Wheels and Chassis

Decided on the wheels early on (well the wife did ) 18 inch so ordered those and had them sent to Andy to make the chassis roll a little bit better

together with tyres sport pilot like other cobra drivers

 
Next great phone call was the rolling chassis is ready  so off I go to pick it up together with the next build kit .

Its Christmas

ENGINE

well what a day today the engine  has finally arrived

pride of place

wiring

Now I have the seat wiring I can complete the loom
Wiring is colour coded for right and left which helps .I also decided to put an extra pair of wires in at the same time just in case .

Drivers side heater cable +2 spares

 Looking at other blogs and the IVA needs clipping at at least 300mm so I copied other blogers and went for 250mm

left hand side has carried the main loom as well

used 6mm clips on the drivers side and 10mm clips on the passenger with stainless self tappers and washers .

Seats and leather gear !

Catching up on the blogs
Seats and all the leather have arrived as needed the dash leather and the heated seat wiring so had to get the lot and store for later on ( happy wife)

Might look better in the car

Light wiring

Next task was to start with the wiring started at the drivers side and worked my way round .
Using the GD diagram the wires.  are quite straightforward .
Knowing how much water plays havoc with wiring wanted to make sure in the unlikely event of being caught out in the wet at least the wiring would stay dry .
Placed heat shrink on the headlight  cable so that no water could get in the cables and used the bullet connectors supplied to connect up followed by adhesive tape to seal it all in .
At this point I was not happy with how exposed the indicators were so decided to try and protect them a bit .
After some thought cam up with half a tennis ball  ! I extended the light securing screws with 5mm barrel nuts (tool station ) and then fastened the tennis ball with 2 more 5mm nuts after painting think it look better only time will tell .

Still wet should blend it when dry !

As in the same picture fitted the mesh covers at the same time these were fabricated  by Steve whilst laughing at my tennis ball idea ,he  had to make a wooden template to form the mesh round as the hols were already cut so couldn't use the piece cut out and have to say fitted first time .

Dashboard part 1 of ??

Decided it was high time I tackled the dashboard .
First problem was it didn't fit and when I managed to get it some were near it caught on both the door hinges .
Calls out to Andy ,Dale and the Keith for help found out that the dash need to be square at the ends unlike mine .

needs to be trimmed at the line to fit

Once trimmed it would go in but when setting the dash to be parallel with the transmission tunnel found the top was not leval with the top of the car .
with a bit of sanding and more phone calls it fits

make shift sander

Once I was happy with the fit  then pondered over which layout to go for .This was a lot easier than I thought as I wanted the 5 gauge layout and Annie (the boss) said I was having a clock !! ^ gauge layout it is then


Any layout I want as long as it looks like this !!

The dash has all the marks on it for various layouts so its just a case of making sure the right guide holes are used for the layout I was having .
Measured each gauge and then added 2 mm for the leather to give me the final sizes .
Used a dermal circle cutter for all the gauge holes after first drilling a 3mm pilot hole to allow the point of the cutter to sit in as not to move .

Dusty job so I held the camera !!(what a tidy garage!))

Note the gauge sizes written on the top least I forgot

Itching to have a go

Once the hole were done couldn't resist a trial fit

starting to look the part now ,a lot of work to get this far (note the switch marks )  

Flushed with success the switches and warning lights next .Again measured the diameter and added two mm for the leather .
used a step drill for this ironically the metric one I had was the wrong sizes but the imperial one was just right how strange .
All drilled out and ready to see it in the car .

nice fit and nice smile !

Found the the top gauges were going to foul the top sill as well as 2 of the warning lights which I expected as read on other blogs so marked these as well as the four mounting holes I was going to use .
drilled 2 each side of the big gauges and 2 at the ends .
Drilled them 5 mm in the dash and 6mm in the car to give me a bit of play when the leather goes  on .

sill filed out to clear and the securing holes can be seen

took 2 days but worth the effort








































Demisters

Fitted the demisters as figured that would be an easy job as the holes have already been cut out .
Not quite that easy as the hole centres didn't line up and the holes weren't wide enough drilled the holes out to 5 mm to give me a bit of room and filed the slots out and it fits two issues I am not happy with
1 the white fibreglass can be seen though the slots which stands out too much on a black car and
2the body is curved but the demisters are straight this means they fit nice at the edges tight up to the bracket but I have a gap in the middle .

demist slots look good from this angle

going to try to build up the gap with black silastic which may sort out the first problem as well






 

Battery cables

Had a bit a time today so fitted the battery cables I copied Dales post and fitted the Positive at the bottom ,although my set differed from his as only had rubber protectors on the engine side ( will need to clarify that with Andy )
Also the main wiring loom supply that I fed in above the heater what seems like an age ago needed to be fitted to the positive as well which needed filling out to fit !
another little job off the list. also fitted the heater plug at the same time ,The heater is three speed and the wiring is for 2 speed using the diagram on the side of the heater went for lowest and highest ( can always change my mind )

Batt cables from the inside showing the main loom feed and the now wired heater plug

Also dropped in the battery box to test for fit ready to bolt though the floor on next visit .

seems to be too many holes just for a bat box more reading required  

 

Washer jet

looked at the kit and two jets are provided but copied a lot of other people and went for just the 1 as it is twin jet and how much rain use am I going to see ( famous last words )
found the centre of the car and marked 20mm  in from the bonnet copied from other blogs and noticed that the windscreen stay was 3 mm off the centre line . After deliberation and re checking my measurements it is the windscreen that was not quite plumb, assuming this is due to the windscreens being hand made. Decided to stick with the centre line as the stay bracket wont be seen because of the rubber .

Jet fits nicely

 

Fuel Cap

I opted for the Aston Martin type fuel cap and it comes undrilled but had pilot indents on the underside.
Drilled these 4.5 mm to accept 4mm countersunk bolts which then needed countersinking from the top .
This was a challenge in itself  as the countersink (from screw fix) was too wide to get square on to the holes so with a make shift lathe ( drill in the vice and angle grinder !!) made it thinner so it now fits

Drilled out and countersunk

then it was just a simple job to fit the unit to the car but wanted to make sure that the cap was the right way round so ,,, fitted the cap with all the gaskets as clearance s close tightened it down and placed it on the car so it was facing were I wanted it to then mark the holes

placed on the car at the angle I wanted

I then drilled a 5mm hole and tapped it out 6mm to place a grub screw in the back ( as picture above) so it could not move over time .

Marked the holes and drilled out 5mm so I had a bit of error factor and fitted it looks good .

finished cap