Yes, even dumber than whacking myself in the face with the torque wrench). This week I worked on something that should have been pretty easy, but I managed to make it tough.

The task was to install the master cylinders for the braking system. When you press on the brake pedal, what makes the car stop? Well, the brakes are activated by fluid. That fluid gets pumped to the brakes by a master cylinder that is connected to the brake pedal. It has a piston that pushes fluid from the reservoir to the brake calipers. That piston is connected to the brake pedal. In this car, there are 2 separate master cylinders, one connected on either side of the pedal, that pump fluid separately to the front and rear brakes. This is a safety feature so that if there is a leak going to one pair of wheels, you will still be able to stop with the others. It is also a performance feature that lets you balance the braking power between the front and rear as you see fit. Here is a picture of the MCs that came with the kit.

The first step is to put the white plastic cap on the top that will connect the fluid reservoir to the MC. The instructions say it is pretty tight and easy to crack the caps when putting them on. Some people have needed to use heat (like a hair dryer) to get the cap to fit. Here is my MC in the vise as I was trying to get the cap on.

Well, I spent 2 hours trying to finesse the cap on this sucker. It was not even close. I tried heat. I tried force. I tried lube. I tried cursing. I tried prayer. Nothing was even close. So I did some measuring. The cap inner diameter was 1.34 inches. The outer diameter of the part I was trying to put the cap on was 1.49 inches. How could that work? Heat can't make that much difference. I even tried re-reading the directions. No help. Then I looked online at other people's pictures. I studied and studied them. Then I noticed that theirs did not seem to be using the rubber gaskety thing that was on mine. Close examination revealed that this was not an integral part of the MC, but was just a packing cover to protect the O-ring underneath. DOH!!! Once I took that off, it took about 20 seconds to slide the cap on. No heat or anything. I swear that it looked like it was an important part of the system and that nowhere did any instructions say to remove it. Ugh.

Here is a picture of the master cylinders mounted to the firewall.

I am currently having trouble connecting the piston rods to the brake pedal, so they are not quite functional yet. I've spent another couple of hours on that task and it really should have been easy. Not sure why I am having trouble with that step. Anyway, I should get that solved and be able to connect the rest of the steel tubing to finish the brake system and then move on to riviting the inner fender liners to the frame.

Steering binding solved

2010-10-14T21:15:00.011-05:00

There is nothing like a little break to clear the mind to help solving problems. When I went back this week to working on the car, I quickly figured out what was causing the steering shaft to bind. I could only get the steering wheel to make about a half turn. The problem was that the set screw and jam nut holding one of the u-joints in place was hitting on the pillow block that held the bearing and shaft right under the dash near where the driver's knees would be.

Here is a picture taken after I got it fixed.

The bright O-shaped thing is in reality a nut that acts as a jam nut. The jam nut holds the black set screw in place by encircling it. The set screw tightens through the U-joint into the steering shaft. Just to the right in the picture, you can see the bottom of the pillow block (the shiny part) that is holding the bearing and steering column shaft at an angle going up to where the steering wheel will be. Anyway, the 2 shiny parts were hitting each other and shouldn't have. The solution was simple--bang on the steering column with a big rubber mallet to move the U-joints away from the pillow block.

Here is another useful picture.

In it, you can see a vertical line drawn with a silver marker on the shaft that goes through the firewall into the engine compartment. I made that mark prior to swinging my rubber mallet. You can see that where the line used to be flush against the bearing, it now shows that the shaft moved about a quarter-inch or so.

I did also have to make another slight modification. The steering column was still rubbing slightly against the dash frame. So I took it all apart again to add a couple of washers to lower the pillow block and bearing so that the shaft would not rub. Seems to work beautifully now.

I could not completely finish the steering yet, because the steering wheel cannot go on until the dash board goes in. There is a small hole in the dash for the steering shaft to pass through, but it would not go over the wheel or the hub that holds the wheel either. So later on, I will have to finalize the turn signal stuff and steering wheel.

With the shafts all in their final positions, I was able to start to look at how to fix the power steering pump location problem. Recall that I had to remove the pump to get the steering shafts in place. A first pass at looking at the situation seems to indicate that I will be okay with my current setup for the pump, but will have to get a slightly longer belt. The current one is 50.5 inches long, and has to be about an inch or so longer to accomodate the slightly raised location of the power steering pump. That had to go up just a tad in order for the hoses taking power steering fluid from the pump to the steering rack to clear the steering shaft. Unfortunately, the belt replacements come in 51 and 52 inches, not 51.5 which is what would have been easiest. I tried the 52, but it was just too long, so I returned it for a 51. That was just barely long enough, but with some serious pulling using a ratcheting tie down strap, I was able to get it to fit perfectly. There is about 3/8 inch clearance now from the steering shaft to the power steering pump hoses.

After that came the throttle cable and gas pedal. This was pretty straight forward. I got the holes drilled for mounting the pedal and for passing the throttle cable through the firewall. It goes through a stainless steel housing up to the carburetor so that when you press down on the gas pedal the cable opens up the carb a little so more air and fuel pass into the engine. I ended up drilling an extra hole into the driver's side footbox so that I could put in a clamp to hold the cable housing in place. It was very close to the steering U-joints, so I thought this would keep them from getting caught or rubbing on each other. It may look a little funny, but it is undoubtedly safer. Here are 3 pics showing the gas pedal, the housing looping around as it comes out through the firewall, and the routing up to the carburetor.

Steering

2010-10-10T12:47:00.005-05:00

I got about 4 hours in this week on the car. I started out messing around with the gas pedal. It turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected at first. Actually, I had to end up taking the whole thing apart from what came in the package shown in last week's post in order to re-orient the pedal part (looks like a spoon) to the other side of the pivot, and to create the angle for the top part of the pedal which will connect the wire that opens up the carburetor when you depress the pedal. I decided to wait on continuing with that part until I got the steering shaft stuff fixed afterall.

So I decided to whip out my cheap little dremel tool and try to whittle out the inner bore of the steering shaft bearing by a couple of thousandths of an inch. That actually ended up working quite well. So on to actually assembling the steering shafts.

I had a hard time getting everything to come together the way the manual outlined. Maybe if I had another set of hands, I could have done it. Instead I connected everything and raised it all into place. That worked, but I found it to be binding. First, it was that the shaft coming up to the wheel was rubbing on the dashboard frame. A little dremel grinding fixed that. Then I put it all together again and it was still binding. After a half an hour or so, I figured out that the mid-shaft was not put together properly. I had inserted the shaft too far into the joint so that when it turned, it would hit on the other shaft. I fixed that, but there still is binding. Not as bad, but I haven't figured out the cause yet. Anyway, here are some pictures showing the work so far...

Here you can see the U-joints where the steering shaft goes through the firewall.

Here you can see the steering components in the footbox.

Here you can see the steering shaft coming up through what will eventually be the dash and the hub for the steering wheel.

I will have to find the source of the binding before I can proceed with anything else.

No Work

2010-10-04T07:56:00.003-05:00

I still did no car work, feeling a little discouraged about the bearing/steering shaft difficulties. What I think I may do is proceed onto the next step to rebuild my confidence a bit. That step is installing the gas pedal and throttle cable. Here is a picture of those parts.

No Car work

2010-09-26T19:32:00.003-05:00

Sorry, I did not get to work on the car this week. It ended up taking longer to get both my VW and my garage door fixed, and then I was just way behind on routine life stuff. Here are some of the promised pics anyway...

Here is the broken spring...

Here is the replacement bearing...

Here is the bearing in place in the firewall...

Little accomplished

2010-09-19T19:48:00.002-05:00

I only worked on the car once this week, really. I did manage to get the U-joint that connects to the steering rack connected. I got the shafts going through the firewall okay, though I did have to take apart the U-joints that were previously connected to the other shafts, even though I had used LOC-TITE on them. I got the original bearing installed in the firewall, but the new bearing did not quite fit with the shaft that has the steering wheel bolted to it. I tried force. I tried oil. I tried freezing the shaft so it would shrink a tiny bit, but that still was not quite enough. It is so close, though. I think I will try freezing it again and carefully heating the bearing so it will expand the hole that the shaft fits through.

