Running repairs

Sun visor

There was a rattle, but at first I couldn't work out where it came from. Then I found it was from a sun visor. A grub screw on one of the visors had worked loose and fallen out. I couldn't find the screw, so had to buy an M4 x 5mm replacement grub screw from eBay (4 for £1.18).

Apologies for the poor photo. Little grub screw can be seen here

Cooling fan mounting

Two of the four fan mounts had broken after only 1,200 miles, as I previously reported. So I ordered a new fixing kit from Car Builder Solutions for £12 plus postage of £4.20. When I received the parts, the old mountings were removed by undoing the caphead bolts from the rivnuts, which held the fan in place.

Fan mounting point and rivnut can be seen here

The new mountings were then fixed in place.

New mounting fixed with a dab of nut lock

Coolant pipe fixing

I had damaged the jubilee clip which secured the hose from the thermostat to the radiator by tightening it too much. So the coolant leaked from the hose. A sticky mess! A replacement W4 stainless steel clip was bought from eBay for just £1.05. The hose did not have to be removed to do this. The jubilee clip was simply fully loosened, then fixed over the hose (after removing the old clip). Then tightened.

Leaky Cobra and broken fan mount

Coolant leak

I have had a coolant leak for some time from the thermostat housing. Unfortunately there is no drain point in the system, so a hose needs to be disconnected. Messy!

First I drained down the system and removed the thermostat housing. This was cleaned up where it mated to the block. Next I applied Hylomar blue sealant to the mating surfaces. After a bit of fiddling I got the thermostat and housing back in place, bolted up and filled ......... but it still leaked. So I repeated the process. It leaked again! So a glass of wine was called for.

After relaxing a bit, I thought of three reasons why this may be happening - the thermostat was not being correctly aligned, the bolts were too long and not allowing the housing to be nipped up or both.

So the next day I checked the bolts and sure enough one was not going in to the block far enough. The bolt was shortened a little to allow it to screw in fully.

Next I fit the rubber thermostat gasket in to the housing, using sealant in the recess where the rubber gasket sits. Then I put two tie wraps through the top of the thermostat and threaded these through the housing. I located the thermostat in place, making sure that the pressure release thingy was in the correct place (there is a recess in the rubber seal). Next I fixed the tie wraps around a bolt to secure the thermostat in the right place and so that it could not be moved whilst fixing. Sealant was applied yet again to the clean mating surface, before the housing was offered up and bolted in place. The tie wraps were removed, the hose reconnected and the jubilee clip tightened. The system was then re-filled gradually, making sure that no air was trapped (tip - get the front of the car higher than the back). Success!

Thermostat housing re-fitted

Radiator fan

Whilst messing about stopping the leak above, I noticed that two of the fan fixings on the driver's side had broken after only 1,200 miles!

Broken fan fixing. Tie wrap can now be seen below it.

What I should have done was to fit tie wraps as well to help stop the mountings moving. I have ordered new fan fixings to replace the broken ones. Guess that is the problem of such a big fan.

Wet passenger legs!

We had a drop of rain on the North York Moors Cobra Club run. If we went fast enough the rain went over the top of us, unfortunately I had not sealed the windscreen stanchions properly and it dripped in to the passenger foot well. Not too bad as it was on to the passenger's legs and not mine!

Gap down side of stanchion let water in

In addition the rubber seal of the windscreen had a kink in it, so GD had supplied a new one without the fault.

Kink can be seen in photo above

So I had to remove the screen. This is a time consuming job, as you need to remove the sun visors, mirrors, wind wings, centre bracket, before unscrewing and lifting out. But a tip, remove the passenger under dash tray and one of the bigger gauges on the dashboard. Now you can get your hand in to remove the nuts holding in the central screen bracket. This is a lot easier than removing the whole dash!

Whilst the screen was off I re-did the drivers side stanchion sealing. The escutcheons needed removing to do this job properly. The new rubber seal went on easier with some Vaseline to aid sliding in to the channel on the under side of the windscreen.

Stanchion re-sealed

New rubber seal without the kink!

