Finishing off and getting started again!

Cabinets

I spent hours cutting and putting ribbed matting in the bottom of all the drawers of the cabinets and the tool chest. I had found that anything else that I used moved with the weight of the tools, including the lining stuff supplied with the tool chest by Halfords, when the drawers were opened and closed. This was a real time consumer, but worth it in the end. The ribbed matting came from eBay and cost nearly 25% of the cost of the same product from one of my regular on-line parts suppliers!

Mirrors

I finally got the bench grinder and vice fitted to the new work bench.

The windscreen fixing screws on the stanchions were dome headed. The second screw up from the body at each side are located behind the mirror bracket. These had the head filed flat so that the bracket would sit flat on each stanchion. After filing, the screw still had the slot in the head to allow it to be fixed and tightened. A light rub down with P400 wet or dry paper removed any file marks.

Next the four screws that held the mirrors in place were shortened by 6mm each, to avoid touching the windscreen when tightening the mirror brackets. I had been warned that if the screws were too long I risked cracking the screen, ooooh expensive, so care was needed here.

Mirror fixed in place. Note the hidden screw behind the bracket, with the flattened head.

Steering column

Andy at GD had recommended that one of the shafts was shortened and a groove filed to allow the bolt to fit through the universal joint. As a last resort I could tap the inner column in to the main Vectra column. I chose to follow his advice and did the former.

The lower shaft was connected to the steering rack, using one of the universal joints and two bolts. The middle shaft was connected to this lower shaft using another universal joint, after feeding through the rose joint that I had fitted earlier. At this stage the flats of the UJs were aligned. The pinch bolt groove was slightly enlarged by filing in the appropriate place and the bolt inserted. Finally the Vectra column was fed through from the cockpit, the large bulkhead grommet slid over and it was then located with the U clamp to the chassis. After working out the distance required between the middle shaft pinch bolt and the pinch bolt for the Vectra column, I cut about 10mm off the middle shaft using a hack saw and then tidied it up on the bench grinder. The final universal joint was then fitted and the groove for the last bolt filed, before washers were used between the column and the mounting points so that it cleared the bulkhead hole all around. All the universal joint nuts and bolts were then tightened.

Steering column spaced with washers on the mountings

Steering shafts and universal joints fitted

Finally I jacked up the front of the car and checked that there were no tight spots on the steering when turned from lock to lock. Job done!

Cabinets fitted in garage

Before I started work on the Cobra again, I wanted to have a tidy garage. This is the empty garage that I started with.

Garage as we moved in, tidy but bare

I painted the garage walls with vinyl silk emulsion - white at the top and the same RAL colour as the house at the bottom - 1st coat watered down by 50%. I then installed Storewall storage from Garage Pride, which you can see behind the Cobra. Ken Evans advised here.

Wall storage.

Nick Tite from PAF Systems was really helpful in getting a design for the cabinets that I was happy with. Not only that but the price and service were good too. PAF can powder coat in any RAL colour, so you could even match your Cobra! The cabinet bodies were in black.

The electrics in the garage were moved to accommodate the cabinets and to feed the sockets and lights. There is a bank of sockets above the workbench - very handy.

The cabinets and floor tiles took a day to install by the PAF professional fitters and here is the finished product - really pleased!

The hard working PAF fitting team - Alex, Karl and Roger

Cabinets and bench fitted

Cobra in it's new home!

Cutting back the Cobra wheel arches

I had a look at Keith Akerman's finished car (if ever a Cobra is finished) on Sunday and it reminded me that I needed to trim back the wheel arch return. I have seen a photo of the result if you do not - cringe £££££!

The tyre needs to clear the wheel arch at full lock, with the suspension compressed. This is achieved by moving the suspension up, so that the mountings holes for the shockers are 10" (250 mm) apart. This is the maximum compression of the suspension. To achieve this I removed the shocker.

Shocker removed to measure the maximum compression

By cutting back the wheel arch return, it avoids the tyre ever contacting the body .... in theory at least.
So out with the trusty Dremel and marker pen.

Line to cut back on wheel arch return

The return was cut with the Dremel, then a sanding drum and finally rubbed down by hand using P400 paper.

Finished job

This was a long job and very dusty, so a mask was used to avoid breathing in the GRP dust. But it was worth the effort.

Cobra mirrors

Got a while in the garage today. A bit unexpected, but great to be building again. So I decided to fix the mirrors. I needed to do this so that I could show where the mirrors were for a car cover.

External mirrors

The mirrors come with inappropriate mountings, so after carefully removing the glass, the fixings were removed by unscrewing the mirror body from the ball joint on the fixing.

Mirrors as supplied

Standard fixing replaced with GD arm

This is simply a screw in to the ball joint. The mirror is then replaced and  hey presto, you have a mirror suitable for the Cobra.

First I removed the screen, by undoing the four screws at each side on the stanchions and the centre stay fixing.

Next I applied some masking tape to the outside edges of the stanchions - from the second screw down to below the third screw. Then I marked a centre line for each of the stanchions on the masking tape. The lower screw hole for the mirrors were 160mm up from the stanchion escutcheon, so a mark was made at this point.

Tape marked with centre line and hole positions

I then used some scrap aluminium to protect the chrome on the stanchions, with holes drilled oversize and approximately in the right places in one piece.

Scrap alli held in place with clamps

A 3mm pilot hole was drilled through each stanchion, before opening up to 4.5mm. Each hole was then tapped to take the M5 bolt supplied.

Hands free tapping!

Then the second hole was marked, drilled and tapped in each stanchion. Two M5 screws were then used to fix each mirror to the stanchions. Done!

Both mirrors in place

As my garage is not complete yet, I couldn't shorten the screws that hold the arms or flatten the head of the third screw on each stanchion. These need to be done to avoid damaging the windscreen when the screws are inserted and tightened in to the holes and to allow the mirror arm fitting to sit flush with the stanchion. I will do this when my bench and grinder are in place.

Internal rear view mirror

This is simply clamped to the central windscreen stay.

Here you can see the location bracket of the internal rear view mirror. The black rubber edging is for the IVA.

Cobra emerges from the boxes!

We are now in the new house!

The part built Cobra stayed at the old house for three weeks, before we took possession of the new house (and garage).  I brought the car to the new house a few days after we moved in, using a car trailer borrowed from my friend Mike. There was just enough room for it in the garage amongst the boxes and junk. The Cobra was certainly a good talking point with the new neighbours - a great way to get to know people.

Once the stuff was cleared up and some of it thrown out, it started to look more like a garage than a tip. I have put up some Storewall (wall storage, what else?), to get things out of the way and off the floor. I had almost forgotten how good the car looked until it emerged from the boxes!

The Cobra in it's new home

We have been here nearly four weeks now and the garage is finally getting organised. Cabinets, floor tiles and a work bench are being fitted next week, so there will be no excuses after that to get on with the remainder of the build.