Under dash trays and dashboard plus door seal finishers

At last, some work after a break doing some housework! Well work on the new house. So I am back to building the Cobra after almost a three month lay off. Yes I did a few small jobs, but now it's down to it properly.

Some essential, but easy jobs first. The bonnet was secured properly. The pivot bolts were re-attached, as were the gas struts. Next the remaining caphead bolts and washers were used to secure the hinges to the bonnet.

Then the wires were extended to attach to the horn. A tie wrap secured the wires to the compressor to ensure that they do not flap about.

Wires tie wrapped to compressor

Under dash trays

I had already fitted the centre under dash tray (see a previous post) a while back. The centre tray is where the ECU will sit.

The outer trays were secured to the front cross brace (the brace nearest the bulkhead) using self tapping screws. This will allow access to the dash if needed, at a later date. I had been putting this off. I thought that dodging the swarf from drilling the holes would be difficult. It wasn't as the holes could be drilled without getting right under the dash, I simply leaned in to the footwell and drilled the holes.

Hole in the underside of dash tray drilled through to the cross brace

The outer trays were fixed to the front brace only.

Under dash tray secured by self tapper

They were temporarily held at the dashboard end by racing tape. The trays will be sandwiched between the dashboard bottom and the rear most cross brace (nearest the driver/passenger).

The footwell heater outlet holes are pre-cut in the GD panels, but the laser cut holes were too small for the plastic vent, so needed opening out. I used the electric drill and a burr.  Here one part of the vent pushes through the hole, securing with the flexible lugs. Two small slots in the trays and squares on the vent stop them swivelling. The other part clicks over the vent on the upper side.

Driver's side vent in place

The other side is handled in the same way.

Door seal finishers

I have decided to replace the door seal finishers. I was not happy with those bought from Europa having seen the GD items. The GD finishers are not cheap, but they are good!

Front nearside door seal finisher in place

The rear door seal finishers will take a little more thinking about before I can fit them!

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!

Easy jobs today! Lights and fuel filler.

Lights

The wires had been left after I had fitted them to the body. I connected up the side lights, headlights and repeaters using blade connectors and shrink covers, as I was not happy with the exposed bullet connectors under the wings. It was a straight forward job, the same colour wires connect to each other - I followed the GD build manual just in case. NOTE: See IVA and Post IVA category in the Build Process. I also connected up the rear lights too. Originally I had planned to install waterproof connectors, but after spending hours and getting nowhere, I gave up and chucked them in the bin. I have left the fog and reversing lights until later.

Indicator and headlight wiring tidied up

I had thought that a hair dryer would be adequate to shrink the heat shrink wire wrap, but in the end I resorted to the hot air paint stripper! That got the job done.

NOTE: A tip from Noel Hirst. Put a loop in the lower wire to the indicator to avoid water being channeled in to the light unit.

Note wire to indicator now has a dip in it

Fuel filler

I have decided to install the flush filler as used on the GD mk3, rather than the bigger Aston style filler in the rear wing. I went this way to keep a smooth fuss free line to the car.

I marked out the fuel filler as per Andy's instructions and after looking at Ryan's blog. Masking tape was stuck along the two off-side edges of the boot. Where they intersect is the edge of the fuel filler. A 45 deg line sets the centre line of the filler. It is then a case of working out the centre of the filler by inverting it and marking the outside on the masking tape. Half the diameter gives the centre point. The diameter of the hole to cut is then marked, in my case 64mm, and cut with an electric hole saw attached to the drill.

Position marked and hole drilled. The filler is bigger than the hole.

Masking tape was added to the area not already covered to allow the fixing holes to be marked. The six holes were drilled where marked and the masking tape removed. The filler was positioned and bolted down with the fixings provided. Really pleased with the finished job (see photo below). 

Filler fitted in place

Need to find out the thread size for the breather before I can fit that and the overflow pipe.

Door opener springs

I followed Keith Townsend's lead and installed helper springs on the door openers. Not sure that these are really necessary, but gets it out of my system!

