Cobra body on!

After spending an hour helping Keith Akerman fit his GD 427 body today with a load of friends from the Northern Cobra Club, Simon Smith suggested that they come down to my house and help fit my body (about 30 mins drive from Keith's). On arriving home it was snowing and very windy, not the best time to fit a sportscar body! But without their help I could not have got the body on - a great help, thanks to all of you.

A great crowd from the Northern Cobra Club helped me get the body on

Luckily, I had prepared the chassis and body, so that all the difficult jobs that I could do before the two parts (chassis and body) were married had been done.

Andy from GD had given me some tips and the first hand experience with Keith's helped a lot. First I had lightly rubbed down the mountings and filed the top edge off the middle mounting. Then I lubricated all the mountings with Vaseline. I removed the bonnet to make the body a bit lighter.

Andy had recommended that I have someone at each corner and someone to guide the process (me). In the end I had plenty of helpers. The body was rolled outside the garage and then the chassis was moved out then back into the centre of the garage.

Body outside

Chassis in centre of garage

Next the guys carried the body back into the garage over the chassis.

Body being carried into garage

The trick was to get the body high enough over the chassis, then lower it down equally at either side.

At the front the inner wings tend to be flexed slightly inward (hence my head in the radiator slot!), so this area needed help to get them over the chassis. Once the body was on the chassis, it had to be wiggled forwards towards the engine. The body needed to sit snuggly up against the transmission tunnel mountings where the tunnel flairs outwards, so that the front transmission tunnel bolts could be encouraged into place.

I have a car now!

Andy had emphasised that the bolts should be greased and should go in easily. If I didn't take note of this the bolts could seize in the mounts or the bolt could twist the thread out of the rubber mount. This will be left until another day - now it is a case of stand back and admire!