Small things

It has been snowing on and off today and is very cold in the garage, so time in there was kept to a minimum!

Speedometer

After using the wrong diff ratio the first time, I recalculated the speedo setting with the correct ratio at 27,868 for the ETB gauge. This will need putting in to the speedo prior to using the car.

Front dummy number plate

After spraying the dummy number plate satin black, I fitted it to the car using 19mm P-clips and button head bolts.

Dummy number plate can be seen here

Clutch reservoir

I noticed a fluid weep from the reservoir, so had to remove it and refit. Looks like it is cured.

Coolant

Following my abortive attempt at filling the cooling system, I had to drain the fluid because of a leak at the thermostat housing.

Leak under thermostat housing on right of photo

I rescued the fluid, so that I could re-use it! The thermostat housing leak was sealed with Hylomar sealant and then refitted to the engine and the hoses. Care was needed not to trap the thermostat between the housing and the outlet, otherwise it couldn't be sealed (as I found out!).

Reseated and sealed

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

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

Engine compartment

Engine compartment

Today I completed the heater hoses, with the exception of two jubilee clips that I need to get. The hoses were not long enough, so I had to add short lengths into the hose runs.

Heater hoses in place, less two jubilee clips

Next the air temperature sensor was fitted to the air intake duct (the stainless steel tube). This required a grommet that would take a 12 mm sensor. I found that warming the grommet up in hot water helped with this.

Sensor fitted through grommet

Then the brake and clutch lines were coupled up to the junction point on the bulkhead. The male parts of the hose were coated with a small amount of Loctite 572. The hoses will need securing with a tie wrap or similar at a later date. The Loctite was also applied to the connections on the inner wing.

Brake and clutch hoses connected

Gear lever

The gear lever hole was enlarged a little to make sure that all gears could be selected. The escutcheon was used to mark out where the gear lever gator would go. I needed to keep well within this area.

I also taped up the loom run with racing tape in the passenger compartment. Not sure that I needed to do this, but it looked tidier prior to doing the carpets.

Gear lever hole enlarged and loom taped

Preparing to fit the body

Before I can put the body on, I needed to do a few small jobs. These will be easier now than when the body is on. Some must be done before the body can be fitted e.g. grinding down the mountings, cutting the recesss for the air intake, cutting out the hole for the gear lever etc, others can be done after, although it may not be as easy!

Had a chat with Andy at GD for any advice. Received some good tips.

Edit: Do fit the loom before you fit the body or at least connect the speed sensor, the reverse light switch and the starter motor. It is so much easier at this stage.

Now I just need to prepare for the day!

Mountings

I couldn't help taking a few photos of the chassis, before it gets covered with the body. This was one of the reasons that I went with Gardner Douglas. The engineering is miles ahead of the competition. No wonder people praise the handling of this car.

Rear three quarter view of chassis 

Front three quarters view of chassis

The rubberised body mountings, where the transmission tunnel splays out, need the top edge grinding to an angle to help the body sit on the chassis. Also I have checked that the mountings are sitting flush with the chassis. The mountings will be lubricated with Vaseline to help jiggle the body in to place.

Top mounting filed down. Note that this mounting does not have a screw thread 

The mountings were lightly sanded to take off any sharp edges.

Lightly sanded mounting

The rear mountings have been marked out in the boot to show the centres of the two mounting holes.Mine were 532 mm from the centre of the car to the centre of each mounting. The holes will be about 20 mm up from the floor of the boot apparently.

Air intake cut out

The lip and hinge mounting point needs to be shaped to allow the air intake to fit up into it. The area to remove was marked up centrally on the body. The Dremel with a sanding tube came in handy here to grind out the GRP. The air intake was offered up regularly to check the cut out.

Cut out at front of body

Under sealing area ahead of radiator

The inner wings were not undersealed when the wheel arches and nose were done. At that stage I didn't know where the lines should go. I used the mounting holes on the inner wings to determine where to put the masking tape, prior to applying the underseal.

Final bit of underseal!

Gearbox oil

Yes, this is automatic gearbox oil, even though it is a manual! Tremec recommend AQT oil. It is easier to fill the gearbox now than when the body is on.