Right now, I cannot even work on the car if I wanted to because my garage door finally broke good and proper. The huge spring that helps lift the door snapped. Thank goodness it was safety-wired or the Cobra body would have been damaged. I will get that fixed very soon. I took a couple of pictures, but will wait on posting them until next week when hopefully the steering system will be completed.

No Labor for Labor Day week

2010-09-12T22:47:00.003-05:00

I did not get to work on the car this week. I did manage to get the missing part ordered from Fastenal, and I picked it up on Friday. I've fallen a little bit behind other things in life, like renewing my driver's license that expired in May, which I only found out about when I got stopped for speeding in Winfield, MO. Doh!

Steering

2010-09-04T14:21:00.005-05:00

I got a fair amount done this week before running into problems. I did complete the brake pedal assembly installation, including the brake light switch. I had some trouble getting the bolts through the firewall straight, but otherwise it was not bad.

Then it was on to the steering chapter. I put together the shafts on my workbench, connecting them with the U-joints, all of which I had painted long ago. Everything seems to fit okay, but the paint makes the fit through the firewall bearing very tight. The bigger problems arose when I realized that I was shorted one of the two bearings that should have come with the kit. That is a special part that I can't just walk into an auto parts or hardware store to buy. I can send away to get one delivered to my local Fastenal store, but that will take a few days, and naturally this happens on a long weekend. Some mail order places sell them for about 6 to 8 bucks, but charge another 6 for shipping. Fastenal is $11, but no shipping.

I also ran into obvious problems when I was loose fitting what I could while dealing with the bearing shortage. My steering shaft does not quite clear the power steering pump and its hoses. It is very close, but I need to get another half inch or so of clearance before I am good to go. I am not sure how I will do that, but I ought to figure out a way without too much trouble. Maybe re-routing the hoses, maybe adjusting the existing pump bracketry and getting a different belt, I am just not sure yet.

I had more tool troubles, too. My old Craftsman drill seems to have given up. Neither battery seems to be charging at all now. (Yes, it is plugged in)! I also had a socket adapter break when I was torqueing one of the bolts to its final tightness. Fortunately, I had a spare one and could continue working. And my garage door got stuck again, this time worse than the first. It turns out that a piece of wood trim had come loose and gotten jammed in the works, causing one of the rollers to jump the track. That got fixed right this time, now that I could see what was going on.

Oh, and kudos go out to NAPA. A long time ago, I had a different garage door problem that required a bolt replacement. I just happened to have one the perfect size on hand in my car parts, so I used that. It was not spare though, and this week I needed it for some of the steering system mounting. Off I went to NAPA and they just let me take one for free. Good thing I was wearing my NAPA hat when I went into the store, I guess. They didn't know me from Adam.

Sorry for no pics. I will double up next week.

Another 2 1/2 Chapters Finished

2010-08-29T17:15:00.009-05:00

It was not all gravy, but I managed to find quite a bit of time to work on the car this week and was very productive. I finished the chapters about mounting the cockpit and upper frame.

I did manage to get a rivit in each footbox outside corner, and I got the excess fiberglass trimmed back (about an inch on the driver side, less on the passenger side) to add some more room for feet on both sides. Notice all the dust in the picture. Man, is that stuff itchy and hard to wash off.
And it was particularly hard for me to get my big arm down in the engine compartment to rivit this piece of aluminum (actually, one on each side) that seals the cockpit near the footbox area from the transmission tunnel.

I did have quite a few weird issues, mainly with tools, that required fixing or at least patience. I used my air die grinder to sand off the excess fiberglass, but the compressor could barely keep up. The light on my hanging work light died. My garage door had one of its rollers pop out of its track. I ran down both of my cordless drill batteries and got very frustrated with not being able to work while they SLOWLY recharged. That actually went on for a couple of days before I broke down and bought a new corded drill from Harbor Freight. And OMG, what a huge difference that made. My cordless much not have much of a motor, while the new one really cuts great. I had to drill 4 holes in some thick steel frame members and what was taking about a half an hour and all of my strength with the Craftsman 15.6 Volt drill, the new one took about a minute. I could not believe how much better it cut. Thirty bucks very well spent.

Right now, I am in the middle of working on the brake pedal assembly,

its frame (which will eventually hold the brake master cylinders on the engine side of the firewall),

and the brake light switch. One step that the manual said would be very tough, replacing 6 studs that come from the manufacturer heavily thread-locked, was actually very easy. Here is a picture with one old stud still in place before I removed it.

The next step was drilling the frame for the holes that hold the pedals in place was a huge effort, until I got the new drill. I should finish the brake pedal stuff pretty soon this week. BTW, I have decided to leave the clutch pedal in place but will fasten the pedal to the top of the footbox to keep it out of the way. I am not going to cut the hole in the firewall for that master cylinder though. I figure I can do that easily enough later on if I decide to ditch the automatic transmission for a manual. Then the next step will be to work on the steering system.

Mushing onward

2010-08-21T22:36:00.004-05:00

Having satisfied myself that my engine title issues will resolve themselves down the road (in Rolla), I have gotten back to work on the car fastening down the cockpit tub this week.

This should have been a pretty easy task, but it turned out to be a little tougher. I had to drill 4 holes in the tub that lined up with the pre-drilled holes in the frame to hold the tub in place. Easy enough. But while I was down there, I was also supposed to drill 10 more holes for the seat and seatbelt mounting spots. Twelve were easy enough, though I really don't like laying on my back doing this work. But 2 of the holes were not accessible any more because they were obstructed by the driveshaft safety loop that I installed a few weeks ago.

My first solution seemed simple enough--just cut off the end of the safety loop that was not needed and was the source of the obstruction. So I locked the cutoff wheel to my angle grinder and plugged it in, prepared to just lop off the excess. When I tried to figure out how to hold the tool at an angle that would let me cut through the steel, I had such a hard time maneuvering while on my back under the car, it seemed extremely dangerous to go that route. In an inspired attack of safety consciousness, I instead decided to try to take a bunch of measurements and drill the holes from above. I used a 1/8" bit and managed to blindly hit both 3/8" holes in the steel after drilling through the fiberglass. Then I widened out the holes by hand with a larger bit and hand file.

Next up was drilling more holes and riviting around the footboxes. Simple enough, except that my frame includes a modification that Hurricane implemented after some other builders figured out a way to get more footroom for the driver, and the instructions for fastening the tub around the footbox don't quite work as they did before. So I posted some questions online and am waiting to get satisfactory guidance on how to proceed before I do any more riviting there. Pictures will come when I finish up. Should be pretty quickly.

Achilles Tendonitis

2010-08-15T06:59:00.002-05:00

I did not work on the car this week as I am fighting a very sore left heel. I already had a doctor's appointment scheduled for this past week and she said I had damaged my achilles tendon. She ordered the usual--rest, ice, and stretching--and also gave me Celebrex. And my mom got me a heel pad for my shoe. All of that seems to be helping a great deal and I am off the crutches I used earlier in the week and actually feeling pretty good.

I did go to the Gateway Cobra Club monthly meeting at Sonic in Chesterfield this past Tuesday. It used to conflict with my trivia night at Chevy's, but that seems to have ended. Anyway, the guest speaker was Officer Fountain, the guy who is in charge of doing state inspections of these cars for the county. His talk told me what I already knew, that my engine is just not going to be titleable with them as is. Very depressing.

Cockpit and upper frame installed

2010-08-07T10:40:00.006-05:00

This week, I determined that I was missing a couple of things that were needed to install the cockpit. When I got my kit, I did not receive the weatherstripping or 4 large rubber washers that isolate the frame from the cockpit. Fortunately, a quick trip to Home Depot and about $10 remedied that oversight.

I got the weatherstripping laid without any problem
and then Del Poe

came over before playing golf on Friday and we managed to get the cockpit and upper frame installed. Both pieces dropped into place beautifully.

I still need to drill a few holes in the fiberglass for the bolts that will fasten the tub to the frame, and do some riviting around the footboxes. I think I also drill the holes for the seat brackets now too.

