Been an interesting couple of weeks and surprisingly some more work has been done on the car. I was hoping that the car would be ready by the end of September which means that if it is going to happen, I'd better get my finger out. I've just about reached the stage where the only things that need doing now are all the trimming, brightwork and seats. Can't be too much, can it?
The exhausts I got from Pilgrim did not have SVA compliant ends on them. This was a problem that needed to be dealt with. I had the options of asking one of the local engineering firms to do the work, pester Martin Underhill for the name of the person that did his or ask my father-in-law if he was up to the job. He said that he would be, so I removed the exhausts from the car, packed them in bubble wrap and sent them to Bolton with the wife & kids on the bank holiday weekend.
A trip to John's place of work was interesting - just a shame that I forgot to bring the camera with me, could have taken some good action shots!
Not to worry. John had got hold of a piece of stainless steel rod and bent it roughly to the size of a template that I had e-mailed him earlier in the week. When I seen the raw materials some horror thoughts went through my head. For starters, the rod was as dull as mud and would certainly look out of place on the nice, shiny, polished exhausts. I mentioned this to John and he said not to worry, everything would be taken care of. OK, I thought. We'll see.
Anyway, a couple of hours later the exhausts are done. With much banging with very large hammers, a tig welder, numerous grinding wheels, sanding wheels and polishing wheels, the exhausts now have a nice rounded lip to them. I must say that John has done a much better job than I thought he would have done (even he did better than he thought he could). This was probably spurred on by the fact that he was scared stupid that he may screw things up and ruin the exhausts completely. Well done John, good job.
The doors now have their electrics in place and I have fitted the switches and relays (and all wiring) that will allow for the doors to be electronically operated. No internal door handles for me!
I have been told by someone that, in case of flat battery, etc, that you need a mechanical way of opening the doors. This will be taken care of by a wire connected to the door lock with a simple pull-loop on it. The pull loop will be able to be hidden behind the door panel in normal circumstances.
The other item that I have installed into the car is some courtesy lights for the footwells. This is simply to make getting in and out of the car a little easier when dusk/night time arrives.
In order to get all these additional electrical items up and working I have installed a new positive feed from the battery so that it runs off its own circuit and does not interfere with the main loom of the car. This is fed through a 4-way fused spur, using the splitter box that I was previously using for my amplifiers in my old car stereo. With gold connectors on it, it certainly provides a good circuit.
I've ordered some more parts from Pilgrim so that I can get the heater installed and fixed into place. This simply required the vents to fit under the windscreen and the required mouldings to fit underneath, allowing the heater pipes to be connected. I also ordered a bonnet and boot stay. I guess this means I can get rid of the pieces of wood I've been using to prop them open!
I hope to place a number of orders next week to get hold of the final trimming parts. This includes carpets, seats, windscreen and associated parts, and nudge bars. That should almost see all parts required. Then it's just a case of fitting them. The plans for this weekend are to get the new Pilgrim parts fitted, but first to get the inner cab wings glassed in. I'm a little apprehensive about this as I've never worked with fibreglass before. I've had some advice fron Danny Mann who is also building a Sumo and is somewhat of an expert with fibreglass.
The parts have arrive from Pilgrim today. Some nice shiny vents for the top of the dashboard, a couple of boot stays and the under-dash vents for the heater. These will be fixed in place over the next week as I have injured my right hand yesterday and so I'm unable to get on with it. Resting
Ordered the windscreen and other bits today. That makes me another £900 poorer. The screen and accessories have been ordered from Brasscraft, through recomendation. While not the cheapest screen available it is arguably one of the best available. I've aslo order sun visors, wind wings, rear view mirror and mount, front and rear nudge bars and over-riders. These items will be here later in the week and so I need to get the vents fixed to the top of the dash ASSP.
With this in mind I set about. My right hand is not too bad today so out came the measuring tape and drill. The build manual gives you the dimensions where to place the vents. It's then a question of following the curve of where the windscreen will fit (by following the flash lines) and marking up and cutting out. Simple.
