Holy smokes. Almost a year since the last update. Lot’s been happening but not much with the cobra. I’m starting a new blog for the journal so this one will only be used for archival.

Update:  This is the new blog

Haven’t done much except gather parts over the last couple of weeks. Oh, and I hung the sidepipes. The passenger side is still giving me trouble and wants to stick out from the frame about 6 inches all the way at the end. I’ll just have to work it some more. Oh, and I start it up from time to time.

I heard a beautiful sound yesterday. After three long years of owning this kit I finally started the engine. What a great sound! Thanks to a lot of help from Wade and Joe we fired it up around 6pm. I still need to get a belt on it and hook up the coolant but it’s a big step. Next stop, go-karting!

Happy Independence Day!

Lot’s happened since I last wrote in here. Unfortunately, not much with the Cobra. The big news is that we will be moving into a new house in late August/early September. That’s occupied most of our time. The result is that’s I’ve spent virtually no time working on the Cobra.

I did manage to get the fuel lines run and then realized I had forgotten to double flare them. So I pulled them back out. Haven’t double flared them or put them back in but it should only be a 30 minute job. Har! I also got an Odyssey 925 battery. My intention is to place it over the passenger footbox. Looks like there will be enough room there. Got a battery minder to keep it topped off when I’m not driving it for an extended time. I’ve heard good things about this battery but time will tell.

Went shopping today. I now have everything I need to get to the go-cart stage except a radiator. I’m hoping to pick that up tomorrow. My hope is to have it legal before we move. It won’t be finished of course. No bodywork to be done. But if it’s driveable (safely) I’ll be happy.

Updated the costs and I think I’ll break past $15k into the car before the end of the week. Pretty good considering the budget!

More to come soon I think

Last night I worked on the car! I don’t know if it will last but I’m going to try to work on it every Tuesday night now. So, what did I do last night? For a while I just stared at the pile of parts. It’s almost depressing how little I’ve gotten done. Then I looked through the manual and was amazed by how little it seemed that I need to do to get on the road. Notice I didn’t say finished.

So, I found something small and attacked it. I got the fuel filter mounted. Pretty simple process actually. For a moment there was a bit of depression as it seemed I didn’t have the little white keeper clip for the rubber line. I started to think “Ah, this figures. Always needing something else.” Then, when I was fishing around in the fuel filter box I heard something shaking around. Low and behold, two new clips! Woohoo!

Next I tackled the driver footbox bottom. I’d been holding off on this for a long time. I’m not sure exactly why, but maybe I figured I needed the room for getting access to the pedals. Well, after much silicon and some riveting it was in. I can now sit in the Cobra with my feet in the footbox and feel what it will be like to be driving it. I then started to look at the outside panel. Should I knock out two panels? Decided against that when I tried to fit it. I need to take a picture of this, the outside panel overlaps with the body mounting point. Something isn’t right there. Maybe I’m just supposed to trim it. I’ll check on that.

I then started to eye up the back panel for the cockpit. Wade had told me some time ago that that can go in anytime. No need to wait until after the body is on, as the manual states. It was getting a little late though, so I decided to call it quits for the night.

I didn’t get much done but it still felt good. I’m hoping I can stick to the Tuesday night plan. It’s a pretty benign night/day in our week so other things shouldn’t get in the way too often.

Next up, rear cockpit panels, fuel lines and battery. I still sticking with the plan of not having the battery under the trunk. I’d really like it to be up in the engine bay, probably over the passenger foot box. I did see a pretty slick looking box for attaching the battery to the back of the front x-member. It was for a Dynabat size battery though. I’m still thinking about getting a small battery like that, but I’m concerned about draining it. Seems like you have to top them off once a month. I’m not sure I’m diligent enough to keep on top of that over the winter months. I wonder if a full size battery would fit there…

Well…it’s been quite the slow winter. Work has kept me very busy and I’m working on some new certifications for my job. Basically, I haven’t had much time at all to work on the car. The one major thing that’s been done in the last couple of months is to get fresh tires. I went with BFGoodrich Radial TA’s, 255/60R15’s on the rear and 235’s on the front. I spent a fair amount of time last October/November cleaning up the wheels. I then painted them a flat silver. They aren’t show quality but they will certainly get me around in a little more style than before.

So what now? I’ve been mentally trying to get myself into working on the car but every time I start to think about it I have about 5 or 6 other things that are a little more hot at the moment. I’m just going to have to set everything else aside and get back to work on it. Yeah….

It’s been a long summer and it’s winding down now. Life really isn’t though. Since the last update we’ve added to our family. Annabella Marie was born (rather quickly) on July 15th. It’s been formula and diapers since then. Hardly been any time to do other things. We did make it to Wade’s one weekend which was a nice break.

I did get some time to work on the car yesterday. Did a couple of things including re-installing the modified brake pedal (incorrectly), cutting the now useless support bar out of the trunk, and trying to tighten up the bolts on the engine and transmission. What I accomplished was to put the brake pedal in the wrong hole, strip a bolt hole on the transmission and find that the engine is not sitting on the frame mounts squarely. I was feeling pretty crappy about the results from the day. Fired off an email to Wade lamenting my situation and here’s what I got back. The brake pedal has to go in the lower “manual” pedal holes, those bolt holes on the transmission get stripped all the time and all I need to do is loosen everything up and yank the engine back and forth until it seats. Actually, Wade’s email made me feel a lot better about my situation. Thanks man, I needed that!