2010-08-01T14:04:00.002-05:00

This week saw me finish tightening the header bolts and connecting the battery cables to their final location on the starter motor. I also connected the grounding strap to the frame and got a good continuity test from the battery end of the cable to many different spots on the frame. Thus the main ground is good. I also tidied up the transmission lines that will eventually run to the oil cooler at the front of the car. Oh, and I also found another big spot where I missed rustproofing.

I spent some time thinking about what else should be done more easily now than after I put the cockpit into its final position. It is another case of over-thinking things and not getting real progress made. So rather than figure out how exactly to run the transmission oil cooler lines, the neutral safety switch, etc., I have decided to go ahead and put the cockpit in place this coming week. Even if it makes it harder to do future things, I want to keep making progess, and the cockpit will be major, allowing me to proceed on the engine bay, the wiring, the steering, the brakes, etc.

I did figure out a way to get the front end of the car up in the air a little higher, maybe an inch or so. That should make working under the car a tiny bit better. No pictures this week, but next should be exciting if the cockpit gets done.

Battery cable completion

2010-07-24T14:28:00.003-05:00

This week, I managed to finish off the battery cables. I ran the cables a very long time ago from the rear of the car, where the battery will eventually sit. Now I was ready to cut them to the exact length and solder on the ends which will connect to the starter and the frame for grounding. Cutting was not too big a deal; quick work with the cutoff wheel.

The kit had not come with the necessary lugs that get soldered (or crimped). Not sure why. Anyway, a long time ago I bought 3 of them, though I only needed 2. I bought one at a Old Dog hot rod shop, but that was the only one they had. Later I went to Auto Zone and they only sold them in pairs. So I ended up with 3. Since I had an extra, I decided to use one and the short piece of cable that I cut off to practice my soldering technique and I am very glad I did. It took me a while to figure out exactly how hot to get things, how much solder to put in the cup, to learn not to twist the copper wires to make them go into the cup easier, how to do the heat-shrink process, etc.

Unfortunately, the 2 lugs that I got at Auto Zone were not as nice as the one I got at the specialty shop. The good one seemed to have a bigger cup to fill with molten solder, and a little bit bigger hole to push the cable into. I clamped the lug into a handheld vice, used my mini torch to heat the lug, inserted the solder into the cup when it was hot enough to melt, and shoved the cable into the cup. Here are 3 pictures I managed to get.

The last picture shows the finished product. You can see that the black wire has something of a neck between the lug and the main cable body (hidden a bit by the heat shrink). The red cable, with the good quality lug, is perfect and is probably the best quality work I have done on the whole car.

I also re-visited my headers this week. I had loosely put them in place a long time ago to be able to check clearances on things, but now it is time to think about putting the upper engine frame and the cockpit in place, so accessing the header bolts will be much more difficult. Sadly, I have come to realize that these headers are pretty crappy. Lots of other Hurricane builders have complained about these parts that came with the kit. They were special built, and may be a problem. I know the ports don't exactly match the gasket or the head ports. This may result in an exhaust leak, poor performance, backfiring, etc. Worst of all, I am having a devil of a time just getting them bolted into place. The pipes are just too big to get normal wrenches on the bolts, and in at least one case, there does not seem to be enough room to even get the bolt into its position to be tightened. I may have to do a little grinding or even buy something new. For now, I have bought some special "crow's foot" wrench heads and will see if I can get things tightened up as is.

Tiny bit of carwork done

2010-07-18T19:03:00.003-05:00

This week, I managed to get a couple of things done. I buttoned up the transmission pan, torquing everything to 9.5 ft lbs. I also redid the safety loop, which turned out to be a pretty tough job. In the end, the loop is great, and it is tightened to final spec too. I determined that I need to redo the transmission fluid line connections, as they are tight but at a bad angle. The lines also still need to be completed, but I think that can wait til I work on putting the radiator and oil cooler in the front. I also removed some of the rustproofing paint so the ground will have better conductivity, but now I am thinking I may want to make that 3/8" instead of 1/4". I found my missing mini torch, so I can now finish off the battery lines, and I bought some dielectric grease to be used on some of this stuff. Nothing really was picture-worthy though. Oh, and I retrieved Dan Dog who escaped the garage while I was working and chased a car down the street.

Congrats to Kelly and Nathan

2010-07-11T07:11:00.002-05:00

This week was family-filled as Nathan and Kelly got married. I did manage to get just a little bit of carwork done. I drilled a hole into the frame for the main battery/engine electrical ground, and test-installed the grounding strap onto a bolt that I ran through the hole. I also purchased a voltage regulator which will eventually get installed to keep the engine's alternator from over-charging the car battery. Finally, I got around to a pretty thorough cleaning of the garage which was badly needed. There was still a lot of fiberglass dust left from the work last fall of getting the transmission linkage working with the cockpit tub on.

Happy Independence Day

2010-07-04T13:12:00.002-05:00

Not a lot to report, but I did manage to squeeze out an hour and a half to use the rest of my rust-proofing paint, POR-15, to touch up the spots on the frame that I missed the first couple of coats. There were also more places that I would care to admit where the paint had gotten scraped off by wayward tool usage. Not much fun, and nothing worth taking any pictures.

In other news, Paul Proefrock had his car pass state trooper inspection this week. He ended up taking it to Rolla and everything went very smoothly. Someday I hope to be doing the same.

Safety loop pictures

2010-06-16T19:02:00.003-05:00

As promised in the last post...

The parts all painted nice and shiny...

All put together...

It took surprisingly long to assemble everything as some of the fitment was not exactly perfect. In fact, I had to undo the X brace altogether and put the brackets in between the 2 big pieces of steel frame to make everything come out like I wanted.

Driveshaft Safety Loop

2010-06-14T11:35:00.004-05:00

I have found a little time here and there to work on the driveshaft safety loop. In test fitting it, I determined that it was borderline to fit the way everybody else's did, by bolting to the existing X-brace bolts. I took a little time and decided that if I offset the holes in the bracket a bit, that I would gain enough room to move the loop part a little bit farther back on the shaft itself. The SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) mandates that the loop be within 6 inches of the front U-joint. Mine was only about 2 or 3. But since my driveshaft is so short, I figure I should be fine.

I have carefully measured and drilled the holes for mounting the bracket to the frame and have also hit it with a coat of POR-15, the rustproofing paint. Now all I need is for it to dry and bolt everything together. Should be a breeze. I have been procrastinating a bit because I should also use the leftover POR-15 to touch up the frame where I missed some spots the first time, and that means spending a fair amount of time on my back painting the underside of the frame (with a sprained left thumb) in long sleeves and pants because you just don't want to get this stuff on you. Anyway, not something that I exactly look forward to.

Pictures will follow soon when I finish bolting the loop together.

Driveshaft done

2010-05-29T10:24:00.007-05:00

I picked up the driveshaft on Tuesday and it was the perfect size. However, I had mis-measured the end caps by a 1/16 of an inch and had to take it back to swap those out. They were very nice about that and did it right when I brought it in, and about taking back the extra hardware I had bought, not knowing at the time if I would need it. Also, I was happy that the final price was almost $40 cheaper than they quoted me.

When I finally got everything right, it went right in in less than 15 minutes. The only down part of that was learning that Dan was not too happy to be with me in the garage when I was working. He just layed out on the floor near my pool table while I worked. Probably for the best in the long run, since it wouldn't be all that safe for a little curious dog. Now the pics...

Two views of the driveshaft installed

A closeup of the endcap/U-joint all mated up.

I also affirmatively decided on installing a driveshaft safety loop and ordered one from JEGS on sale for $19.99. It may arrive today via Federal Express. I will need to use the rust proofing paint on that before installing it, and I will also take that time to touch up the frame. I had purchased a small can of the POR-15 a year ago that I never opened, so I am good to go on that as soon as the loop arrives.

After that, it will be time to tidy up the tranny, mount the cockpit tub, and mount the engine bay frame. Then it will be on to wiring and the steering system.