So, hopefully dry legs now. Not that it goes out in the rain .... well it is not planned anyway!

Bleeding brakes!

Brakes

There was a weep where the copper pipe/brass union joined the central (rear brakes) master cylinder. There may not have been much of a weep, but with brakes you don't mess around. To inspect this I had to drain the brake fluid from the reservoir and pipes above the rear master cylinder - messy! Here I attached a plastic tube to the nipples of both rear callipers (separately). I then opened each nipple to drain the fluid from the pipes, as if bleeding the brakes, and the reservoir. The Eezibleed system was used to put some pressure in to the reservoir and pipes to flush out the brake fluid.

Once this was done, the rubber pipe that feeds the reservoir and the copper brake pipe were removed and inspected. I could see a small score on the copper brake pipe flare. Then I noticed two cracks in the brass union. No wonder it was leaking! I had probably tightened it too much to cure the weep from the flare in the copper pipe. Unfortunately I don't have a spare union or section of brake pipe to make another. I cleaned the master cylinder union hole with a cotton wool bud dipped in acetone, to get rid of any oil, then conceded defeat.

So I need to speak to Andy on Monday morning and ask him to fit a new union and pipe when the car comes down for checking over. As a result the handbrake cannot be finalised, so another job for Andy.

Polishing

Because I couldn't do any more work on the brakes, I turned my attention to cleaning the car. After vacuuming it out, I used Simonize carnauba wax on the body. Not the easiest stuff to put on and take off, but a great shine. Managed half the car before I got bored. Will do the rest tomorrow.

Not a good day in the garage today

Coolant

No visible signs of leaks. Good news.

Engine

No visible oil leaks either. So I removed the plugs ready to turn the engine over and get oil pressure. The 8 plugs are really difficult to get at and were not easy to remove.

And it went downhill from here.

Tried to turn over the engine - switched on the ignition and hit the starter button. Nothing! I then connected the fuel pump wire to the battery in case there was any electrical connection here. Still nothing. Will sleep on that.

Fuel

Put some unleaded in the tank and no leaks. Good start. But no fuel pump sound. Urghhhh.

Brakes

Jacked up the car. Connected the Eezibleed system to the reservoir and a  tyre (gets pressure from here which allows you to do it on your own). The new cap leaked - easy enough to solve, I thought. So I rescued the old one from the bin! Bin diving is not a lot of fun. Fitted the old cap and great no leaks from the reservoir, but ........

Bled the rear brakes whilst keeping an eye on the brake fluid container and the reservoir. Then I noticed a great big puddle of brake fluid at the front! It was coming from a master cylinder where it joined the brake pipe. At first it was just dripping in to the off-side compartment, but then it started running out through some holes and on to the garage floor, which is when I noticed it.

Cleaned up. Packed up. Fed up!

Coolant, clutch, IVA, ECU etc

Coolant

The coolant system took around 16 ltrs, 70% water to 30% antifreeze. This was added to the stainless steel expansion tank at the front of the engine compartment.

Coolant header tank

It was poured in gradually to reduce the risk of air locks. All pipes were checked for leaks at this stage. There was a leak in the thermostat housing - mutter, mutter. As this had a rubber O-ring I had not used any sealant. I should have - another lesson! So that's a drain down tomorrow. Not difficult, but a job I could do without.

If you are doing yours, remember that I have a Chevy LS6 engine. The amounts may differ on other engine types.

Clutch fluid

The reservoir was filled with DOT4 fluid. An auto bleed system was used, so that I could do it on my own. Air pressure from one of the tyres was used.

Clutch reservoir. Bleed nipple is on right of two pipes - not easy to get at

Oh, and I noticed that a wire had broken to the knock sensor, so I had to repair this.

ECU

The ECU was fitted to the centre under dash tray using button head bolts in to rivnuts. I made sure that there would be clearance for the gauges and that the connector would fit the ECU in that position.

ECU bolted to centre tray

The remote button for the speedo was fitted to the central tray too. It is concealed, but can be operated from the driver's seat. There is a gap between the underside of the tray and the transmission tunnel top.

