Surprise!

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

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

Post Thanksgiving Post

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

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

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

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

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.