Working again

2010-05-24T16:09:00.003-05:00

...Or at least paying again. I finally got around to ordering my driveshaft today from Driveshafts Unlimited out in Arnold. They were able to use the measurements I did last year when I was thinking about ordering from a different place online, but I like these guys that Paul had also used. They said it would cost about $240 and be ready in 24 hours.

After I get that installed in this spot
the next step will be to decide about the driveshaft safety loop. Basically, it is an optional piece of metal that keeps the driveshaft from doing too much damage if anything ever breaks. Kind of important since it is spinning so fast, just inches from the driver's and passenger's seat.

Still no work

2010-05-09T07:25:00.002-05:00

I have still not worked on the Cobra. My ribs are better, but still too sore for golf. I probably am up to working on the car and should. The Passat went back into the shop week before last when the power steering started to go away. It turned out that there was a leak in the system caused by a couple of loose hose clamps, most likely from when they replaced the engine, so there was no charge.

Dan the dog and I have started training classes. We've been to 3 now and they are great fun. Vivian the trainer is amazing; a true professional. I wish I could get Dan to respond as well as she does. Perhaps in time.

Still hurting

2010-04-25T19:20:00.003-05:00

Its been 15 days and the ribs still hurt a lot. I am able to sleep a little better at least, so I am a little happier, at least. But nothing got done on the car. Paul did come by to take some measurements off of my car for some improvements that he and the Hurricane guys are going to make to the fuel tank.

Bruised Ribs

2010-04-18T08:16:00.004-05:00

I took a nasty fall in my garage this past week and have banged up my ribs pretty good. I was wearing my spiked golf shoes while cutting my hilly back yard when I ran out of gas. So I went back to the garage and found I had more gas, but it had not yet been mixed with the engine oil for 2 stroke motors. I had some on the very top shelf and when I reached for it, my feet went out from under me and down I went. I landed with my ribs hitting on the wooden edge of the chair, badly bruising them. Sleeping and just breathing hurts, though I have had worse and it does seem to be getting some better.

On a brighter note, I did get my taxes done and most of my yard work prior to the injury. I hope to get feeling good enough this week to get back to the Cobra. I am inspired a bit by Paul Proefrock's car getting finished at the painter. Here is a pic of his car I grabbed off of a forum:

I suspect I will end up using the same painter. Seems a long way off though, sadly.

No work just yet

2010-04-10T18:20:00.002-05:00

I still haven't found the opportunity to work on the Cobra. I am slowly winding down the regular springtime tasks and getting the house squared away for my wonderful 4-legged housemate.

I also had more Passat issues. Three more days at the dealership having them replace the thermostat that I thought (and told them before) might be bad. But it is all good. They got it fixed and it is working beautifully now; and they just charged me for the part, no labor. Then a few days later, I got a flat left rear tire, thanks to a stray screw from someplace. I saw the flat in the garage and fortunately was able to get it aired up well enough to make it to Dobbs. I ended up getting 4 new tires as I was about due anyway.

On one good note, Dan seemed okay with being out in the garage with me as I worked on the tire. Just a little skittish as I did things he did not expect, but when I turned on the terribly loud air compressor, he did not protest much at all. I was quite surprised at that, since he has gotten spooked once when we stopped in traffic next to a couple of very loud motorcycles, prompting him to lose bladder control when we got inside Baba's house just a minute or so later.

2 great things happened this week

2010-03-27T09:36:00.003-05:00

#1 - I got my Passat back after about 6 weeks of being without a car. Well, I did have access to my mom's RAV4, so I did survive.

#2 - Since I did not have to pay the $7000 for a new engine, I decided to rescue a little guy named Dan. (My friend Greg rescued his brother Stan).

Since he is only 1 year old (or thereabouts) right now, he may actually live long enough to see the Cobra get finished. He is an excellent car dog. Any ideas about a new name? He doesn't answer to Dan. Perhaps Volkswagen? Fahrvergnungen?

Warmth

2010-03-08T15:22:00.001-06:00

Okay, it seems warm enough now to be working on the car. I hope to get back at it soon. Unfortunately, my Passat is crippled right now and may need a new engine. Yikes! There is over 5 grand I had not been planning on.

The next couple of weeks will be busy with preparing for my annual fantasy baseball draft and dealing with the Passat. Taxes need to get done soon, among other things. The Cobra is not going to jump to the front burner for a little while longer.

Brrrr...

2010-02-12T16:27:00.001-06:00

Sadly, it is still too cold to crawl around on the garage floor. I am anxious to be able to get back to work on the car, but nothing has been getting done. Sorry.

Surprise!

2010-01-15T16:44:00.003-06:00

I worked on the car for the first time in 2 months today! Well, it was only for about half an hour, but it was productive. I cleaned the garage a lot first as there was a lot of dirt from fall's leaf mulching and leftover fiberglass dust from cutting the relief in the cockpit. Then I jacked the car back up in the air so I could get under it and re-install the transmission oil pan. It is not completely torqued to final spec yet, but having the cover on ought to help protect its internals from winter's elements.

The next 2 jobs would be to order the driveshaft and to retouch the rustproofing paint job on the frame. I missed a fair amount on the underside, and there is enough surface oxidation that the paint should really stick well. I just want it to be a little warmer for that. All the driveshaft needs is money at this point.

Sorry, nothing going on

2009-12-21T00:18:00.002-06:00

I have not worked on the car since before Thanksgiving. Too busy and too cold.

Post Thanksgiving Post

2009-11-29T20:34:00.003-06:00

I've been very busy with Thanksgiving of late. Cleaning, shopping, cooking, eating, dishwashing, etc. Too busy to get anything done on the car.

I did however run out and buy a new laptop computer with Windows 7. Naturally, that is causing a lot of difficulties. Any free time I have had has gone into trying to make work very old software, no longer supported. My digital camera was a problem, but I think I have it. Got all my old photos moved to the new machine.

Here is a new picture I took of the gaping hole that I ground out of the cockpit to allow the shifter linkage rod to pass freely and give me all of the gears in the AOD transmission.

This week will probably still be very busy, so I doubt that much will get done on the car. Sorry.

Major Breakthrough

2009-11-14T15:48:00.003-06:00

My former boss, Lyn Pankoff, came over a couple of times this week and helped me work on the car. We were working on trying to get the cockpit to fit over the transmission shifter linkage, as I have been struggling with that for months. I decided to try again with the shifter moved back in the cockpit to where I like it better, not where the other guy who built a Hurricane with the AOD transmission that I am using put it.

I finally decided that to make it work, I was going to have to cut a relief in the fiberglass cockpit tub. No matter what I did, I just could not get the shifter to move through all six positions.

Together, we spent about 5 hours repeatedly putting the cockpit on and taking it off, measuring, whittling a little bit off, checking for rubbing, etc. The amount of fiberglass dust was amazing. But in the end, it is finally working beautifully. And best of all, I can now proceed on to some other items. Eventually, I will have to re-glass the tub, or put an aluminum cover over the hole, which will end up being covered with carpet anyway.

We also got a few other little things done, like tightening the transmission fluid fittings for lines that will run to the cooler and making sure they won't rub on anything. We also adjusted the third member on the rear axle to get it to have just a couple of degrees of droop from parallel, which is perfect. We also tweaked an aluminum fuel line which seemed to be a bit close to the cockpit tub and might have rubbed.

I am very happy and excited to be able to work on several other things next. I want to touch up my frame rustproofing and paint the steering tie-rods. I need to order and install the driveshaft. I need to put the tranny pan back on and fill it to test for leaks. I will probably want to get a driveshaft safety loop and install that. Then I should be good to final install the cockpit, the upper frame for the engine and start wiring. Too bad the holidays and winter are coming and it will be getting tougher to work on the car.

Still no car work

2009-11-08T18:29:00.003-06:00

I took advantage of the great weather of late to get some yard work done and actually played golf again for just the second time in 3 months. I still have the back yard to do but will try to get some stuff done on the Cobra this week.