The spring attaches to the existing hole in the triangular fixing and a holed drilled in the actuating cam above the handle.

Helper spring fitted to cam opener and triangular fixing

Brake pedals and other bits!

Brake reservoirs and lines

First I installed the reservoirs. I made a bracket to hold the brake reservoir, only to discovered that GD had supplied one!

The bracket was made of 3mm aluminium. A hole was drilled at the front of the bracket and through the webbing of the reservoir. The reservoir hole was made a little smaller, then tapped for the domed head bolt. The front of the aluminium was polished as this will be seen. At the back of the bracket I tapped the two holes so that the bolts through the bulkhead would tighten in to the bracket itself. The lower rear hole also went through the webbing of the reservoir.

The tops of the reservoirs were lined up before fixing.

Brake and clutch reservoirs, plus washer bottle

Next the fluid lines were temporarily installed (pipe clamps have been ordered). These are connected to the reservoirs, then fed through the holes drilled earlier in the inner wing.

Brake and clutch fluid pipes in place

Pedal box

My pedal box is of the fixed type (i.e. not adjustable, as the seats will be on runners).

Pedal box

I took the pedal box apart and bent the brake and clutch pedals towards the foot well extension a little (about 20 and 10 mm respectively). Then I marked the holes to cut, using the pedal mounting bracket as the template, allowing some space for the carpet at the left side. I have mounted the pedal box just a little lower than GD recommend (by about 8 mm), as I only have size eight feet.

Foot well marked up with hole positions

Next the brake light switch was attached to the bracket and the bracket fixed to the pedal box with two bolts and lock nuts. The master cylinders were offered up to the holes from the drivers side wheel arch compartment (Note: The two brake cylinders are different diameters internally, so don't mix them up). The pedal box was offered up from the drivers side foot well. The bolts and lock nuts supplied were then used to attach the master cylinders to the pedal box. Extra hands are needed here and a very flexible body/contortionist techniques. Getting the bolts in place was a real pain!

Brake (x2) and clutch cylinders in place 

Pedal box from the foot well

You will see that I have a brake balance bar and two brake master cylinders, so that the brake pressure can be set from the front to the rear. Previously a single cylinder did this work, but was not adjustable. The brake bias bar will be fixed using lock nuts to comply with IVA requirements.

Next job is to tighten up the securing nuts/bolts, fix the clutch clevis pin and the brake bias bar. More contortionist positions!

Polishing

Looked at the body and I wasn't happy with the polishing I had done (contrary to what I said in the last blog). So it was out with the polishing machine and the Farecla again. A little more pressure on the machine this time, some water sprayed on the surface to stop it grabbing and it is definately ok now. The polishing head has a firmer foam this time (I wrecked the last one on sharp edges), so I needed to press on the machine to distort the head a little to get the right pressure. I also rubbed down the gel coat repairs on the boot and polished that too with the machine and Farecla G6. The doors were re-fitted, rubbed down and polished too.

Boot rubbed down and first polish

Final polishing with Farecla G3 and G10 will be required to finish off the body. It may then require a wax all over. Looking forward to that .... not.

Gel coating

Finally getting there. Remember that awful joint along the tops of the doors? Well they are nearly invisible, so another coat of gel and just one more rub down should do it. Famous last words!

The few remaining marks on the body were gel coated too and left to set.

Doors

The passenger door was refitted. Washers of different thicknesses were used between the door skin and hinges to get the doors flush with the body. The drivers and passenger doors were re-fitted and lined up. Looks good now. Just need to source some springs and fit them to help the door handle return to its normal position.

Doors fitted, lined up and first polish

Polishing and gel coating today

Rubbed down the gel coat repairs on the boot surface and the roll edge around the cockpit today.  I could see three marks remaining on the boot, plus some around the door opening, so these have been gel coated again.

Then spent a few hours polishing the back half of the body with the polishing machine and Farecla G6 so that I could see any remaining blemishes. Really pleased with the result of the polish (Edit: Now I have seen it in electric light in the garage, it is not as good as I thought!) even if it is only the first of three grades of compound I will use. I have not polished the boot yet (due to the new gel coat) as you will see in the photo below.