Filling the gearbox with AQT

Gear lever hole

This needs cutting out in the transmission tunnel, prior to mounting the body. I used the mounting holes as reference points to locate the centre of the gear lever hole. This is towards the nearside, but once the gator and escutcheon is fitted it will look central. Once marked this was cut out using a hole cutter.

Gear lever hole in transmission tunnel

Footwell extension

The footwell extension was rubbed down, after I had applied some more gel coat to help get a better finish. The fixing screws will need shortening to tidy it up a little.

Horn

The horn wire is on the nearside at the front. Fitting was a case of drilling three holes (the compressor and two trumpets) in the chassis and fitting rivnuts. The brackets were fitted to the rivnuts using button head screws and then the compressor and trumpets were fitted to these brackets.

Horn fitted to chassis rail

Boot carpet

Now that the reverse and fog lights were fitted, I could fit the piece of carpet at the back of the boot. This went under the striker plate, which was bolted through the floor, before the carpet was glued down (not glued yet). The striker plate does not go down to the floor, so once the carpet was in place I made up some spacers out of the spare aluminium bar that I had used for the radiator.

Piece of boot carpet at rear fitted - wrong way round!

Piece of boot carpet fitted - right way round.

Odds and ends

The reversing light wire on the offside of the gearbox and the loom need connectors attaching. The existing connection on the gearbox was removed first.

Connections on gearbox for reverse light

The speedo connection from the loom will need a Delphi two pin waterproof connection adding - I hate making up those things. I will need to order this.

The rubber bung below the reverse lockout on the nearside was cut down and then a plate made to secure it in place.

Plate securing bung on gearbox

Surplus vacuum take offs were blocked off with button head bolts and Araldite adhesive.

One of the surplus vacuum take-offs blocked

Preparing for body fitting

I have been told to remove the radiator frame and, after slackening the lower bolts, tilt the radiator back a little. This will stop the body fouling on the chassis at the front. A bungy helped to hold all this in place.

Radiator frame removed

Small but important jobs

Loads of small jobs to do. Feels great to knock them off the list!

Coil packs

Re-fitted the plug leads and coil packs today. I have fixed the brackets to the rocker covers using M6 16 mm button head screws. The holes in the rocker covers that were not used had M6 12 mm button heads inserted to finish them off.

Coils and plug leads fitted

Exhaust clamps

I was not happy with the front and middle exhaust clamps. They hung down too low and so would reduce ground clearance and the exposed threads were an invitation to make contact with the road. Even if I twisted them around, I couldn't gain much ground clearance without coming into contact with the chassis. As we have quite high speed bumps on our road (higher than the legal limit of 4"), I needed to make sure that the ground clearance was as high as possible.

Standard brackets hang down too far

I bought four Mikalor exhaust clamps from Westfield Fasteners to replace the standard clamps. Not cheap at £18 plus p&p, but worth the outlay. The photo above shows the before view and below shows the after views.

Almost flat clamps (Mikalor)

Front clamps fitted

Gearbox mount bolts

Replaced the two bolts gearbox mount bolts with 10.9 grade bolts. The others had lost there edge from being put in, thread locked and taken out a few times.

New gearbox mount bolts

Brace bars and cooling

I refitted the front brace bars, the radiator support frame and the radiator. This should have been really easy, but for some reason the bolts took some inserting in the brace bars, before fixing with nyloc nuts.

Brace bars, radiator support frame and radiator in place

Once the radiator support frame was in place, I trial fitted the header tank and hoses. This was an easy job and very intuitive. I have used black silicone hoses with W4 clamps (stainless steel). I replaced the supplied air intake zinc plated clamps with four 100 mm W4 clamps. The radiator will have to come off for the fan to be fitted.

Hoses and header tank trial fitted

Idler pulley

The idler pulley is not used on the GD, so I removed the bracket and pulley.

Idler pulley on right

Idler pulley removed

Transmission tunnel cover

The transmission tunnel cover needed a hole cutting out for the gear shifter. First I marked this out by measuring the position of the shifter, then drawing a circle 65 mm in diameter. My chassis is a Euro, so the sponge rubber was in place, therefore the hole was cut from the bottom side of the panel.