Things started off well. I measured up the passenger side first and made a note of where the left hand screw would be fixed. I then laid the vent across the dash and marked it up. Then I thought about putting some masking tape on, just in case, and so measured up again. With the masking tape on it was much easier to see where I needed to cut out.
I picked up the drill and made several holes through the cut out. I then used the drill to join the holes together. Finally it was a case of take out the file and smooth the edges off the cut outs. This produced a nice smooth cut out. There was one additional thing I did do. I took hold of a felt tip pen and coloured in the edge of the fibre glass I had just drilled as this had revealed a white edge. As you look though the windscreen this would have been seen, until the car gets painted (not sure when).
I marked up the drivers side next and repeated the same process (just like TV - here's one I made earlier!!).
Now the only thing left to do was to fix the vents to the dash. Again, starting with the passenger side, I drilled a pilot hole for some zinc covered screws I had and then started screwing (oo-er). Just then, the screw that I was fixing snapped. Nothing is ever simple these days.
Now I had to carefully removed the tip of the screw, that was partly screwed into the top of the dash, without ruining the top of the dash. I tried to push it out with the help of a small drill bit and a hammer, but it would simply not budge. Slip went the drill bit and a nice scratch has developed on top of the dash. I'm not going to worry about this as it will probably rub out and polish up. Eventually when the car is painted, none of these small scratches will be seen.
I tried to drill it out and only the top spiralled off. Finally I bit the bullet and drilled two small holes around the broken piece and then managed to lever it out. This has left a slightly larger hole than I probably need, but it should still be small enough to do the job. I'm off down the shops later again this week to get some more stainless steel screws.
Now that I couldn't fix the vents in place I thought it would be good to fix the bonnet stays. Took them out the bag and then realised that they both had vertical fixing plates. A horizontal plate is required for the bonnet, vertical for the boot. Another call back to Pilgrim to ask why they have sent the wrong parts. Ho, hum....
Well the windscreen has arrived, and very nice it looks too I must say. Those chaps at Autobrass have done a first class job of supplying the screen and extras (nudge bars, mirrors, wind wings, sun visors). I was even impressed with the box it came in (how sad?).
With the goodies on the table I took a look through the box to see how the screen gets fitted/assembled. Seems there are some legs that fix to the body, the screen then fixes to the legs. Just need to drill some holes into the legs so that they can be fixed to the chassis. I'll probably need to fix the legs to the screen first so that I can measure where the top of the screen should be in relation to the back of the cab area (so that the hood can be fitted correctly). This should also make sure that the screen gets fitted at the correct angle.
Hope to have the screen in place this weekend. Pictures soon.
Well, after much sweat and hard work, the windscreen has been fitted. The Cobra is getting to look more like a car each day now.
Before the windscreen could be fitted I needed to fix the vents in place. With some old screws snapping last week I travelled out and got a good selection of stainless steel screws, both countersunk and pan head, in all lengths and sizes. This means I now have more than enough for what I need. Picked a few screws out of the bag that were the right size for the vents and screwed them into place. Even with the larger hole I had to make, the screws gave enough bite to hold them in place. Both sides were screwed in and then I looked down then holes that were left. Some of the edges of the fibreglass body were still visible through the vents, and I could imagine that as you looked through the windscreen these edges would look a little rough. Off came the vents and a little more filing was done. This cleaned up the edges nicely so that they met the internal edges of the vents.
Now it was time to fit the windscreen. I fixed the legs to the screen and then measured the width of the pillars onto the body, using the imprints in the mould as a guide to where they should sit. The legs sat just outside of the dips in the mould. I drilled and cut the holes on the edge of these dips and then filed and smoothed the edges.
I then offered up the screen to the car and the legs sat nicely through the holes that had been cut. As I lowered it down, the screen would not drop very far. This is because the legs of the screen are much longer than required and interfere with the door hinges. I had to cut off 170mm from the bottom of the legs so that the screen would drop low enough. This time it did.
