Just keep chipping away...

No pictures this week, not really much to show. Just grabbed an hour or two in the garage today and finished of the wiring for the other front headlight/indicator. I also drilled the holes through the floor for the seatbelt mounts. This is just a matter of holding the mounting plates in place and using the them as a guide for the drill. I've also completed the electrical connection to the heater and began marking the dashboard ready for cutting out. The heater has three speeds but there's only provision in the GD wiring loom for two so I've connected the fastest and slowest speed terminals. It seems that later dashboards have the locations for the guages pre-marked, mine hasn't but with a bit of hunting around the other blogsites and a bit of help from the guys on the cobra club forums (www.cobraclub.com) I've got all the dimensions I need to mark them out myself.

Chassis complete

I spoke to Andy at GD last week and my chassis has been built and was being sent away to be powder coated. This next part of the build should see some major progress and it's fair to say this is the quick but expensive part. I'm busy putting together a list of things to be done before the body goes on. If everything goes to plan I aim to collect chassis, engine, gearbox, propshaft, exhaust system and a few other bits on a Friday and by Sunday lunchtime have all this bolted together with the body on... Wishful thinking ? maybe, but working in a single garage with no room to store both body and chassis seperately kinda makes it a necessity, nothing like a bit of pressure to sharpen the mind eh !

Lights wired

I solved my issue with the polevolt connectors, I think others may have mounted these a little differently. I've mounted the p-clips around the collar of the female half of the connector and found the 25mm p-clips I used were too small. This was mainly down to the width of the band which with the ruber lining was too wide and fouled the "clip" part of the connector. I cut a notch into the rubber in these areas which got the band fitting nicely and then used washers to space the p-clips apart so they didn't squash the connector out of shape. The washers allowed me to fine tune the clamping pressure around the connector and with the notches cut out, meant that irrespective, the connector was now trapped and couldn't slide out.

A picture speaks a thousand words...

A notch on the top allows the connector to be trapped by the metal band of the p-clip



The same on the bottom meaning the connector is not only clamped, it physically cannot moved forwards or backwards



By varying the number of washers used a spacers I could vary the clamping pressure of the p-clip ensuring a tight fit but not so tight it squashed the connector, distorting the shape and negating the waterproof seal with the male half.




Fitted into position... The female part is fixed to the body with the male part on the headlight/indicators. When the lights are fitted for the last time (after the body polish), I'll ziptie the wires together and then into a ziptie mount secured to the rear of the headlight bowl.