Steering next Part

 All welded up thanks to Steve ready to fit to car 

All welded note the guide hole for the correct  distance 

fitted and all working fine big thanks to Steve again !!

all back together 

work in progress :-Steering

 First job which was the most worrying was the steering ,i had found that there was a bit a play in the splines not much but enough to cause concern at speed ( 70mph of course officer ) 

After speaking to Andy i realized that I had not enough spline shaft entered  which was my fault as I had to move the steering wheel further out than first measured  to fit the shroud .

steering arm with the play in the splines 

removed to show that it wasn't in far enough hence the wear 

Only solution is to manufacture a new one thank goodness my bestie is a cracking welder .

bought a new ( from the scrappie ) lower steering arm and got another shaft from andy and will address that when the ice has stopped forming on the roof of the garage

as arrived before mods 

mods required 

We used the old spline as a spacer and made a bush so everything was a tight fit then fitted on the car to get the length of the arm made it as long as poss this time with only a 5 mm gap for body movement now waiting to be welded 

all ready for welding 

Indicator Stalks

 wanted to trail  fit the stalks and the housing before sticking the leather to it and realized that i had left the stalk cables too long and had loads of cable to lose but hey ho .

All fitted on the steering coulomb so happy ,fitted the leather with the join at the bottom and pushed the front on and left to dry ,leaving the leather long at the moment until i see what its looks like on 

waiting to dry 

When we offered it up it didnt fit as well as we wanted ,biggest issue was that the surround it cut out for a key and i dont have one .this tends to make the leather crumple in ,solved with a piece of plastic from a paint tray to fill it out now looks better 

final fit 

  

Steering wheel

 Got the steering wheel out of the box and surprise its doesn't fit, quick call to Andy and he tells me that the splines on the housing need to be filed a bit or i can just force it on .

Didnt like the idea of forcing anything as knowing my luck i would need it off, using needle files set to and filed each spline until it fits, assembled the steering wheel 

idea was that the Column can be moved back and forth until it is fixed in place so wanted to make sure the driving position was correct.

Wheel in the correct position 

Now i know where the column wants to be i can sort out the cover and fit the dash .

Steering assembly part 2

 Once i had fitted the steering wheel it just looked too low  and I couldn't get in the car very well.

GD open day was coming up so good time to catch up with everybody and have a measure .

My steering hub was 50 cm from the floor and on the gd day everybody elses was 55 to 57cm 

eventually realized what i had done .

i have fitted the steering hub under the bracket as it wouldn't fit on the top but .... it needs to be on the top

In order to get it to fit i had to cut off the corners of the steering hub 

red mark shows were i cut ( forgot to take another pic ) 

It then fits on the top and my height is the same as all the others very happy and great to catch up with all the owners .

fitted 

Now of course nothing fits on the other end 

I had 2 choices one was  to push in the steering shaft in so the rods would still fit  which i was reluctant to do as then the bracket to hold the column would then not have enough meatal to grip or 2

cut down the shaft by 30mm 

i chose the second .

Again Steve's welding services to the rescue 

Needs shortening by 30mm 

He did this by removing the socket shortening the bar and then assembling it all back together 

Just a pile of bits 

Looks the same but now 30mm shorter 

Fitted in finally together with the bracket that seems to be different to all the other cobras i saw 

Enlisted the son in laws help to fit the bracket 

Bracket fitted just need to fit the alumin surround 

Happy all in 

Steering Assembly

 Tackling the steering which seemed straight forward ( o silly me )  

There are three bits to the steering  so started with  the lower section  removed the nut slid it over the spline and re fitted 

Lower section ( courtesy of Dales blog )  

Then to the middle section which has a rose joint that needs to be pushed on and fits in a pre drilled hole in the frame .

It soon became apparent that the heater isolators that I had fitted earlier were now in the way and had to be removed .

So not to be beaten Steve came up with the idea of moving them to the stainless steel pipes that go across the body so that's what we did  just in case i get too hot .

front section so close to the pipes had to remove the isolators 

isolators now in the cross pipes 

The last section fits on the bracket but can be adjusted up and down as well as in and out .

the issue here is that once the column is secured it can no longer move.

This will have to be left  until the dash and seal is fitted so i can see were the wheel wants to be  

I bought  a steering wheel from the scrappy so i could see were it would sit and my nice sister in law supplied me with a "cute" cover for it !!!

No words are necessary