ABCDE of Cobra building!

Accelerator

I have a fly by wire accelerator pedal, so the loom has provision for this. I drilled the holes for the fitting plate and a hole big enough to allow the connector to pass through. This was attached with M5 button head bolts and nyloc nuts. The plate was made by Keith Akerman, fabulous piece of engineering, as expected from him.

Accelerator pedal with connection made. Note split plate and grommet.

The electrical connector was pushed on to the pedal until it clicked. Easy!

Brake and Clutch hoses

The hoses needed securing so as to comply with IVA requirements. Again a part made by Keith came in to play to secure the three braided hoses against the side of the engine bay. Another pair of hands was needed to fix this wit M4 screws, so Carol came to my rescue. A P-clip was used to secure the hoses to the reservoir.

Hoses secured

Dipstick tube

This had bugged me for a while! So I thought that I had better sort it. The dipstick tube was the wrong shape for the LS6 engine. So using a pipe bender, I carefully reshaped the tube to avoid the headers and HT leads. Once it was the right shape, the tube was secured with a P-clip to the coil frame, after adding some rubber tubing to make sure that the tube would not move. It was fairly easy really. Don't know why I had kept putting it off.

Dipstick fitted and secured to coil frame

Foot well Extension

Now it was time to fit the foot well extension. Again Carol helped, as my arms were not long enough. The extension was simply bolted in place, where it had been trial fitted before. I did apply some silicone to make sure it was sealed, both inside and out.

Not the prettiest of jobs, but hopefully effective

Door cards/leather panels

Apologies for the lack posts recently, but a pending house move has taken it's toll on the Cobra build!

Door cards

The door cards are the leather covered door trims. The leather is mounted on thin MDF and has holes pre-drilled for the clips and door handle spindle. The latter's position is not obvious at first! The hole is the one with the arrow in the photo below.

Rear of door card

The clips to fix the cards were green things, located in a bag in the door card pocket. I put masking tape on the door first, then offered up the card. I cut out the hole for the door spindle carefully, removing the foam. Some people use a hole punch here. The clip was inserted into the relevant hole in the door card. It was then marked on the back with black marker pen. This then transferred to the masking tape to give a hole centre to drill in the door (7mm).

First hole drilled

This was repeated for the other clips, working along the top first, until all the holes were drilled and the card could be clipped in place. This is simply a case of pushing the clips with a thumb until it clicked. This left indentations in the leather that soon recovered.

First card in place

On the first door the door card lined up fine. On the second, I didn't check it properly and found that it overhung by a couple of millimeters and fouled the lock. That was after I had fully fitted it. Here I had to refit the piping a little to avoid the lock. So if you are doing it check this out before you drill any holes in the door!

Fuel tank

Roll hoop escutcheon final fixing

Remember that I had one of the 18 bolts "disappear"? I thought that I would have to fill the hole with resin and then tap the hole for the fixing bolt. However, after talking to a few fellow builders and to GD, I decided to try wedging the bolt with a small sliver of wood and then screwing it into the hole. It worked and held the escutcheon in place! So roll hoops now complete.

Fuel tank

Now the roll bars, grommets and escutcheons were fitted, my attention turned to the fuel tank. Earlier I had installed the fuel lines and the fuel pump wires through the boot floor.

The dip tube sensor was fitted to the tank with five M5 rivnuts and bolts. The tank had to be drilled with 7mm holes for the rivnuts and the swarf removed with the vacuum cleaner.

Five holes made and rivnuts fitted

The sensor was then secured with the five M5 bolts, using the rubber gasket and some Hylomar sealant.

Dip tube sensor fitted with gasket and Hylomar blue sealant

The tank was then manoeuvred into its final place. Then the hose unions were connected to the tank using Loctite 572 on the male part of the fitting (not the threads). I removed a small amount of GRP, using the Dremel, at the saddle of the boot floor and where the filter went to give a little clearance. I also used a small amount of Hylomar on the threads.

Not a lot of space!

Straps were needed to secure the fuel tank. These were fabricated from 50mm x 2mm stainless steel. The straps were bent to match the shape of the tank and holes drilled in each end of the straps to secure them to the body. Stainless steel is a pig to drill - I burned out 6 drill bits drilling just 4 holes! M8 nylocs nuts with bolts went through the boot floor and 2 x M5 button head bolts with rivnuts were used above the differential for each strap. GD suggest using self tappers at over the diff, as the strap is in sheer. However, I reckoned that over a bump the strap would be in tension, so either a nut/bolt or rivnuts would be better! Rivnuts were easier to fit, so that option won the vote. A few small strips of neoprene were used on the straps to isolate the straps from the tank.

Top strap fixings

Tank in place with straps

The sensor cable was then attached to the main terminal and the two earth wires, from the loom and the filler attached to one of the tank studs. The carpet was fitted over the fuel inlet on the tank and then the joining hose was fitted. Next the fuel filler cap was refitted to the body with the new earth strap attached to one of the bolts. Finally the two hose clamps were tightened.

Tank and carpet in place

Heat shrink was put over the fuel pump cable, before ring terminals were attached to the cable and then heated to shrink it. A small amount of silicone sealer was applied around the cable and heat shrink joint to ensure that no moisture was trapped inside. This just added some protection to the terminals and wires in the exposed area at the rear of the chassis. 

Heat shrink over exposed pump cable connections

The ring terminals were connected to the fuel pump, the black going to the earth terminal (both terminals were a different size).

Electrical connections made

I expected that the boot would simply be a case of refitting the two bolts. No! I had to adjust the lid to get it to fit properly. Never mind it's all done now.

Photos

And a few photos, 'cos I can!

Tail pipes

Tail pipes

A simple job that took a long time!

The principle is very simple, but the practice took a bit of fiddling. Getting the tail pipes over the central pipes is not so easy. The end of the tail pipe is slotted, but it still would not fit. So I filed the outside of the centre pipes, the inside of the tail pipes, used a crow bar (gently) on the insides of the tail pipes and applied a small amount of Vaseline. Eventually they went on.

The tail pipes are clamped by the rear fixing that holds the central pipes. The pipes were tightened in place and the centres of the Cherry Bombs measured to make sure that the pipes were positioned equally from each side. An 8mm hole was drilled in the boot floor to take the stud from the bobbin for each pipe.

Off side tail pipe fixed at front and with bobbin at rear

Tail pipes/Cherry Bombs in place

Boot carpet

The carpet was cut around the filler neck of the fuel tank. Next the fuel filler fitment was removed from the body. Then the hose that joins the tank to the filler was cut to length. Whilst I was at it I made up an earth wire to go from one of the bolts that secures the filler cap to the sender earth.

Hose, clips and earth wire can be seen

Fuel tank

I have ordered the nylocs and button head bolts for the fuel sender. So no other progress yet.

Stoneleigh 2016 photos

A few photos from Stoneleigh 2016.

GD T70s on the Gardner Douglas stand

The Mk3 factory car

A GD T70 outside hall 1

Mark Turnbull (a fellow GD427 builder) looking cool in a Westfield as the driver tries his best to scare the c**p out of him

Oh, and an Ultima Evolution. Yummy!

Saw quite a few fellow builders from ClubGD and a lot of current owners from the Northern Cobra Club. You really do feel part of the family.