The next thing to do was to set the angle of the screen correctly. Looking in the build manual it shows that the correct distance from the top of the screen to the top of the rear bulkhead is 870mm. So to help I cut a piece of wood the required length with a notch out at the top and the bottom. I rested the screen over this and managed to lower the screen into position. It's interesting trying to lower the screen to get the rubber seal into contact with the dash. As you lower one side, the other side raises due to the screen pivoting in the centre. Finding just the right amount both sides takes patience. It's important that you do not put stress down the legs, thus putting stress through the glass. After the screen was lowered into place, the legs were marked up.
The legs were removed from the screen and drilled to accept a M10 bolt. Four holes drilled and the screen/legs were reassembled. This time when I offered the screen up I placed the escutcheon plates that would be used to cover the holes at the base of the legs. I marked up where they should be placed, drilled and screwed them into place. I knew those other stainless screws would come in useful. As the plates did not sit flush against the body, I used sealant underneath to help prevent any water seeping though. The screen was then lowered into position and the angle set. The only thing left to do now was to bolt the screen in place.
When the screen is lowered through the body there is a gap on either side between the legs of the screen and the chassis. This gap needs to be plugged up so that the legs are not pulled in at the bottom (stress on the glass!). The passenger side had a gap of around 22mm, the drivers side around 12mm. For the passenger side I cut a piece of steel tube to length, slid it between the leg and the chassis and then slid the bolt through. A lock nut on the end of this and that was one down, three to go.
Another piece of tube was cut for the passenger side and fitted. For the drivers side I was able to use a series of washers to space out the leg. This was easier than trying to cut a very short piece of tube. Washers in place, both bolts were fitted and fixed in. It is looking nice now.
The next thing I thought about was the bonnet stays that had been supplied. I never got round to calling Pilgrim to moan and decided to see if I could fit them. Looking at how to fix it to the bonnet was simple. A small bend on the top bracket and it could be easily fixed into place. A straight self tapping screw at the bottom and that should allow it to fit. Simple right? Wrong.
The first mistake I made was not thinking about what would be underneath the stay as the bonnet was closed down. I was too interested in thinking what distance should the ends be fixed in order to give enough clearance when the bonnet is raised. Consequently I was looking at how and where, with the bonnet open, I could fix the stay. I picked a slot on the bonnet and on the inside of the engine bay and fixed the stay in place. When I tried to close the bonnet I had about a 12 inch gap as I had set the stay at completely the wrong angle that it just would not close. Not to worry, I thought, just move the bottom fixing and that should be it. So I moved the bottom fixing toward the rear of the engine bay that still gave good clearance when the bonnet was open, but would also give a good angle so that the bonnet would close. This time I ran into a different problem.
As the bonnet was closed the stay was trying to rest upon the top of the brake fluid reservoir. It was at this point that I realised that I was probably fitting this stay on the wrong side of the engine bay. I guess these are the kind of mistakes that you make with your first kit car anyway. The stay was duly removed and I started on the other side of the engine bay.
What I had already seen from previous fitting was that as the lower end of the stay moved backward, the lower the bonnet would raise. To get round this I moved the top of the stay towards the front of the bonnet. In order to get the correct postion for the lower fixing, I lowered the bonnet to an almost closed position (needed to see just inside), I had closed up the stay as far as possible and I could then mark up where the lower fixing position should be. This meant that the stay was closed when the bonnet was closed. By moving the stay further forward, this also improved the lift of the bonnet. Now just to tackle the boot.
The only thing I had left to do today was to tidy out the garage a little. Tools all over the place, a big mess on the floor and loads of rubbish littered around. All loose tools were thrown into a big cardboard box (the windscreen box), rubbish was thrown out and the floor of the garage was vaccumed. As the vaccum was out, I also did the car.