Garage work

2009-11-01T16:59:00.003-06:00

The only work I got done in the garage this week was to fix the broken garage door. I replaced this goofy little rod that holds the track in place at the door with a real honest to goodness nut and bolt. Works like a charm now. Gotta remember when I get to the later car building stage and end up short a 3/8" bolt where it went! In about 3 days when I get the rest of this grease off of my hands I will be very pleased.

Little accomplished

2009-10-25T20:08:00.004-05:00

I did not get a lot done this week. I did move the shifter forward on the transmission, but I was not satisfied with the way it shifted then. It seems that it is too close now to have the rod move all the way to engage all 6 positions of the tranny. I need to spend a while under the car with an extra pair of hands working the shifter some to check it.

Towards the end of the week, I did fix something that has been wrong for months. The instructions on the front brake pads were so incomplete, I could not figure out how to get the anti-rattle clips put on. After talking with Paul a couple of weeks ago, I figured I would try again. I did figure it out, and here is a picture to prove it...

So now I put the brakes back together and the wheels back on. Makes me happier to see the car with its shoes on.

Favorite part of my house

2009-10-18T20:12:00.003-05:00

I've lived in my house for over 20 years. I haven't really ever done anything to improve it, or really for that matter, to maintain it very well either. But there is one thing that I do really love about my house, and it was a surprise. When I bought the house, the utility room contained this old beaten-up sink right next to where the washing machine would go. For the first year or so, I actually used the sink with an old apartment sized washer designed to hook up to a faucet like it had rather than a regular water line like regular washers do. Here is a picture of it...

It has come in handy several times before for little things, and it has come in handy a few times during this car build. I use it constantly to clean up after working on the car. It is great for washing old dirty parts, I have used it when drilling things to easily wash away bits of metal, I've clamped things to it for various reasons, and it makes a great paper towel holder. But this week, it REALLY came in handy.

I decided to try to use an old cheap Harbor Freight butane torch that worked before, but did not work well last time I tried to use it. I was going to try to heat some metal to make bending it easier. So I filled the torch with butane and fired her up. The key word being FIRE! In filling it, butane had spilled/leaked out of the end of the torch and the whole damned thing caught fire in my hand when I lit it. Fortunately, I was working over the old trusty sink, so I just dropped it and let it burn itself out. I love that sink!

I got very close this week on fitting the shifter linkage into place with the cockpit tub, but close just won't cut it. I am about ready to give up and do some major changes to move the shifter forward and hopefully gain the needed clearance. Although I did learn this time that the there are actually three clearance problems and moving everything forward will only fix two of them. The third binding spot will still have to be addressed some other way.

Almost done with the transmission

2009-10-11T17:25:00.004-05:00

I got a fair amount done this week on the transmission. I figured out how to get things back together from last week and I took out the valve body to make the modifications that will make the car shift better. A while back, I tore a gasket and needed to replace it, so I bought a kit that included the gasket but also consisted of a bunch of tiny springs to swap out for improved performance. It was a B&M shift kit that had really nice instructions for a change.

It is hard to document visually, but here are some pics along the way...

First, the opened up valve body itself.

This shows a bit of a side view, with a piston like thing. I had to take a couple of those apart to replace a spring.

Next is the separator plate. Several of the little holes here had to be drilled out to be larger.

Finally, here is one with the new gasket in place.

At that point, it was ready to go back in the transmission. Nathan and Kelly came over to help me with that and to help me do more test fitting of the cockpit. The only problem was that one of the little pistons seems to have something like a retaining clip or something hanging where I did not remember it before. It does not seem to be effecting the transmission operation, but I may take a picture of that and see what others online think.

The cockpit fitting went well. It is very very close to fitting now that the new shifter arm is in place. The rod rubs a little bit, but I still have a little room to play with making it work. One or two washers on one end should push it inbound enough to clear. The head of the bolt holding it in place is still too tight against the cockpit tub, so I may want to bend the arm just a tad to completely clear the tub.

This coming week, I will hopefully finish off the tweaks to the tranny stuff and be able to button that all up. I think I will also finish the touch-up of the frame rustproofing that I did last year. Working underneath as much as I have of late has really shown me how many areas got missed! And I may revisit my front brakes to see what it will take to get the anti-rattle clips on that should have been done last year.

Continuing nut problem

2009-09-30T18:34:00.003-05:00

I have not worked much on the car of late, but when I did, I concluded that the replacement nut that I bought is the wrong size. It turns out it is metric. I should have known that; everything else on the tranny is too and the instructions that came with the replacement arm even said it was a 14mm nut. Oh well, simple enough to fix, right?

It turns out that Advance Auto Parts did not have any metric nuts that big. (They did read my check engine code on the Passat and I got away without spending a dime once we figured out that it was just a bad reading in the rain that falsely said the engine temperature was too high). So off to Home Depot, which only carried 12mm and 16mm. So off to Napa which had 14mm, but the wrong thread size. Grrrr. I was thinking I might have to go to Fastenal and buy a big package just to get the one that I need, but then the Napa guy suggested that I go to a tranny service place down the street and see if they had one they could sell me.

I went to Austin Transmission and talked to Jeff who took the part with him into the shop and came back 2 minutes later with a nut on it and said "Have a nice day". That was nice, even if it only costs a buck.

Eventually I got home and tried to figure out how to put everything back together, now that I have the right parts. I spent a half hour or so, but could not figure out how to get the interior linkage back in place. It fell out when I finally removed the old nut, and it is not exactly straight forward to get it back together. Nor are there any instructions for that piece, since it should not have fallen out to begin with. It wouldn't have except the tranny is in place and I am working upside down. I did find an old picture I took back on April 8th that seems to show what it should look like, so tomorrow I will tackle it again.

9/18 4:44pm

2009-09-19T18:55:00.003-05:00

That is the exact moment when I defeated my arch nemesis. The one bolt that had kept me mired down on the build has finally been conquered.

Having failed in trying to work around the huge stock gear selector arm on the transmission, I needed to remove one nut to get it to come apart. It was a 13/16" nut that I had been able to take off once before, but that was when the transmission was out of the car and much easier to work with. Unfortunately, I somehow managed to over-tighten it when I put it back on months ago and was left with a terrible problem that could have set me back to the end of April.

To access the nut, I had to drop the transmission oil pan, remove the filter, remove the valve body and a retaining pin. Not fun, but do-able at least. That left me looking at the nut as seen in the center of this blurry picture.

To work on it, I had to lay on my back with the nut about 2 or 3 inches from the tip of my nose. There was no way to get a socket on it. I could barely get a flare nut wrench on it, but only in one location that did not let me get any real leverage and there was only about 1/16" possible movement of the wrench in the best case. I quickly began to round off the nut as it just would not budge. I needed to salvage everything around this nut so I could not do any easy cutting, and I could not get a die grinder or angle grinder into that tight space anyway. I tried heat. I tried special penetrating oil. About the best grip I could get on it was with an angled Crescent pliers. Alas, nothing could get it to loosen.

Eventually, I decided to try to cut off the nut and I bought a cheap rotary tool (dremel) at Harbor Freight. It came with 25 cutoff disks that were small enough (less than an inch) to get in that space. But being about the cheapest thing that HF sells, it was woefully slow at cutting through the steel nut. Hours and hours later, I was able to get 3 good cuts done and it finally loosened enough to break loose with the pliers, and then easily twist off by hand. Here is a picture of the nut itself once it came off.

All told, it took me over 11 and a half hours of really unhappy work, spread out over a month. In the process, I spent even more time and money trying to come up with work arounds. I also ruined the gasket between the valve body and separator plate, so there goes another $50 for that kit. Anyway, I think I will at least be able to start making progress again and doing things that are enjoyable.

Finally, fellow local Hurricane builder Paul Proefrock came over this week. He needed some pictures and measurements for another builder and since my car was still so open, it was easy to get it off of mine. I got a lot of other questions answered by him that will help me proceed.

Wedding

2009-09-13T18:37:00.001-05:00

Sorry, I have nothing to post. I haven't really worked on the car in a couple of weeks. Phil and Helen have been in from California for their wedding. What a wonderful time it all was.

Stuck

2009-08-30T14:14:00.004-05:00

Well, I am very stuck right now, thanks to a nut inside my transmission that simply won't budge.