NOTE: Fit a PC flylead to the ECU to make access to the ECU easier. See IVA and Post IVA category in the Build Process.

Tachometer

The dip switches on the back were checked to make sure that the settings were correct. For the ETB tacho the first 3 switches are set to 1 (on) and the remainder are set to 0 (off) for the LSV8.

The speedo will need setting too, but for the first calculation I had used the 3.23 diff and the later chassis (including mine) have a 3.07 diff. So I need to re-check the setting with ETB.

The faulty switch for the rear fog light was replaced whilst I played with the dashboard.

Starter heat shield

I had left this off for some reason. So it was added. Needed to remove the dip stick first.

IVA items

A dummy number plate is needed for the IVA and was made from MDF, sprayed black and fixed to the bar at the front in the nose using two 19mm P-clips.

The rear number plate lamp had the bolt changed for a button head to comply with the 5mm radius rule.

Hexagonal bolt swapped for button head

Seat fixing - fitting to the car

Fixing the seats

This turned out to be a real pain and very time consuming - working out where to drill the holes to fix the runners. In the end I may end up changing the head restraints (which are currently mounted on the seat) to ones mounted on the roll over bars. Otherwise the head restraints touch the rear bodywork, the seat belts touch the head restraint and the head restraint restricts rearward seat movement - apart from that lot it is fine!

GD had supplied four fixing bolts, washers and spacers for each seat.  The long bolts and spacers go at the front of each seat. All the spacers were sprayed satin black to blend in (not that you can see them) and to reduce the risk of corrosion.

The carpets under the seats were turned back. Here I had to remove the seatbelt anchorages from the floor. A measurement from the rear bulkhead of 560 mm was used to locate the front fixing points on my seats, but check your own as Keith Akerman used 640 mm. The front hole nearest the transmission tunnel was about 75 mm from the tunnel side and about 90 mm away at the rear mounting point. A template of the bolt holes was used to determine the other location points.

Template taken from bottom of seat, marking the bolt holes

8 mm holes were drilled through the floor to take the fixing bolts. The holes I drilled in error (I had the runners in the wrong position), will act as drain holes!

The bolts were put loosely in the runners, before the seats were positioned in the car.

Bolts loosely fitted to runners

The seats were then trial fitted, before holes were cut in the carpet. Getting all four bolts through is not easy, so the rear holes were slightly larger.

The carpets were re-fitted with the seatbelt eye bolts. The holes in the floor were then marked with chalk and the carpet placed over them. The chalk was transferred on to the back of the carpet by pressing it with my fingers, before holes were cut in the carpet. Finally the seats were put in to the car and with the spacers at the front. The length of each bolt was noted, the seat removed and each bolt shortened to the appropriate length. The seats were fixed in place using the bolts, nylocs and penny washers from underneath the car.

Driver's seat fitted

Now just the passenger side to do.

Handbrake

Once the seat was in place, I could hardly get my fingers around the handbrake. I solved this by fitting a 3 mm spacer at the front handbrake mounting. Because the rear had no spacer, this caused the front of the handbrake to be move away from the car side and this created enough room to use it. Useful!!

Spacer between the handbrake and front mounting can be seen

The leather that covers the handbrake and the escutcheon were re-fitted.

Attaching the seat belts

I am fitting four point harnesses. I have had these in my Caterham and five point in my other two race cars. The five point were great in the race cars and stopped me submarining under heavy braking, but they could hurt the gentleman parts at times! So four point it was. You feel so secure with them on and they stop you moving about in the seat.

The harnesses are the clip in type in black to match the leather trim. It was simply a case of attaching them to the eye bolts on the fixings on the roll hoops and to the anchorages that I had located on the floor. The belts were then adjusted to suit me. At this point I took the opportunity to shorten one of the eye bolts so that it did not protrude from the fixing under the car.

4 point belts fixed

To keep the IVA inspector happy, I will edge the belt fixings with rubber trim to make sure that the curves are of sufficient radius.