Back of Cobra polished, but boot still to do

I refitted the drivers side door, after rubbing down the gel coat on the edges of both doors. Spent time getting the gaps around the door consistent. I used washers between the hinges and the door to get the door level with the body. Will re-fit the passenger door the next time I do any work on the car. 

Door refitted, but not polished yet

The top edge of the door, where the two skins come together, will have the new gel coat rubbed down when both doors are re-fitted. It may need some further gel coat applying.

Drilling and cutting

Heater

First the holes were cut to allow air to get to the heater which is located in the nearside compartment under the wing. Five 22mm holes were drilled at equal intervals in the nearside wing air intake. The off side vent is purely for show.

Holes drilled in air intake

The heater is fixed in the nearside footwell compartment.

The sides of the heater were removed, and the flanges cut off as they make the heater too wide to install. This is simply a case of removing eight self tapping screws to remove the sides, then cutting off the flanges with a hacksaw and trimming up with a file.

The internals of the heater were removed, before four 6mm rivnuts were installed - the top about 30mm in from the sides, the bottom 20mm from the sides and 5mm above the centre line of the existing screws (see below). This avoids the heater matrix and gives room to fix the bolts in to the heater from the footwell.

Heater with flanges removed

Side view of the heater with the matrix in place and the rivnuts installed

Now to installing the heater unit. First I measured where the water feed pipes were to go. GD had marked the line up in the engine compartment. The water feed pipe hole positions were marked as were the two main hot air pipes (shown above). The holes were cut - 25mm in diameter and 65mm apart for the feed pipes and the appropriate size holes cut for the hot air pipes. These were opened out a little with a file to allow the pipes to go through to the footwell.

Hot air pipes in the footwell (the relays have been temporally removed)

The heater in the nearside compartment ahead of the passenger footwell.
Here you can see three of the five vent holes on the right

A template of the face of the heater was used to mark up the positions of the rivnuts from the footwell. Now it's just a case of fitting all the pipes and fishtail vents to the scuttle!

Door reveal

You can just about see the marked lines for the cut out behind the door (not sure what these are for!). I drilled a hole at the corner to make the cut neater.

Cut out marked behind nearside door

Below you can see the area with the section cut out. I used the flexible extension for the Dremel, as it was a little less bulky than the main drill.

Area cut out

Extended footwell

The extended footwell gives you more space for the size 9s. The pedals in the GD are off-set to the right and without the extension it is quite cramped. Beware if fitting the footwell extension though. If I had cut the bulkhead using the extension as a template, the hole would have gone in to the offside compartment under the wheel arch. Luckily I drilled a hole to test and found this out.

You can see the line that would have cut if I had used the extender, plus the test hole 

Once the hole was cut, I fixed 6 x 5mm rivnuts to the extender to bolt it in place. There is a gap between the extension and the engine bay wall that I will have to deal with.

Painting the metalwork

I changed my mind. The cost of powder coating was nearly £200, so I decided to paint the hinges etc myself - cost around £60. I used chassis black POR15 paint. This may be a better option, as my experience/opinion of powder coating is not good - it has lifted and flaked on previous race car chassis.

Before painting the metalwork needed preparing by removing all the sharp edges, so that rust wouldn't break through at these points. All the threaded holes and pivot points had previously been filled with plastercine to avoid paint getting in to them.

The metalwork before preparation

Once this was done the metal was prepared by using POR15 Metal Prep. Finally the bits were hung up and painted with POR15 chassis black paint. the stuff runs and two coats are required, but it is self levelling, so produces quite a good finish.

I knew that the caravan airer would come in useful sometime

The paint can warns you not to shake it, to take out what you need (rather than using it from the can) and to use cling film between the lid and can, to stop it gluing itself together. Not your normal paint then!

The metalwork was given a second coat, to make it solid.

Wiring success!!

A variety of jobs today.

Number plate light

I managed to get the number plate wire pulled through ..... eventually! After about an hour of trying to hook the wire through the hole I had made in the boot lid, I gave up and drilled a hole from the other side of the boot lid.