Put away the Dremel for this job. I broke a cutting bit. The hole was cut out using a jig saw and then tidied up with a half round file.

Hole cut in transmission tunnel cover

Clutch hydraulics

A smear of Loctite 572 was applied to the clutch pipe connectors (there are four surfaces to be treated) before they were connected to the block. The block was dismantled to allow the pipe connectors to be nipped up. The rigid brake pipes from the chassis were already in place.

From left to right clutch bleed, clutch feed, brake pipes x 2 

The two braided clutch pipes were strapped together with a couple of plastic tie wraps.

So a load of easy/small jobs done and out of the way.

Cobra exhaust

New Year's day (happy 2016 to all readers) and another few hours in the garage to tackle the exhaust system.

I laid out the various parts of the exhaust system so that I knew where to fix them. The system consists of various tubes, catalytic converters, a balance box on the central pipes, plus two Cherry Bomb silencers. I have already fitted the headers. The Cherry Bombs (silencers!!) will be fitted later, once the body is in place. The diameter of the Cherry Bombs is so big that I could almost park the every day car in them!

Exhaust system, less headers, laid out

What I realised after initially assembling the system on the chassis was that the gearbox mounting plate, which also acts as a point from which to support the exhaust system on my car, had been mounted (note how I don't take any blame here) on top of the chassis lugs (logical place?). However, it should have been mounted below to avoid the pipes touching the chassis - not the best engineering solution I have seen, but the four high tensile bolts should be fine as the weight of the gearbox tail and the exhaust system are not massive. Nothing about this location in the manual, so it was trial and error, mainly the latter.

Gearbox mounting plate above the lugs

Also, I had to open up the exhaust mounting hole a little to fit the threaded part of the bobbin from which the exhaust system is supported. So the mounting plate was removed yet again and bolted to the chassis from the underside. This time it was a little more difficult to get out, as the exhaust pipes were in the way! 

Gearbox mounting plate moved to below the chassis

By moving the bracket to the underside of the chassis it moved the exhaust mount about 12 - 15 mm lower, so giving clearance to the chassis. Heat Resistant silicone was applied to the system where the pipes joined to reduce any risk of blowing (hopefully).

The rear of the exhaust system was located using reinforced rubber and six bolts (as supplied by GD), three bolts (with shake proof washers) locate into the rivnuts in the chassis and three bolts go through the bracket and the rubber mount, secured by nyloc nuts. The rubber mount needed trimming to size and holes drilling.

Rear view of exhaust before rubber mount fitted

The bracket supplied keeps the pipes the correct distance apart and helps to locate them. This is only fitted hand tight, so was not supposed to be in the right location as supplied. Drilling the rubber is interesting. It seems to self-heal after drilling!

Rear exhaust mount fitted, the six fixings can be seen

Now all the clamps were tightened up to secure the system in place and the oxygen (lambda) sensors were fitted into each side below the headers. These will be wired in later.

Exhaust clamps below a header and with the lambda sensor fitted

Gearbox and headers

Transmission location

After some playing about, I found that the initial location of the gearbox was okay. If I moved the gearbox to clear the bolt on the shifter locating plate, the bell housing touched the chassis. So this was not an acceptable option.

The real problem was the location of the fuel line.

Fuel line ran on inside of chassis rail. Shifter cover plate removed and taped over to stop contamination

I moved the fuel line to the under side of the chassis rail. To do this I drilling out the rivets holding the clamps and re-fitting them on the underside of the chassis rail. A bit fiddly, but worth the effort.

Fuel line clipped to under side of chassis rail (looking up)

This gave about 15 mm clearance to the chassis, plenty of room.

Clearance can now be seen between the chassis rail and the shifter location plate

Now the locating plate was bolted back in place, using a small bead of Heat Resistant silicone to seal the plate. This required the tail of the gearbox to be lowered to allow the front off side bolt to be fitted.

Headers

Now it was time to fix the headers in place. The gasket was pre-marked with the manifold side and the orientation. A small amount of Heat Resistant silicone was applied to the block side of the gaskets and to the manifolds. These were then clamped in place with five high tensile bolts at each side.

Shiny header/manifold fitted

Another view of a header in place