Body on part 2

After all the help with the body now needed to bolt it down .Quick call to Andy at GD as couldn't get the 2 important holes to line up ( the ones just underneath the dash )
Andy said the chassis measurement is important  so that the body sits level with it .with both the bolts in I was 1/8 inch (old school measuring ) low on the drivers side .


measuring from the chassis to a straight edge across the body  

I was not happy with this so removed the bolts and jacked up the drivers side 1/8 inch until it was level and then filed the holes to suit .
to make sure that no fibre glass remained the holes I blew them out with a compressed air line .
Next I measured the depth of the hole with a vernier as the bolt has to stop short of hitting the steel chassis to prevent noise transmission .
once the correct length   was established the 2 important bolts were put in.

bolt in place with penny and spring washer

Then continued to fit all the rest moving backwards using the same idea, I found the easiest way was to insert a small drill to find out which way the body hole needed elongating then used the hole cutting bit from the dremmel .
The last 2 required the front to be jacked up and the wheels off and again the hole needed a bit of work .

The last hole before fettling  

Body on and level well happy .

Are you ready to build a GD Cobra

If you are reading this and thinking of starting your own project as I now have my body on I have a stand that comes to pieces ready to accept you body al ready built with lockable wheels
any sensible offer accepted 


SOLD

good all round access

Body On Day !!!

All set for the body on and a BBQ to encourage enough blokes to turn up

Last pictures of the chassis  note the radiator and bracket have been removed

Body waiting  patiently

All the blokes arrived including technical support in the form of Dale ( on day release from Skipton)

Oh god will it fit (that will be no then )

Then it was just  a simple case of lifting it over and lowering it down squarely ,the important lining up points are the 2 bolts near the dash board and in order for these to fit the body has to be manhandled forward once on .
Mine didn't fit no matter how hard we tried ! It would fit at the front fine but as soon as the back sat down the whole body moved back .After loads of swearing(mainly me) the body had to come off again for investigation .the reason was that some goon ( again me) had under sealed the transmission tunnel were it has to fit and the back of the seats making the body just to wide at that point .
bit of sanding then fits just nice one hours job taking 2 hours and  voila it on

body on and the 4 key bolts  in

All done  Huge thank you to all the Guys

A super big thank you to all my helpers Joe, Dave, Steve, Adam, Bob and Connor   not getting stressed when I was !!

Forced to get in the picture

better with just the car in the picture

air intake

Getting ready for the body on day so need to file out the front part of the body for the air intake .
used the rubber hose to mark out what was needed then the trusty Dremel comes in again to help



Trusty Demel and Steve

final bits

Body fitting day looming up so getting the final bits sorted .Sponge rubber need to go on the top of the chassis  for the body to sit on.

Adam coming to the rescue fitting the sponge

last job was to make sure that there was a hole for the gear leaver was cut out in the body as the gear leaver is off set but want to appear in the middle on the finished car the hole is cut in the middle even though the gear leaver will poke though at the left hand side

Steve again as someone has to hold the camera! 

Gearbox oil filling

my gearbox is a manual but the instruction specify using ATF so strange but hey ho
Instaed of messing about trying to get to the filler and level plug used a trick from one of the American blogs and poured it in though the shifting plate until it came out the level plug .a lot easier

weird putting atf in a manual gearbox

Engine prelube

Needed to thing abut pre lube  the engine as the alternator has t come off anyway to acess the last bit of the loom on that side .
Opted for a fuel priming nozzle as an experiment ( Steve's idea)
undid the bleed plug

Bleed plug behind alternator

the wrapped some tape round the outlet to get a good seal

and then pumped and hoped for the best ?
What a success after about eight pumps the oil started to come out of the oil pressure hole

oil coming out of the oil pressure hole

stopped pumping and put the plug back in used about 1/3 of a 4 pint container

pre lube done

dead happy Steve right again

Wiring part 2

After the success of the speedo sensor did exactly the same thing with the reverse lock out sensor.
Lots of mixed feelings about this do I :-
1 :- Leave it as reverse can be still selected its just hard to push across.
2:- Do a mod to weaken the spring and then leave it.
3:- wire it in on a switch to be somewhere on the dash .
Didn't fancy option 2 as once modified  it's do or die and knowing me it would have been die !so went for option 3 and  wire it and then I can decide later .
Once wired it was a simple case to feed the wires to the right hand side and loom everything together on the right hand side and I used the brake pipe to tie wrap the cables to reverse lock out the speed sensor and the reverse light switch all together

reverse lock out switch loomed up

speedo sensor with the reverse switch wires from the other side

wiring continuing and picking up the reverse switch

Used self amalgamating tape as think it looks neater than adhesive tape.
Moving on to the left hand side it was a mirror image of the right until I got to the end of the engine .
extra cables were the air intake sensor ( which goes in the intake tube) alternator wires and the cam position sensor.

wires at the front of the engine

 Again used SAT and "P" clips in any hole that would do ,the right hand side cables are the alternator ,the left cable is for the air intake and the middle one goes down to the cam sensor .

Mine didn't fit and looked like a completely different plug , After a beer and a think realised that the cam sensor has a link extender wire on it ,once I removed that the cable fitted no problem .

Cam sensor with the extender cable still in place

Wiring done good day in the garage .

Wiring part 1

Been putting off the wiring loom but can't any more. Getting it out of the box was the first milestone and then I needed a beer! .
Using other peoples blogs and pictures that I took when at the factory I sorted out the staring point was were the loom splits to feed the two banks

loom laid in the right position  loom is marked nearside and off side

 Then I started laying the 2 sides and hoped that things would fall naturally into place which most things do.

off side loom with the injectors and coil pack falling just right

The loom splits up just before the first cylinder and goes down the off  side of the engine  for the O2 sensor knock sensor the starter motor cables and the all important crank position sensor. The only way I could gat the CPS fitted was to take the starter motor down again.


Crank position and the knock sensor ( with starter removed ) the bottom one is the unused oil level

I noticed a wire that said coolant temp with nowhere for it to go eventually  I found a blank on the right hand side with a temp sensor in the box of tricks , hey presto the supplied sensor fits in there with the  doughty washer

coolant temp sensor (for the gauge not the engine ECU which is the other side

Following on from this was the starter cable  together are the alternator supply cables  and the other cable is the start request signal really tight for space to clear the exhaust.

showing the alt cables and start cable ( used "P" clips in any vacant hole to try and tidy up the loom

moving back to the top to finish off was the last 2 sensors which nicly fall into place on the throttle  body and map sensor

 

off side done

Last job on this side was to fit the off side O2 sensor which connects up but way too much cable so coiled it up to keep it away from everything and tie wrapped it to the frame.

O2 fitted and all the cable tie wrapped out of harms way

Before moving to the near side I had the speedo sensor to think about ,The plug is special order from the US with an extra 30 dollars to get it here yer right, so a bit of thinking later and !!

speed sensor

took out the speedo sensor and cut the shroud off to expose the pins

and then crimped 2 red though connectors on to it

crimped happy days
 

then is was just a matter on putting the shroud back on and filling it with epoxy proper job

Top plate of chasis

Had a little time left so marked the top plate ready to drill the hole for the gear shifter
marked the centre of the shifter and drilled a 90mm hole to give me plenty of room
filled smooth and refitted will be coming off again to fit some rubber round the hole and will be a lot easier to fill the gear box though the shifter hole once the oil arrives.
 Note Manual gearbox but needs ATF dextron III oil 4 litres.

Add caption

Filled out and temp fitted