Not pretty, but it did the trick! Now needs filling and gel coating

The wire was hooked through this hole, then a draw wire attached to pull it up the channel to the number plate light location. A grommet will be used to fill in the hole.

Wire pulled through

This wire was threaded through the light base and the fitting attached. Then the bullet connectors were soldered on.


Number plate light fitted

Door hinges etc

Next the doors were removed, so that the metalwork could be painted, the lip cut back and the gel coat on the edge rubbed down for the first time.

The gel coat rubbed down ok, but showed the GRP below in places. So more gel Coat was mixed and applied. The joint between the inner and outer skins needed a good coat or two of gel.

The tapped holes and the pivot holes on the metalwork, were filled with plasticine to make sure that they were not covered in paint.

Door aperture

In the meantime the edges around the door apertures were marked from the door side to give a consistent 12mm lip all round. A small block of wood was used for this and a screw fixed so that it stuck out a small way to scribe the cut line. The trusty Dremel was used to remove the excess. Watch the cutting blade! They have a habit of breaking and flying off

Lip cut down to 12mm

Wiring

I drilled 24mm holes through the inner wing for the front loom and the 12mm holes to the under wing compartments for the indicator repeater cables. The hole sizes all allow for the grommets I used. The GRP was thinned down around the four holes and Vaseline used to allow the grommets to fit. The cables will be held in place by various size P clips, once I have long enough cap head bolts of the right size.

Underseal

I undersealed just the one wing today - it is important with GRP cars that underseal is applied to reduce the risk of star crazing, caused by stones flying off the wheels and hitting the underside of the wings. I used IsoFlex (available from big DIY stores and builders merchants), as others had used this product. But, forgot to put on rubber gloves - it goes everywhere! It has the consistency of a thick paint or golden syrup!

One done three to go and then its a second coat! The yellow is masking tape to protect the wheel arches.

Just three more wheel arches and then another coat.



Cobra wiring, boot lid, courtesy light switches and windscreen holes

Today I labelled up the front and rear body looms. I followed the GD build manual that identified each group of wires and every individual wire. Really easy even for a numpty like me! At least I know what the wires are for now. It just looked a real jumble of wires before that.

I also found that the GD loom allows for courtesy lights in the passenger compartment, a HiFi system located in the boot and a rear screen heater for a hard top.

I fitted the bullet connectors on most of the wires. The front lights will get waterproof connectors, as they are exposed under the wings.

With the courtesy light wires available it would be rude not to use them. So I fitted courtesy light switches in the door reveal between the hinges. A 10mm hole was drilled in each door reveal between the two hinges, plus a fixing hole.

Hole for switch and fixing

The switch was then located after a small amount of filing to open up the hole a little. The power wire is connected to this switch.

Courtesy door switch installed 

The lights will be fitted later in the under dash panels to illuminate the foot wells. A wire will go from the switch to the light for the power. The earth will then be the second connection to the light.

What I couldn't work out was how the fog and reversing light were earthed and what the two black with white trace wires were in the passenger compartment. Andy from GD clarified this.

The fog and reverse lights use a loop from the earth of the rear side lights (shared earth). Dead easy using a double bullet connection joint (supplied) and a bit of black wire.

The two black and white trace wires are connected together for continuity where the regular GD column connection is used. These two wires allow for an optional brake test light to be fitted. When the wires are connected, the brake test works when the ignition key is set to the crank position.

Fitting the boot lid was not so easy. First the edges of the lid were filed to prepare it for gel coating. Plenty of fitting and removing of the hinges, hole elongation and gentle persuasion of the hinges with a big hammer to get the boot lid lined up followed, along with some choice words! The boot lid took some time to line up and I am still not totally happy with it. I attached the rubber seal to the boot reveal to make sure that I had the correct position for the lid.

Boot lid fitted

GD had pre-fitted a twin core cable within the near side strengthening rib in the boot lid for the number plate light. That saved a load of time and hassle looking at some blogs, however finding the cable at the light end was not so easy. The wire goes through the near side hinge, which I had to drill in two places, down the inside of the rib and then it emerges at the number plate light position.