I’ve also been working on getting the wheels cleaned up here and there. I have them stripped and I’ve painted one with some silver wheel paint to see how it turns out. I’m shooting for marginally ugly rather than full on vomitosis. Trying to avoid spending the bucks on wheels right now. I think they will turn out just fine as temporary solutions. Be nice to have the thing sitting on some clean wheels and brand-spanking new tires.

I’d also like to take a moment to thank Rick Myers. Just discovered him a couple of months ago and he lives right up the road a bit! Has an EM (I think) that he built about 10 years ago. He was kind enough to donate an upper manifold to the cause. In my attempts to seperate my TB and EGR from my upper manifold I found that the studs were completely rusted over. I managed to get the TB off but the EGR was a lost cause. I also wasn’t able to extract the damn screws holding on the old cover plate. I figured it was time to find another. Thanks Rick! I’ve just started to clean it up and it looks like it will be sweet. I’m planning on painting it a flat black to match the block. With the cover plate that I got from Prodigy Designs it should look really nice.

I have a ton of pics to post…hopefully I can get to that soon.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I picked up a number of things from Summit when they had their latest discount code. Chief among them was a new B&M Shifter. I got spoiled on our BMW 323 that we had for a while. Gotta have that short throw! Also got a 90 degree offset oil filter adapter. The FFR one is a piece of S. It’s amazes me they can include some junky parts like that in an otherwise excellent kit.

This update just keeps rolling…I should thank my wife. Ang gave up her side of the garage for good, or at least until the Cobra’s done. (no comments about that!) The body buck is now residing in that side of the garage. I now have no more excuses for not running out there and working for an hour or two. Thanks Hon!

Haven’t worked on the Cobra a lick in the last month.  Been too busy at work and getting the house ready for the baby.  Put up a fence around the deck and I will be putting in a playset soon.  Oh well….went to Carlisle yesterday.  It was typical Carlisle, wet and cold.  There was a pretty good Cobra turnout despite the weather.  Didn’t see too much else at the show that was exciting.  K1 finally had the “production” Attack there.  Looked pretty good if not a little plasticky.  I know I mentioned way back in the beginning of this journal that I might consider doing an Attack.  Now that I’ve seen how long the Cobra’s taking me I doubt that will ever happen.  No biggy…it’s all part of life right?  Besides, I’ll soon have my hands very full with a new baby in addition to our 2 year old.  It’s frustrating at times not having it done.  Then I remember there are a lot of other great things in life and I’m ok with it being done when it’s done.

Major update!  The engine is finally in the car!  I put out the invite last week for people to come and assist with dropping the engine in.  I think the combination of the weather and the long winter caused quite a few people to show up.  Lot’s of cooks in the kitchen!  It was fun though and we managed to get the engine in the car.  It only took about an hour more than it would have with 2 people.    Even Jacob helped!

In the process of putting the engine in I took care of a couple of things like changing out the rear main seal, the pilot bearing and adding the new clutch and pressure plate.  The only issue we ran into was removing the old pilot bearing.  I didn’t have a tool and we were all too manly to go down the road and rent one from Advance Auto.  Wade suggested we try packing it with grease and then hammering a tightly fitted socket into it.  Trying to hydraulically force the bearing out from behind.  All that ended up doing was making a mess and nearly losing a socket behind the bearing.  Greg Keller had suggested an alternative when he was out the other day.  I ran inside and got some wet toilet paper.  With that jammed in behind the bearing I hammered on the socket again.  Only took about 3 or 4 hits and it popped out.  Great tip Greg!

The rest of the install went smoothly.  Once the engine was in we hung out and bs’ed for a while.  One thing Dane Mullenix suggested was that I reposition and shorten the brake pedal arm.  Apparently there is a second set of holes on the pedal box for the factory manual brakes.  Moving the arm down to that and then taking a section out of the top of it should give me a little more leverage.  Should be something I can manage now rather than later.  I also made the decision, with some prodding from the guys, to get a different oil filter relocator than the garbage FFR includes.  It looks kind of cheap, the o-ring is the wrong size and everyone says it will leak in no time at all.  Cha-ching!

A nice little surprise was that I got to meet a number of new club members.  All of them Marylanders!  It’s nice to see more Marylanders getting kits.  We need something to counterbalance the heavy NoVA contingent!  Hopefully they will all stay active in the club.

Check out the pics I added.  I also hope to add the costs I’ve been accumulating.  I have a stack of receipts that need to be entered.  Maybe in the next day or two.

Next up on the list…house and yard work.  Hopefully I can keep things going with the build in the meantime.

I’m slowly approaching dropping the engine in. Feels like I’ve been saying that for a couple of months now…and I have. Things keep coming up. Bad weather, still have some things to do, things around the house to do. Life. Work has been excruciatingly busy lately. Although that’s a good thing for the business it’s been hell on my energy level. Still, progress has been made. I ordered a couple of parts from Breeze including a clutch quadrant, rear main seal and gas filter bracket. Actually, Ang ordered it all. She said Mark was very easy to deal with and I was happy to see the parts arrived quickly. Ang also took the flywheel for refinishing. She went to a local shop, Rt. 144 Automotive, and they treated her very nicely. Final price was even less than what they quoted her! Also, Greg from the club dropped by last Saturday to drop off his engine hoist. Having this for a couple of weeks without having to return it immediately will help a lot.

Seriously now, I’m going to drop the engine in soon. Hopefully the 12th. I have a couple of things to take care of like the trans tunnel horseshoe aluminum and installing the clutch quadrant. I think at that point there’s nothing holding me back.