Flexible heating pipes

Oh b****r!

The flexible heater pipes had slipped off most of their outlets/couplings or they were easy to pull off. This had happened even though I had used tie wraps at every end. So tie wraps are out for me for this job.

Jubilee clips used to replace tie wraps

Solution, secure these again to the outlet or the coupling using jubilee clamps. A lesson for me. Do it right the first time to avoid re-doing the work!

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!

Roll over hoops - part 5 - The Final Fix!

I have not done anything for the past couple of weeks. The last job I did was to drill the roll over hoop holes in the body and loosely fit the bars. So now I needed to check the fit to the chassis, then fill the hoops with expanding foam, before the final panel body trim, the fitting of the grommets and the escutcheons.

The hoops were removed and the studs (I think that bolts are used on the GDJAG) fitted to the outer legs, after applying some grease (note that the shorter thread went into the roll over bar).

The hoops were fed through the holes in the body and the boot floor. Next the nuts were loosely fitted to the outer bar studs, before the other bolts were put in place by hand. A ratchet strap was used to help get the studs/bolts and the bars aligned.

Hoops bolted in to place.

Ratchet strap helped pull the legs in to position.

Once I was happy with the fit, the holes were finally marked up to allow 5mm gap for the grommets to fit into the body top holes and a 3mm gap around the legs in the boot floor to allow some clearance for body to chassis movement. The hoops were taken out and bolts and studs were removed, before the body holes were finished off with the Dremel.

Then it was on to the messy job of filling the hoops with expanding foam. GD recommend this to reduce the noise transmission from the chassis. I used Polyfiller Expanding Foam, but as they say other brands are available! Do use disposable gloves (supplied) as this stuff is not easy to get off your hands if you get it on them.

Each of the escutcheons were drilled in the three places marked for 4mm stainless button head bolts. First I drilled the holes for the 4mm button head bolts in the escutcheons, the grommets and the body. I then put the escutcheons and grommets onto the appropriate legs. The fitting of the grommets onto the legs is not easy! I used Vaseline to help them slide into place on each leg (it is amazing what this stuff can do!). Next I masked around the bottom of each hoop's legs, then I sprayed water into the legs to help cure the foam. I then squirted foam into each leg of the hoops (after putting on the gloves!) and quickly inserted the bolts/studs into the holes to avoid the threads being clogged up. This also makes sure that the foam does not leak out.

Chalk was then rubbed around the six holes in the boot floor. The boot carpet was laid in place and pressed around the holes to leave a chalk imprint on the underside. The carpet was removed and cut in a star pattern within the chalk marked holes. The inner area of the carpet hole was removed to aid fitting.

After the foam was cured, I left it overnight, I finally tightened the studs into the outer legs, using mole grips. Once this was done, the hoop was again put through the holes, then through the carpet into the boot floor holes. The bolts and studs were tightened in place from underneath the car.

Bolts/stud tightened in place

GD say that silicone is not needed as water does not get in through these holes, so I didn't apply any.

The grommets were manoeuvred into place, through the holes in the top of the body. Again a fiddly job. Then the escutcheons were lowered into place and were fixed in place with the 4mm button head bolts and nyloc nuts. 17 of the 18 bolts went through okay, the 18th 'disappeared', probably into a cavity between the matting layers. This hole will need filling and tapping to get the bolt to bite.

Just need to fix the escutcheons.

Inside the boot

Second hoop done and escutcheons fixed in place

The loom was re-clipped into place and the carpet re-fitted to the sides. Then the eye bolts for the harnesses were fitted. To get them in the vertical position, I needed to file a small amount off the hoop mounting points. Grease was applied to the eye bolts to help them go into place.

Eye bolt in hoop

Job done!

Engine sensors fitted

So the instruments have arrived. Now I needed to fit the engine sensors.

First was the oil pressure sensor. Not straight forward! I had to loosen the plenum first so that the sensor would fit. Without this being removed the sensor was too wide at the base. The sensor is fitted in to the M16 to 1/8" NPT adapter. I had to tighten the adapter to the sensor first, before I used grips to gently tighten the sensor in the hole. The wire to the loom was then attached.