Boot lid fitted with wire for number plate light shown 

Here the wire is apparently curled up above the light location point and can be hooked out with some thin wire. That is still to do!

Next I cut the holes for the windscreen legs.

Drill holes within GD markings

 The position was marked up by GD. The holes were cut by marking and drilling holes along the centre line, leaving a millimeter at either side. The hole was masked off. Then the hole was opened up using the Dremel, then the step drill (carefully) and a file.

The cut cleaned up with a file ready for the windscreen pilar

Doors fitted. Finally!

The gel and adhesive overrun was carefully removed from the bonded hinge fixing posts. The hinges were then fitted - two to each side. I filed the edges all around each door. I'll come back to the awful line along the door inner top edge and the gel coating later (you can see the grey line if you look carefully at the next photo).

The doors were offered up to the hinges and the slots marked in pencil. On a soft surface, I then marked up the hole positions using the correct handed anti-intrusion bar as a template. 14mm holes were then drilled using a step drill bit (you can drill up to 20mm holes if you have a big enough step drill). This gives a nice clean hole cut, but care is needed not to go through to the outer door skin (a block of wood would be prudent!). A section of the inner door was cut away (see photo below) for the remote opening mechanism to bolt in to place on the welded and tapped tags.

The hinges were fitted to the hinge mounting plate. The door was then bolted to the metal work (hinges and anti-intrusion bars). I thought that one of the holes was not fully tapped and then realised that the anti-intrusion bar was not fully extended, so it had blocked the tapped hole :) The hinges and anti-intrusion bar sandwich the inner door skin.

The hinges and anti-intrusion bar (sorry about the bike helmet which appears to be on the door!)

The door was adjusted by the bolts that fix the hinge to the anti-intrusion bar and by moving the hinge mounting plate. I had to remove some GRP from the holes in the door and a small amount from the scuttle area where the top of the door closes to allow for adjustment and closure. As both the hinge mounting and the hinges can be adjusted, there is no need for packing out.

Once the doors were fitted and roughly aligned, I had to fit the latches. Neither the leaflet in the latch pack or the build notes were a lot of help here and there were no holes or cut out markings on the doors. Keith Akerman kindly sent me some photos of the latch fitted to his car, along with measurements, so this made the job much easier/possible.

Mine doors had no markings.

Holes were marked using the opposite side latch, then drilled and an 'L' shaped slot was cut out and filed for the remote mechanism.

Holes and slot cut in door.

I fed the long arm of the remote opening mechanism between the inner and outer skin of the door. This allows the remote arm to be attached to the latch. The latch is bolted through the door skin to the end of the anti-intrusion bar. Then I fitted the triangular part to the pre-tapped lugs on the anti-intrusion bar and fitted the door handle. At this point the latch mechanism should work.

Latch fitted

The first door (passenger) took some 15 hours to fit. The second door less than 1 hour! The passenger door latch would not return to the closed position. I removed it countless times to enlarge the holes so that there was no fouling. It still did not work properly. After a lot of head scratching I noticed that some of the pink adhesive had formed inside the top of the door (concealed) and was rubbing against the remote door opening bar. After some careful tapping with the blunt end of a file the offending adhesive was removed. The assembly was put together yet again and it worked!

Although I was only trial fitting, this was quite time consuming. However, I took the view that if I couldn't get the gaps and mechanism working right now I would struggle later.

Door fitted with consistent gap and the latch works!

Before I put the parts away for painting, I marked up the metal work with file marks, so that once painted they would all go back in the same place. I used one file mark for all left hand parts and two for all right hand. The lower hinges were marked on their lower side and the upper hinges on, errrr the upper side! I also marked the position of the hinge mounting plate on the bonded hinge fixing post with a pencil so that I knew exactly where it fit.

The whole job took me around 16 hours in total! Normally it should take a lot less. But as it is something everyone could see or use when the car is complete, I thought that it was important to get it right.