Maybe I should have gone for the soft top

Sue and I drove up to Madison, WI last weekend for a wedding. We took her Toyota Solara convertible up late Friday night and came back home Sunday. The weather was poor on Friday but gorgeous on Sunday. The result was that my face got completely sunburned, save for the outline of my sunglasses. The picture does not do it justice but I look totally raccoon-like.
Perhaps I should get a soft top afterall. Or a tight hat that won't blow off when driving the Cobra.

This week, I am still chasing down engine quotes and such. I did end up buying a used engine hoist and leveler from a local guy who advertised a garage sale last weekend on craigslist. They did not sell, so I gave him $80 for the hoist and another $10 for the leveler. And I managed to get it home by myself in Baba's RAV.
Here are some pics...





The DVD that I ordered last week came in, so I will be watching that on Thursday and then it will be up to Quincy again this weekend. I hope to order the tranny and engine next week when one of the bidding vendors gets back from vacation.

Brake lines

This week I did manage to squeeze in a couple of hours to actually work on the car. I roughed in the brake lines. They are a combination of 7 hard metal lines and about 5 flexible braided ones. All sorts of connectors are used to join them and connect them to the calipers. Since I am not finished, I do not have any pictures. Sorry. I still need 2 missing parts to complete the job.

Most of the time is still being devoted to engine and transmission research. I did find and order a cool looking DVD. Three hours worth of "Basic Engine Building". Sounds like just what I need.

Sorry - just researching now

I am working the phones a bit right now on the car. I am trying to get closure on the engine. I am starting to seriously consider nuking the budget and buying a brand new crate engine. But I am still considering other strategies: buying a used car and cannibalizing, buying remanufactured parts, buying an unfinished kit and building myself, etc.

Tires acquired

I did get the tires I was pursuing last post. Nice guy I bought them from. This week, I was able to get two of them mounted on my front rims. I took them to NTB. They were very cheap, just $26 for mounting the pair. The only problem was that I misunderstood the guy when he asked me something about the lettering, and they ended up with the raised letter sides facing in. No problem really...some people like it better that way. I may later go back and get a white marker and color in the lettering on the side that is now facing out. I also found a small nail in one as I was messing around with putting it on the front spindle. Here are a couple of pictures...


Right now, the two wheels are sitting in my parts room. I still need to mount the cosmetic fiberglass wheel inserts and spinners that will make them look like Halibrands, the famous wheels that were on the original Cobras. And for the rear wheels, I am still undecided whether or not to mount the other two tires I bought last week, or to wait and see if I can't find a couple of bigger ones that most people put on the rear. There is no great rush.

On the rest of the build, I am kind of stalling. I need to make a final decision about getting the engine and transmission. The next step is to run the fuel lines, and for that you need to decide some engine issues, especially related to the fuel pump. There are so many different strategies on the engine, ranging from brand new $10,000 crate engines, to high mileage used ones needing some TLC that are almost free. It is really worth its own post, once I get my thinking organized.

No work being done, just research

I am not working on the car right now. I've been in Quincy a lot, and just doing some research on future steps.

In particular, I tried to buy some used tires from a guy who was advertising on craigslist. The tires are perfect, at least for the front. They are 235/60R15, which is what most people use, and increasingly difficult to find as most manufacturers don't make many of this particular size. At least one guy uses them on all 4 wheels. These in particular are Coopers and even say "Cobra" on the sidewall. He wants $75 for the set. New, each tire would be more than that. They have about 50 percent of the tread left. At a minimum, I could just use them for the time being while I am doing the build. Anyway, I am waiting to hear back from the guy. Hope I get them.

I HATE grease !!!

I mean I REALLY HATE grease. Today, I decided to install the front rotors and wheel hubs. Here are the parts being used...




The first thing, you do is to install the wheel bearings after packing them with grease. I also had put off actually filling the tie rods and ball joints with grease, so that got added to the list too. I bought some new grease at AutoZone today, because the last stuff I got was not premium stuff, and I had spilled most of it anyway trying to get it loaded into the gun. Well, today I spilled the rest of that as I was taking out the old cannister to replace it with the new. For a while I tried wearing gloves, but that stuff just manages to get everywhere. Mostly on my clothes. (Tomorrow I am going to buy some new shorts that I can wear in public). Eventually, I got the bearings greased, and I think I got enough into the suspension parts previously installed.

Here is a finished picture...


And my reward for a job well done, a Jolly Rancher bombpop from the treat wagon that drove through the neighborhood.


Fortified with frozen goodness, I decided to press on and install the front brakes. It was pretty easy, but kind of surprisingly loose fitting. The brake pads are installed in the calipers and just "float" there. They cannot come off, as the bolts that hold them to the caliper mounting brackets which I installed first are in the way. I checked it online a couple of places and am assured that it is right.

Here is the passenger side (PS) brake on the rotor...


And the driver side (DS)...


Finally, a decent picture showing the DS hub, rotor, and brake...


This finishes Chapter 6. Next up, theoretically, is to run the brake and fuel lines. To do this, however, requires me to make a decision about my engine. The fuel system is different if I choose to use fuel injection (EFI) versus a carburetor--the fuel pump has to be located differently, and there needs to be a special return line from the engine for EFI. Instead, I may work on my wheels, and buy some tires to make what I have a "rolling chasis". We shall see.

Steering rack done

I finished the steering rack today. This turned out to be harder than it should have been. First off, I ordered my kit with Hurricane's power steering option. This is not very popular, but I wanted this car to be easy for anyone to drive. Hurricane, however, drilled the mounting holes in my frame that were 16 inches apart, the right distance for the standard steering rack, but mine needed to be 15 1/2 inches instead. So I had to spend a lot of time using my die grinder to elongate the holes to accomodate my rack. After that, I had to open up the cutaway in the frame for access to the bolt that gets tightened to keep the rack in place. That was a problem because my power rack has a bigger housing to allow for the power steering fluid, piston, etc. I ended up having to cram a file into that hole to be able to tighten it, and even then it broke, just as I was getting it tightened as much as I needed.


The next step was to connect the steering rack to the spindles. This is done with tie rods. As with most builders, I found that my rack was too long, so I had to use my angle grinder and cutoff wheel to lop off about an inch off of each end. Here is one picture showing the tie rods before shortening

Another picture after shortening...

And one with it completely installed...


Next up will be the front rotors and brakes.