Last week, Nathan and I testfit the cockpit and the shifter linkage workaround I came up with a while back did not work. It was more than an inch off. So I have decided that I do need to replace the selector arm, but I cannot get it loose.

Here are some pics we took along the way. You can see in the first one that the exhaust headers seem to be okay, clearing the cockpit footbox by an inch or so. In the second one, you can see a wider view of what the car will look like with the cockpit in place.

I think I am going to have to cut the nut off. It is probably okay, in that I don't have to re-use everything in there, but it is extremely tight where that frozen nut is. My regular cut-off wheel on my angle grinder is too big so I may pick up a cheap dremel type rotary tool to cut the nut. The really depressing thing is that even when I do get the new arm in place, the shifter linkage may still be too close to the tub that it will require more re-work. Ugggh!

Back to work

2009-08-20T19:04:00.004-05:00

I spent a few minutes today putting on my headers and their gaskets. I had painted them a few months ago, but they would have been in the way if I had attached them, up until now. Since I want to test fit the cockpit very soon, I wanted them in place. The clearance from the cockpit footbox to the headers can be very small, in some cases less than an inch.

Anyway, it was pretty easy. I had already bought some cheap header bolts that are the correct size, but unpopular with other builders because they tend to loosen too easily. We shall see. I do see that they are a huge pain in the neck to try to tighten once everything is in place. Here is a good picture showing the header in place with the spark wire in place.

You can see one bolt to the right of the plug in place and one hole to the left of the plug with no bolt. It is extremely tight in there and getting a socket may be terribly difficult, especially once the cockpit footbox is in the way.

In the end, I spent about a half an hour on this task, and another hour scouring the internet to double check that they were not upside down. They fit pretty nicely either way, and I would not have been the first builder to make that mistake. It turns out they are fine. Here is a finished picture that has been modified to show up a little better on the computer.

And big thanks to Gil Kleine who came by my house tonight and helped me move the cockpit out to the garage. The Passat is now sleeping outside, so pray for no hail.

No work

2009-08-17T10:57:00.002-05:00

I did nothing on the Cobra this past week. Instead, I will post a neat story/video of an FFR getting built by/for a guy with ALS.

Shifter

2009-08-09T18:44:00.003-05:00

I worked a lot on the shifter this week. I picked up a spare rod to try bending to fit better, but that did not work. Eventually, I ended up connecting a straight rod to a new replacement bolt that was longer than the original. This allowed me to move the rod closer to the transmission itself and hopefully clear the fiberglass cockpit tub. I do not know yet if that did the trick as I need another set of hands to test that fit.

Here is a good picture of the shifter mounted on the transmission where you can clearly see the steel rod connecting it to the transmission arm.

And here is another from the driver side showing the shifter itself.

Finally, here is a closeup of my modification to bring the connecting rod more into the location that it would have been in had I been able to use the replacement shifter selector arm from last week. Like the extra nuts being used as spacers?

It does shift, but it is a little stiff. Not exactly sure what to do about that. It is still all just mocked up and will definitely have to be loctited if I decide it is good to go.

I also picked up a tap and die set this week at Harbor Freight. This was part of my messing around with the shifter linkage work, but I also want to use that to make nice threaded holes for bolts that will be for the electrical grounds. I may finish the battery cables and terminate them to grounds this coming week.

Pictureless progress

2009-08-02T18:49:00.003-05:00

I did start work on the shifter. It went smoothly enough, though one hole on the mounting plate seems to have been stripped out of the box. I suppose I could have done it, but I really don't think so. I got the mounting plate on, and I had it located farther to the rear of the car than the one other guy who has used this AOD transmission before. I thought it would look better with the shifter farther back in the cockpit.

It turns out that included in the shifter kit is a new replacement for the transmission selector arm. I decided to try to replace it as the instructions indicated but I could not loosen the old nut holding it on. I had tightened this nut before when I had to flip the selector arm to be pointing up a few weeks ago, and I guess it got too tight. Anyway, there just seems to be no way that the offending nut will ever get loosened. I tried every tool possible to no avail. Penetrating oil did not work. I thought about using heat, but ended up deciding to modify the existing arm to connect to the new shifter linkage. I used my cutoff wheel to remove part of the old arm but left the main part and bushing I needed to work with the new stuff I had. The good news is that it seems to work. The bad news is that when Nathan and I tried to testfit the cockpit, it was going to be in the way of the fiberglass tub. So I will have to re-engineer something else.

Passat fixed?

2009-07-26T17:08:00.003-05:00

I think the dealer finally has my Passat fixed. They had it basically all week. Keep your fingers crossed.

On the Cobra, I did manage to get the fuel pump back on. It was really difficult. It turns out that I had put on the gasket last time. Oh well, I had another anyway. I eventually got it on using the air wrench rather than a special nut driver. I will eventually need to monitor it carefully to see that no oil leaks around it. I also rerouted and shortened the rubber fuel line going into the pump as I tightened the connectors just a bit more. Here is a picture of that whole area finished off.

You can see the very small oil pressure line coming out from the engine block between the fuel pump and oil filter. The two shiny hoses are the braided stainless steel power steering lines going up to their pump.

I did not start working on my shifter yet. My back was a little sore for some inexplicable reason this week, so I did not want to do a bunch of work on that since it will entail lying on my back. This coming week, I will, though. Oh, and I did re-install the spark plugs I took off some time ago. I don't think I will need to spin the crankshaft over any more, so back on they went.

Not very motivated right now

2009-07-20T19:01:00.005-05:00

Sorry to say, but I haven't done much on the Cobra of late. The Passat is STILL giving me troubles. I did receive the oil pressure line. I spent about 10 minutes putting its pieces together and is shown in this picture.

Today, I installed it onto the engine block. Here is a poor pic showing the port hole for the line, located between the oil filter and the fuel pump.

Unfortunately, there was almost no way to get any tools on this line, so I ended up taking off both the filter and the pump. No problem on the filter, but the pump is a bear to get back on. I knew I needed to do so, because I had not put on the gasket originally. Right now, the project that I was hoping would take no more than 10 minutes has gone on about an hour and a half, with no completion in sight. It is just very hard to get that fuel pump back in place with the fuel and power steering lines in place. I really need a third hand or at least a 9/16" nut driver, which is actually quite rare.

I also took some pictures of the shifter kit parts. Here they are...

Car work confined to my Passat

2009-07-11T22:58:00.003-05:00

The only car work I got done this week was the continuing work on my Passat. It needed its 80K maintenance last week, which went fine except for a great coupon book I had in the back seat that turned up missing. Within a week, I had lost a hubcap, and had the check engine light come on again. The dealership was pretty nice about everything. They comped the hubcap which turned out to be a set of 4 new ones, since they could not match the missing one. They also offered to cover the labor on the second service for the check engine light with me paying for the part.

The only thing Cobra-related this week was that my back-ordered transmission shifter arrived. It looks really great. And I like the Lokar instructions for a change. The only possible problems I see is that the tunnel may not be quite big enough for the linkage, and the shifter itself sits pretty far forward, most likely farther than the existing cutout in the tunnel currently sits.

Checking off another couple of items

2009-07-06T11:08:00.005-05:00

This past week, I got another couple of small things done, but mostly did research.

First, I installed the dipstick for the transmission. When I bought the used transmission, the guy included several things that I might want to re-use, and the fill-tube and dipstick were included. It looks pretty crappy, but new ones are fairly expensive, so I thought we'd give this one a shot.

Not much to the install. One end sort of clicked into the tranny housing, and the bracket to mount it to the bellhousing bolt was where it needed to be, just at the wrong angle. Nothing a little beating with a BFH (big hammer) wouldn't fix. A little silicone around the bottom of the tube and now it seems good to go. Since it was originally in a pickup truck, it looks a little funny because it is so long, but it seems to fit well enough. Here are a few pics...

The next task was to install the speedometer cable. This I did buy new from Lokar. I did get the little gear that was on the old speedo cable inside the transmission, so I hope it will be okay for my setup. It was a light gray one, but there are several others that may be used depending on things like tire size, and differential gear ratios. Worst case, the speedometer will be off a bit or I will have to buy one later for $10 or so to get the right one.

