Air Horns

I put the air horns together which was a case of simply bolting the components onto the bracket supplied by GD, cutting a bit of tube supplied in the kit and fitting it all together. The bracket mounts using the same bolts that hold the radiator frame. As this frame will have to come off to mount the body onto the chassis I'll leave mounting the air horns any further until after the body has been fitted.

Beginnings of the Dash

I've started to mark out the dash ready to cut the holes for the gauges. I understand the later dash's are premarked by GD but mine is just blank so I enlisted some help from the Cobra Club and someone kindly sent me a template which I firstly transferred to graph paper and then used that as a guide to mark through onto masking tape behind.

To mark the gauge centres, all I've done at this stage is to start a small hole with a 2mm bit, I'll then use this as a reference to scribe the gauge outlines to make sure I'm happy with the layout before committing myself further.

Gearshift and Intake Clearance

I cut two more holes today in preperation for the body going on. The first was the hole to give clearance for the gearshift. The tremec box I'm using has a short stub shaft which would foul the tunnel so a hole has to be cut before the body can go on. This poses a problem as until the body is on you can't use this as a guide on where to cut the hole. I'm sure there's a few different ways to overcome this, I chose to use the body mounting holes as reference points and as close as I could, transfered the measurements from them to the gearshift from the chassis onto the body. I used various pieces of wood, clamps, spirit levels and tape measures, the proof of the pudding is in the eating so we'll have to wait until the body is on to see how accurate I was.

The Dremel with a radius cutting tool doing it's thing...!

Ta daaa...

The other hole I cut was to give clearance to the air intake tube which runs from the engine forward to the air filter. There's not quite enough clearance as the tube disapears beneath the nose of the car so a small section has to be cut away firstly from the lip around the bonnet opening and then a section from the piece which holds the bonnet hinge fixings.

The cable you can see just pushes up out of the way.

Not a bad fit, of course it may need a bit more work once the body is on but should only require a little fettling.

This is the view from underneath showing how the GD air filter mounts inside the nose cose

First hot run

No major progress today, had a bit of a lazy one.

I did however start the engine again but this time let it run, varying the revs a little, trying not to alienate the neighbours too much on a sunny Easter Sunday afternoon, until the fan came on at just a smidge under 90 degrees on the gauge. This was mainly because I just wanted to hear the engine again but more importantly, when I filled the radiator last time it was with just water an no antifreeze. Now I know it's unlikely to freeze at this time of year but I had a niggling worry about missing out on the anti-corrosive properties so I drained the water and refilled with a water/antifreeze mix and then of course had to start the engine to make sure it was all nicely circulated. :-) I was quite pleased to see the radiator come on. I wondered whether I'd have to recalibrate the gauge as it's running off the ECU rather than directly from a sender but it seems OK.



The other thing I did last week was to spray the side sills matt black, this part is kinda under the car and looks like it should be hidden rather than polished. Here's a quick picture to illustrate.

Testing hydraulics

I noticed a small pool of fluid sitting on a chassis cross member which appeared to be coming from a brake union. As the brake system isn't under any pressure this had me a little confused. Having bought a rolling chassis it led me to consider if any of the brake fittings had been tested before I took delivery. Common sense would tell you even if they had it made sense to check them myself so I set about mocking up the pedal box asssembly in order to apply some pressure to the system. You'll see from the pictures, I basically made a wooden frame to mount the pedal box and master cylinder and then used the supplied pipes and fittings in a tempoarary fashion to connect it all up to the chassis.

Once it was all connected and I'd bled the fluid through the system I tested it with a few pumps and finally held the pedal down for as long as my leg muscles would stand. There were a few leaks, nothing horrendous and a quick tweak with the spanner was all that was needed. I used a Gunson's Easibleed to bleed the fluid through the system and it worked flawlessly, thoroughly recommended.

Battery Tray & Stainless Mesh

Decided to fit the battery tray today. Considering it's hidden away under the battery and behind a wheel arch compartment cover I probably needn't have gone to the trouble of spraying it but well.... in for a penny ! Oh and it's made of stainless steel as well so it isn't going to rust, Hmm, I suppose I could have polished it instead !

I also fitted the stainless steel mesh into the oil cooler and brake duct vents. This is purely cosmetic and does look rather nice when finished. I made a template of the opening and then added 5 mm all the way round and used this to form the mesh around before "glueing" it in place with Sikaflex. I should have kept and used the blanks which I cut out from the openings originally which would have saved me some time.

Body on soon !

Guess what I did today... :-)

I must admit, the first attempt didn't go so well, I hadn't put enough fuel in the tank so whilst it started it was very rough and wouldn't idle, hence the "jaunty" angle of the tank in the video to make sure the fuel level was high enough on that side so the pump wasn't sucking air. This was the very next try though...

In this next clip you can see the box I made with the basic electrical connections to start the engine, along with the accelerator pedal.