Installed steering arm today.

Today we were able to install the front steering arm, but not without a few small challenges. One of the issues we ran into was that we need a few tools we didn't have but fortunately I have a neighbor, Jim Ellis, who I think was Tim Allen's, Tool Guy, mentor, just joking, but he has a bunch of tools : ) So he was able to loan me what we needed. Many of our issue had to do with the torquing on various nuts.

When we were doing the final assembly we found that one of the nuts on the spindle wouldn't tighten down correctly. After much head scratching and cussing of course, we found that we had put one of the arms on upside down. So we had to disassemble what we had done and about one hour later we were back on track. I guess that's part of the fun, solving problems, or at least that's what we tell ourselves.

Then a second problem arose. We decided to try and mount the two front wheels just out of curiosity and found that one of the wheel wouldn't tighten down completely. We still haven't figured that one out, but I've got a call into the folks where I bought them from and they tell me that's not possible, but I had to tell them maybe not, but that's what's happening. So tomorrow we will try and sort that problem out.

Here are some picture of the spindle that gave us the small problem and also the finished product.

Putting front suspension together

Over the last several days we have been trying to sort out the inventory of parts, there are a few things missing, and also getting the front suspension put together. The torque values needed for the front suspension attachments were very high, one being 250 ft lbs. I had a torque wrench but nothing that would go up that high, so I had to run out and buy another torque wrench at Northern Tools.

We're in pretty good shape with the front suspension now but a couple parts didn't get powder coated so we have to get that done to be able to finish up. The firewall was painted before the kit was delivered but I don't like the way it turned out, it had runs in the paint and orange peel, so we're going to remove the firewall and redo it.

Our next step is to install the steering arm. I'm happy that we're now starting to make some progress.

Kit finally arrives

Well, the kit finally arrived today at 8:30 Sunday morning. Steve Gross was kind enough to come over to help unload it. As you will see there are quite a few boxes. The body parts to be painted are still at Whitby's in NC. I guess that's good because we were running out of space to put things. You can see from the photos where the dolly that we built comes into play.

We did a cursory inventory today but tomorrow we'll do a more detailed inventory of all parts. I'm really anxious to get going on this.

He had another 33 kit on his truck that he was deliverying just down by Fort Worth in Weatherford, not far from us. We'll see if we can find out who that is to share info with.

 

 

 

Mating up tranny to engine

Well we were able to mate up the TCI automatic transmission to the engine. We used brains over brawn by using the lift and the work bench to line up the tranny to the engine. Steve and I are both greenhorns in hooking up an automatic transmission but after a couple little bobbles we were able to get it done. On the Cobra I have a 5 speed TREMEC manual transmission and it just bolted right up without much extra effort. With the automatic tranny there's a little more to it than that. But in the end we prevailed.  : )

I called today about the delivery of my kit from NC and they tell me they should be delivering it this Saturday the 18th. I'm not holding my breath because we've done this drill before.

Engine Delivered

Here are a few photos of the engine and tranny in the garage after partial uncrating.

                                                                   Engine on pallet

                                                         
                                                             Tranny crated

                                               Working to get it up on top of lift

                                                              Finally made it

                        
                           Apprentice grandson Taylor helping out on shifter arm

                                 Friend Steve with Taylor taking off tranny pan

                                                 Shifter arm we're taking out

Engine Buildup

I haven't posted much lately because my kit is still bogged down in NC at Whitby Motors where they have fitted the body parts and will be painting the car. Stewart Freight was supposed to pick up the kit on Dec 11th, minus the body parts they will be keeping for painting, and then it got moved to Dec 21st and the last time I talked to them they said my guess was as good as theirs. That really instills a great deal on confidence doesn't it : (   I'm not a very happy camper. It's been 6 months since we were out in NC buttoning down what I wanted.

I did receive my Ford 351 CI motor and TCI 4 speed AOD tranny from Proformance Unlimited from NJ. I want to install a Lokar shifter for the transmission and in order to install this shifter we have to modify the shifter arm that came on the tranny to a Lokar shifter arm, so we've been messing around trying to get the parts ordered and the tranny ready for the new arm. Taylor, my grandson, is my number one apprentice so he was helping me with this.

We also were able to store the engine up on top of the lift to free up room. Our next step on it will be to mate up the tranny with the engine and then store both of them up on top of the lift until we're ready to install them into the car. Luckily my friend and building mate Steve is storing the Cobra over at his house. I had to talk really hard to get him to store it for me : )

So here are a bunch of photos of the engine build as well as a utube link of the engine being dynoed. It ended up at 427hp. Here is a link to when they ran the dyno test  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uafzJ9coDfE&feature=youtu.be


Here are the engine build photos.