Here is a good pic of the parts...

On the right is the new cable, and on the left is the old cable end, the old gray driven gear and a little retainer clip that holds the gear on the end of the cable. Surprisingly, the new cable did not come with an O-ring, so I used one I had left over from a previous toilet repair kit. Seemed to be the same size.

That end gets inserted into a hole in the rear of the transmission and the driven gear mates with a gear on the output shaft inside the tranny. I re-used a small bolt to hold it in place.

Inside the cable housing there is an inner cable that actually does all the work. This needed to be lubricated with some gooey yellow stuff. I pulled the cable out and lubed it up, but was not very careful and just let the cable droop down to the ground as I went along. It ended up picking up all kinds of dirt from the ground underneath the car where I was working. I am sure it did more harm than good. So I had to clean off the worst of it reapply more lube. I suppose it is fine--it seems to turn okay. I have heard that some of the Lokar cables have a tendency to bind and break, so we will just have to see. It was only a $17 part, so I am not awfully worried. Here is a pic with it finished, in place, but coiled up until I am ready to put in the cockpit and dash. The end that goes into the gauge is visible near the bright green duct tape.

Water neck

2009-06-25T19:17:00.005-05:00

Today, I installed the thermostat and its housing also called the water neck. I also test-fit a couple of hoses that I bought for the cooling system. Here is a picture of that stuff.

The thermostat is a special one, about 3 times as expensive as normal ones, that has a special feature that if it fails, it fails in the open position, so coolant will still circulate even if it breaks. It went in easy enough and the housing around it seems okay too. A lot of people report that this type of chromed one has a tendancy to leak. I won't know for a while, but nice aluminum necks can run $50 to $120, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for this $12 one. Here is a picture of it installed on the intake.

The hoses have to wait for a later time. The small L-shaped hose above is called the bypass hose and needs to be cut down pretty drastically at both ends, if I am going to use it. What that does is ensure that coolant gets to the engine immediately at startup, regardless of the engine temperature. Not that big of a deal actually. To use it, I will have to also buy a special fitting to get it to connect to the water pump. Right now, it is just plugged.

The other, larger hose in the picture above is the upper radiator hose. This is how hot coolant leaves the engine and goes to the radiator to be cooled back down. Naturally, I could not test its fit until I start to work on the radiator. That is still a few weeks away. I want to have it roughly in place now, though, so I can finish off the running of the fuel line from the fuel pump to the carburetor that I started a few weeks ago.

I also spent a great deal of time today trying to test fit the ignition coil on the front of the engine. Not to my surprise, I could not make it work. It is just too crowded up there where many people put it because I have all the power steering stuff already in that spot. Instead, I will end up mounting it on the inside of the passenger side fender, the other common spot use by many builders.

Differential complete

2009-06-25T18:50:00.006-05:00

I finished getting the gear oil in the differential today and have some decent pictures to go with the story.

The first problem was figuring out how to remove the drain plug. Unlike every other plug I have seen, this one did not have a hexagonal hole in the head; its was square. Here is a picture.

It turns out that instead of using an Allen wrench, you have to use a 3/8" ratchet wrench without any socket on it.

So the next problem is how to get the oil out of the bottle and into the third member. The big problem is that the hole is on the side, perpendicular to the ground, so the oil has to go in sideways.

Having run all of my brake and fuel lines precluded me from getting the nipple of the bottle into the right position. And I did not want to undo any of the other work I had done, just to make room. Here, the internet did not have a solution.

I ended up taking some leftover aluminum tubing from my fuel line and cutting off a piece to form a fill tube.

Here is a picture with the tube going into the fill hole and the top of the fill tube visible, but a little blurry.

That tube is only 3/8" wide, so filling this way was very slow. The first quart, squeezed in by hand, took about 45 minutes. Today, I put the second quart in and punched a hole in the bottom of the bottle, so it would drain out fast and that let me finish in about 10 or 15 minutes.

I also had to add a 4 oz bottle of friction modifier. That is required for non-synthetic oil used in this limited slip differential. It prevents annoying chattering. I just mixed it into the bottle of oil and fed it in with the rest. Here is a picture of that. It is only noteworthy because it is the nastiest, evilest smelling thing I have ever encountered.

Getting into the Zone

2009-06-23T17:01:00.003-05:00

Auto Zone. More on that in a bit.

Today, I bought a bunch of things that I studied about last week. From Summit Racing, I bought:

My transmission shifter (backordered for 3 weeks)

my transmission oil cooler

and my oil pressure gauge line (backordered for a month)

The backorder status is unfortunate, but I have plenty to do and these prices were very good.

I also decided to buy a bunch of things from AutoZone. Normally, I prefer buying from Advance Auto Parts, because they support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. But AZ has a cool deal where if you are a frequent customer who makes at least 5 purchases of $20 or more within 6 months, you get a $20 credit. So they will be getting some of my business now too.

Today, I got my water neck (where the coolant exits the engine on the way to the radiator), a rubber bypass hose (needed to make sure the engine has fluid in it at startup), and a quart of rear end gear oil. These cost me $22, wink-wink. Tomorrow I will be going back to buy an upper radiator hose, a thermostat, and another quart of gear oil that will also cost $22. Later, there will be plenty of more little things to buy like the lower radiator hose, motor oil, transmission fluid, a battery, etc., all of which will get done in as close to $20 increments as possible.
Every little bit will help.

I even got to work on the car then for a couple of hours too. You wouldn't think it would take that long to add 1 quart of gear oil to the differential, but it did. I probably should have done it a year ago when I put that together, but it did not need the lubrication since it wasn't going to be moving anyway. Now, since I am getting closer to putting the cockpit tub in place, it would be harder to access that if I waited any longer. I took some pics, but they aren't very clear so I won't post them til I finish the job tomorrow, if at all.

Pictureless progress

2009-06-21T10:46:00.004-05:00

All things considered, this was a decent week, but there were no good photo opportunities. I was able to figure out what was wrong with my kickdown cabling from the last post. It turns out I was trying to use the existing nut rather than the special new one that came with a spacer attached. Swapping that out made everything work very well. It is still in mock up mode though, for now.

I spent a great deal of time this week on the computer, researching more stuff I am going to need to do and to buy. I have figured out what I need to do for the gauges to work, and what I want to get for the water outlet and thermostat. I also still need to buy the shifter and driveshaft. I was able to take the measurements that I need in order to supply the people who will eventually make the shaft. I did have a slight problem with one measurement, since I did not know what a U-joint cap diameter was. I posted a question on the Hurricane owner forum and got the answers I needed within a day, so I should be able to get one made now. Hopefully, this week.

A very little progress

2009-06-16T15:56:00.005-05:00

I did not get a whole lot accomplished in the past week. I did get the starter motor bolted up. Here is a picture of that (not yet wired up)...

Next I moved on to the TV cable, also known as the kickdown cable. Basically, it is a cable that runs from the carburetor to the transmission that lets the tranny know what is going on with the throttle. The one that came with the transmission was old and gnarly, so I bought a nice new shiny one made by Lokar, at top quality company. Here is the kit...

I started to install it, and I am not pleased with how it all fits. There are several things I do not like and I am contemplating actually going back to the old one. Here are some pics of the new one in place, but barely.

I still need to order my shifter and my driveshaft, but until I satisfy myself on the workings of this kickdown cable, progress will be limited.

Del and I double-teamed a tranny

2009-06-07T20:28:00.005-05:00

Get your minds out of the gutter!

This week, my friend Del came over one day after golf and we managed to get the transmission installed. All of the studs and nuts matched up well after the grinding work I did the week before. So now it is in, and I hope I don't have to ever pull it again. Here are a few pictures of it in place.

In this one, you see it mated to the engine. I left the chains that we used to lift it into place connected to the transmission.

This shows the tail of the tranny where I will still need to acquire a very short driveshaft. It will be about a foot long and connect the tranny to the 3rd member; the gears that drive the rear axles.

