Wipers assembled

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.