Leather

 First piece of leather to fit is the transmission tunnel top cover ,was dreading this so needed moral support in the way of Steve .

Marked the top of the gear stump with grease and placed the leather on top to give us a clue .

then cut a small hole just big enough for the shaft .

Cutting out the small hole 

It would then lay on the transmission tunnel in the right place ,between us we came up with the idea of replacing the bolts with sharpened studs which will mark the fiberglass backer 

sharpened studs 

this worked very well and gave us the position of the three holes  then using the ring we could calculate the diameter and position of the gearstick hole .

This was drilled out with a hole saw and then the leather was cut with a knife .

The gater was eased into position and stretched until it fitted in the ring and then screwed down.

sure, he hates me 

the finished effect looks brill thanks Steve 

the back of the leather lifts up but that should be trapped by the back piece and if not going to glue some velcro tape to the back which will stick it to the carpet .

Bits and Bobs

Bonnet 

 Fitting the Bonnet catches next again measured on a recent trip to GD and using the wiper arms as a reference marked the bonnet and made sure both sides were the same before drilling and fitted with self tapping screws ,The bonnet is double skinned and the handles carry the weight of the bonnet so might change to button head bolts yet .

Handles fitted 

Moving into the engine bay marked a parallel line from the catch and measured down 25mm and that was the first hole for the catch , then made sure that the catch followed the curve of the body ,fastened with button heads.

drivers side fitted 

Moving on to the transmission tunnel needed to fit the gear cover ring again had to be careful not to snag the carpet so went for drilling backwards which seemed to work .

Like button heads better than the usual self tappers 

Fuel Tank 

Needed to fit the fuel flex pipe as not long away from needing fuel .Had already taken the tank to have a earth stud welded on courtesy of  Mirus Engineering So after socking the pipe in hot water to make it forgiving fitted that together with an earth wire from the filler to the tank .

pipe and wire fitted ( thanks Connor ) 

Undertrays 

There are two undertrays that fit under the dash and i know its probably a complete waste of time but i have decided to fit Bluetooth speakers so needed to cut out for this and the reverse lock out button .

Drivers side cut out and sprayed ( both sides because i sprayed the wrong side first )  

Centre tray 

After fitting the center tray  could finally fit the ecu  this was not as easy as i first thought as there is not enough room when the dash is fitted to fit the ecu to the panel .I overcame this by only securing the ecu with the front screws and making sure that it was pushed back as far as it would go . now i have enough room .

ECU fitted

The pink wire hanging down needs to connect to the bared white wire above it as that is the fuel pump supply .

Throtle Cut out part 2

Needed to tidy the cut out as the carpets will be going in soon.
Seems an absolute age since I cut it out and got told off by Andy at GD for doing so .
So please be warned he does not agree with cutting this out nor is he very happy when he finds out but as I have already done it and got told off I figured I will stick with it

cut out from last year with the 2 throttle body screws

 I removed the pedal gear after we had set the throttle up in order to figure out were the carpet will need cutting. before attempting my first attempt at fibre glassing.
It appears to be like everything else easy when watching someone else but doesn't seem to go as well on the day .
Put the inner skin back in the hole with resin and glass fibre  mat to take up any differences and then glassed in round the edges .
went well considering I was working one handed just waiting for it to go off so I can tidy it up .

pre clean up as still tacky

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! 

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








































First Door

Only have the Drivers door as there was a problem with the passenger door so it has to be re done .I have been looking at it for a while and thought today I am going to try and fit it .
First thing was to score a line 12mm all the way round the frame .
Followed Dales blog again on this and used a nail in a piece of wood


View of my scored line
 

Out came the Dremmel again with the mini cutter (found the chuck of the dremmel works loose and the cutter sods off !!!) so plier's tight sorts that .

Now on to the door famous last words again the holes were already drilled for me to accept the lock except the lock didn't fit.
The solution was to cut off the part of the opening bar that is not used and then it fits easy ( picture to follow as I was so engrossed in the moment never took a picture)



Updated picture  showing the cut off bit

Got the door fitted but not quite happy with the closing as the handle does not return so like other builders will need to source a spring to help with this.
Door closes and is close but not spending any more time on it as it will be coming off to fit the spring .

First door well pleased
 

Throttle cut out

As mentioned on a previous post decided to cut out the double skin next to the accelerator like other cobra owners as things  are a bit tight down there .
Copied Dales measurements from his blog and went for 50mm up from the floor and went 220mm up 140 across at the top and 205 across at the bottom .
Didn't use a hole saw as I was scared that the pilot drill may go though the outer skin so went in "cold" with the dremel mini cutter .
It was easy to tell when I was though the fibreglass as the cutter goes easy .
This has left me with straight corners instead of rounded ones which I think I like but may regret this at a later date when it comes to carpets etc


View of the cut out from the clutch cut out

 

View from the drivers position
 

Need to get hold of some west system figre glass now to tidy the area up .

Update ++
Went to a local Fibreglass dealer (Ian Flockton ) who told me I could use their  resin instead of the west system as it is compatible with foam (blue in colour).VERY sceptical was I so he gave me enough to use as a test o the foam I had cut out and it is fine and less than 1/2 the cost result ,well happy 

Rear wiring loom

After reading the GD manual it recommends doing the rear loom first Andy was kind enough to point out to drill the hole at the bottom near side of the boot .I did this and then opened the hole out to accommodate all the wires .
The loom has to be fed from the cockpit . I was lucky as I could spring the top part of the mould with a wooden wedge to allow the cables to go in without having to drill a second hole

Hole from the boot

Cable coming down from the cockpit

Footwell extender

Decided to cut out the foot well piece  today to give me more room for my size 11
marked out the cover from the outside and then cut 2 inches inside that mark so I didn't cut into the wheel arch space .
one I could see in the hole I cold open I up to the pattern .


foot well cut

I have left the hole 1 inch to short because I originally wanted the bottom of the hole to be level with the floor but this would mean the top of my shoe would not slide in the hole

foot well viewed from the engine bay