Oil pressure sensor in place. Spare terminal is for an oil warning light.

Next came the water temperature sensor. This is fitted to the back of the off side head and there is little space! The back spark plug connection was removed to give a little more space. The adapter was again fitted to the sensor, before tightening in the head. Finally the loom wire was attached.

Water temperature sensor fitted

Finally the oil temperature sensor was fitted. For a change this was easy. Accessing the oil filter housing from under the car, the adapter - pre-fitted to the sensor, was screwed in place then tightened and the loom wire attached. NOTE: Do make sure that the sensors are tightened - I hadn't!

Oil temperature sensor fitted

Now, whilst in the engine compartment I did a couple of small jobs. First, I am embarrassed to say, was to swap the rocker covers around. I had re-fitted them on the wrong sides. D'oh! Not that it matters that much, but I had decided that it would be easier to fill with oil if the filler was on the off-side. This required the coils and plug lead assembly to be removed from the covers and re-fitted to the correct cover. The fitting of the vacuum pipe had to be modified slightly too.

Rocker covers right way round. Note filler on left of photo.

Next came the washer bottle connection. The water tube was fed through the lower hole in the bulkhead (after fitting a grommet) and connected to the outlet on the washer pump. The two wires were also fed through the hole and connected to the pump.

Water tube and wiring

Just to fill in the time I set up the dash with the steering wheel to check if I could see all the warning lights and gauges - I couldn't, so have moved a few things round. So here is how it looks at present. The GRP panel will need some fettling to avoid the hinges binding and to closely follow the scuttle contour, whilst allowing for the leather trim.

Revised dash layout after loosely fitting the wheel

Engine loom part 2

Final bit of engine loom sorted today. If you are building a GD427, then do connect up the loom before you put the body on. Or at least connect up the loom to the gearbox and starter motor. It is so much easier to do it at that stage.

Reverse lights

The reverse light switch on the gearbox had two wires. These were now tucked away alongside the gearbox and within the chassis. So after jacking the car well up at the front and crawling under it, hands shredded, I finally managed to connect the bullet connectors together. Not the easiest or most pleasant of jobs.

Lacerations

Speed sensor

The speed sensor was in theory simple too. The car was jacked up well at the side. After crawling under the car, I managed to get my hand into the transmission tunnel at the back of the gearbox and remove the sensor, which was held in by one bolt and a locating plate.

The two wires were attached to the sensor using two thin connectors out of a waterproof Delphi double connector! The waterproof seals and some silicone were used to make sure that the connectors stayed in place and kept dry.

Speed sensor with wires siliconed in place

The installation was a reverse of the previous process. Don't lower the car until you have tightened the bolt :) Just don't expect this to be easy to get at!

Starter motor

Another nightmare to get at! The starter motor is tucked up behind the exhaust headers, with the solenoid on top.

Starter motor wires in place

The thick red wire from the battery and the red wire from the loom marked 'starter' are connected to the lower thick terminal. The other wire, slate and red, is connected to the thinner stud on the solenoid. The small wire terminal will not go on the wrong stud.

Bulkhead 'grommet'

A very rewarding job. Nice finisher!

An aluminium two piece bulkhead grommet had been machined by Keith Akerman for his car and I managed to get one from him, a real work of art!

Components of bulkhead grommet

GD don't do a part for this. It was easily fitted around the loom and pushed through the bulkhead. The bulkhead hole needed a bit of filing to open it out, before fixing the 'grommet' with four buttonhead bolts. A very neat solution and much better than having to fabricate one myself.

Neat!

Fuel pump

The short wire on the loom marked 'Pump' was connected to the white/purple wire of the body loom. This went to the fuse box, so needed cutting from the fuse box. The body loom is designed for a non-LS engine car, which has a different pump arrangement. A male connector was added to the cut wire and then connected to the wire on the relay block. See photo below where the cut wire can just be seen coming out of the fuse box and is taped up in black.