In this pic, you can see the hole where the starter bolts up to the transmission. That 3 or 4 inch hole is what we had to access the flexplate holes and torque converter studs to get them to match up.

Finally, here is a picture of my new (refurbished, actually) high torque mini-starter. I will bolt that in place this week.

Oh, and earlier in the week, I installed a mounting bracket on the carburetor which holds the throttle cable in place and provides the spring to return the throttle to idle when you lift your foot off of the gas pedal. It also works as a base for another cable which links the carb to the transmission, so it knows when power is being applied that requires an automatic shift in gears. Once I get that linkage in place, I will take a picture. Hopefully this coming week.

Problem identified

2009-05-31T19:04:00.003-05:00

I have determined that the cause of my torque converter binding on the flexplate was the fact that there was a drain plug on the TC that was hitting the plate. You can see it here, about an inch and third from one of the 4 studs that connect the TC to the plate...

It seemed like it was tight but I bought a metric socket just a little smaller than the normal one I had been using to try to tighten it and was able to get it to go in a little further. Still not quite far enough, so I ended up ever so slightly opening up an already existing hole on the flexplate where the drain plug was hitting, and also grinding down just a bit of the head of the plug. I think that has it solved. I hope to mate the tranny again to the engine in the next couple of days.

Feeling better about the overall situation, I also installed the throttle cable bracket and return springs. This cable, once installed, basically reduces power when you take your foot off the gas and also gives input to the transmission through a kickdown cable so it knows what gear to select. Pics of that later.

Resuming work

2009-05-26T15:26:00.003-05:00

I resumed working on the car today. I managed to pull the transmission out (single-handedly). I still need to check the union between the torque converter and the flexplate, but it looked okay. Which is to say, I have no idea why I could not get the two pieces to hook up well enough to tighten properly.

The thread locker that I put on the flexplate bolts seems to be working great this time. Too bad, though, because I actually was going to remove the flexplate to check how it fits with the torque converter. I still can, but it is going to take more muscle power than I am willing to expend right now. Maybe tomorrow.

Somewhat defeated

2009-05-17T21:42:00.001-05:00

I've been feeling very defeated lately on my problems with the torque converter, so I have taken about 10 days off from building. I should be back at it this week.

Mating season

2009-05-06T21:19:00.006-05:00

As promised last post, here are some pics of the tranny oil pan drain plug that I installed. In order, they are the plug components, the pan with a hole drilled, and the finished pan.

This past weekend, my nephew Nathan and I spent about 7 hours getting the transmission mated to the engine and in place. It was grueling, dirty work which I could not possibly done on my own. I owe Nathan a great deal for his help.

We ran into many problems along the way. The torque converter was quite heavy and was accidentally dropped by me causing my first real fluid spill. Getting the transmission perfectly in place to mate with the engine was very difficult without a special transmission jack. We just used the engine lift to get it roughly into place.

Then we just manhandled it so that the dowel pins on the engine lined up with the tranny case. It is not nearly as easy as it sounds. The tranny did not line up well, and even when it was connected to the engine, it did not fit right in the frame. We ended up having to loosen everything up, manhandle the engine as well, to get everything to be where it needed to be. Then we tightened the case to the block.

Big mistake! We did not have the holes of the flexplate lined up with the studs on the torque converter, so when we tightened everything, it did not line up right. We only learned of this when we tried to turn the crankshaft by hand and nothing would budge. So we had to undo everything, several hours in, and start over. This time we verified that the plate and torque converter holes were matching before we started putting things back together. Fortunately, it seemed okay, so we proceeded to put it all back together again, only to find out that once everything was where it belonged, the studs on the torque converter did not go through quite far enough through the holes on the flexplate to be able to install the nuts needed to hold the two pieces together. Eventually, we got 3 out of 4 to snug up a bit, but the fourth seems almost impossible to make work, and I am not sure that the first 3 have engaged enough threads to hold long-term. I am not sure how to proceed from here.

Transmission work

2009-04-29T18:50:00.003-05:00

As mentioned last time, I did fill the torque converter and try to test fit the transmission. It is an extremely tight fit that I could not do by myself. I did go ahead and purchase the carb to tranny linkage and a special bracket for that. I have not installed them yet.

I have not bought my shifter or its linkage yet. I did contact another guy who built a Hurricane with an AOD. He sent me some info and pictures about how he did it. I am not sure, but I may be able to get a slightly different setup from his that may look just as nice and require a little less modification to the console. To be sure, I want to wait and see just how the transmission will sit in the frame and that is still a couple of days away. Here is a picture of the one that the other guy used, which coincidentally was the same one I was thinking of using.

I did determine that I needed to rotate 180 degrees the piece of the transmission that selects what gear you are in. Basically, since my transmission came out of a pickup truck, it was set up for a column shifter, whereas I will be using a shifter down on the floor or more accurately, the console. I did find 2 awesome videos showing how to do it. Here are 2 links to those videos, the first one takes about 7 1/2 minutes and the second one takes about 5 minutes.

Finally, I bought a little drain plug kit so that if I ever do have to change the transmission oil, I will not have to remove the pan. It only cost $1.79 and I have no idea why Ford did not just put one in to begin with. Pics will come in a couple of days when it gets installed.

Oh, and best of all, MY POWER STEERING LEAK is FIXED!!! Not a drop in over a week.

More progress and roadblocks

2009-04-22T23:12:00.010-05:00

I have been able to spend many hours in the garage of late after getting all of the parts I ordered last week. First, I mounted the block plate that I had neglected. It was pretty simple. I did have to trim off a piece of aluminum from the plate because it is made to fit both my engine and another model. Basically, I needed a bigger hole for the starter to fit in. Fortunately, the plate was pre-cut with just little tabs holding in place the piece I needed to trim. I also had to do a little filing and lubricating to get the dowel holes to line up perfectly. Here is a pic with the plate in place...

And here you can see the hole for the starter. Notice that the bracket comes very close to the red battery cable, so I will probably have to lower that a half-inch or so later on.

Next I reinstalled the flexplate...

Then it was on to finishing up the fuel system. Here is the kit of parts to run the line from the mechanical fuel pump to the carburetor.

You can see the steel braided fuel line coiled on the left, the fuel log that connects to the carburetor on the right, 3 packages of fittings in the middle, a fuel pressure gauge and fuel filter (blue) that plug into the line near the carb, and a couple of extra line plugs.

I was not completely thrilled with the way everything went together, but I eventually figured things out. For a while I did not understand that there was already a plug in place where the pressure gauge went, and I had to cut the end of the braided line again like I did with the power steering lines. I fit the carb end up okay, but decided to wait until later to finish the routing of the fuel line down to the fuel pump as I was not quite sure of how some other things were going to attach to the engine. Should be easy enough to figure out the exact length needed and finish it later though. (Pics when finished).

I also decided to fill the power steering system with fluid to see if it would leak. Seemed to be okay at first, but later I did see some fluid on the floor near where the lines connected to the steering rack. Not a terrible leak, but too much to leave, especially if I ever want to take this car to a racetrack. Can't have leaks then. In this next picture, you can see where a few drops have hit the little newspaper I put down.

In time, the paper would be pretty soaked, so today I spent several hours tearing it all apart, including where the steering rack mounts to the frame. I did not see any hairline cracks in the housing, so I cleaned out the fittings, retorqued everything and have my fingers crossed.

Finally, I have spent some time figuring out how to lift the transmission into place. I bought some chains and figured out a way to use the engine lift to get the job done. I have also done some more little cleaning on it, and determined I had a problem with the way the previous owner had cut the transmission oil cooler lines for uninstalling. Not a big deal, but it took some time to figure out how to proceed. I have also been researching how to hook everything up, and trying to figure out what shifter I want to get. I will probably go ahead in the next few days and fill the torque converter up with fluid and try connecting the main pieces. I may not be able to leave everything in place though as there may not be enough room to easily connect the linkages (which I do not have yet) to the shifter and the carburetor that are necessary to make it work. And since everything is so heavy, I may need a second pair of hands to help manipulate things into place, even with the engine hoist solution I have come up with.

Whew.