Shifter

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.