Fuel pump wires sorted

The relay block will be attached to one of the underdash trays later.

So now I just have the sensors to connect up on the engine - oil pressure, oil temperature and water temperature for the gauge, when I get them. All easy to get at. Well relatively .....

Thermostat

Luckily I realised that there was no thermostat in the housing, thanks for telling me Kyle, so I bought one from Monkfish. Great service and very prompt delivery. Whilst I was at it, I replaced the seal.

New thermostat and seal

It was simply a case of undoing two bolts on the housing, replacing the seal and inserting the thermostat, then putting the bolts back in place.

Where the thermostat goes

Header tank hose

A new piece of hose was attached between the block and the header tank (because I had originally used vacuum tube - not a good idea!).

Correct hose!

Handbrake

The handbrake was attached to the bracket to allow me to locate the position of the fixing holes. The end of the handbrake (the end with the button) was positioned in line with the front of the door opening. The holes in the mounting plate were marked through onto the floor and drilled. Bolts went through the bracket and through the holes in the floor. The bolts were secured with nuts and shakeproof washers on the underside of the car, using large washers to spread the load.

Handbrake in place

At this stage the handbrake could not be adjusted as it is a hydraulic/mechanical handbrake, so the brake fluid needs adding and bleeding first. However, the handbrake cable could be secured to the chassis with tie wraps, to keep it away from moving parts.

The carpet will be cut later, once the gaiter is received and fitted.

Gear lever

This was simply a case of attaching the lever with two bolts into the threaded gear lever stub on the 'box and then securing with nylocs. Once in place, I opened out the transmission tunnel hole slightly with the Dremel so that it would not foul against the GRP. Now I can select gears!!

Gear lever. Escutcheon is only laid in place.

Engine loom part 1

Engine loom

The loom can either be fed from the cockpit through to the engine bay or the other way round. I chose the latter because it was easier, even though it required the bulkhead hole to be opened up a little by filing sufficient GRP to allow the ECU connector to be passed through. The bulkhead hole will be covered by a grommet at a later date.

With hindsight the loom could have been connected before the body was put on. This would have made access much easier.

First, the relay and electrical block were taken off the loom, before the big ECU connector, pedal connector and the wires for the relay were fed through the bulkhead hole.

Engine loom bulkhead hole from engine bay

Engine loom from cockpit side

The loom was connected to the injectors (odd numbers to nearside) and main connection blocks in between the injectors first. This got 10 of the connections out of the way!

Injectors, main connector between cylinder 4 & 6 and throttle pot connected

Next I connected the engine loom to the front body loom. This was simply pushing the two round connectors together.

Connection to main body loom

The throttle connectors were connected to the throttle body, then the alternator was connected (I added a boot to the live connection post), then the cam and the earth wires were connected, which were followed by the MAP and knock sensors.

Water temperature and cam sensor connected. Alternator to do

Connections from nearside

The air intake sensor wires were too short so had to be extended.

I had to jack up the car and remove the two front wheels to get at the other sensors, such as the crank, lambda and starter. The crank sensor is virtually inaccessible, so I managed to connect this by reaching through the extended foot well!

Crank sensor almost hidden by starter motor!

The gearbox connections are still to make, but most are now done. The full wiring connection is detailed in one of my other posts.

Next I refit the fuses and realised that I needed two others. The fuse ratings of the ones supplied were incorrect for my car. The missing two will be 10 amp and then a 20 amp in the bottom slot. The fuse ratings and position are shown in the GD wiring manual.

Fusebox with two missing fuses.

I then refitted the relay block in the cockpit area.

Under dash trays

There are three panels that go under the dash. One in the centre and one either side.

First I fixed the centre "tray" to the brackets on the two cross braces. Many builders fix these under the brackets and between the braces. I fixed mine above to avoid having to make alterations to the panel and having to elongate the holes. Also it seemed more logical, having tried to do it the other way. The central tray was fixed with button head bolts and nylocs.

Centre tray fitted

The outer trays will have to wait until another day.