Let’s hope this time the cracks will not appear. Having to clear out the garage, store everything somewhere and put everything back is definitely not my idea of a good time.

On the cobra-building front it’s a bit quiet due to lack of parts, though I could do a few jobs on the chassis and suspension I guess, but for many of them I want to be able to take measurements of the engine, gearbox and other stuff before I do them.

I have been assured that the parts will be available for collection next week, so it should not be that long before I can get cracking at a slightly higher pace.

Again, I have to applaud Gardner Douglas for their ‘fit’. The differential and the chassis get together by 8 bolts, 6 of which drop in pretty easily and the rear two need a little flexing of the diff cage; exactly as outlined in the build video.

Today I rolled the chassis to the garage of a nearby friend. It will stay there for the next week while work is being done in the garage. My girlfriend did take some pictures of the cobra’s maiden voyage. Alas, there was no card in the camera, so no pictures of that. (Not that it was that spectacular anyways.)

The trip, however small, was useful though. You get all sorts of information you do not get by keeping the chassis static. Here’s what I learned in 300 meters rolling the car from one garage to the next:

• the routing of the brakeline needs rethinking, on full steer it touches the tires; (I imagine it will be even worse with the wider wheels which will be fitted)
• there was a slight ‘tick’at the rear left (hand-)brake caliper, could be the brake-pad;
• old tires, all different and a suspension not setup make for a crappy ride;
• it is very easy to lose nuts and bolts if they are not tightened;
• inertia of moving mass is easily underestimated;

So, not much to do for the next week but nag with my suppliers for delivery of the gearbox, which seems to be the bottleneck in the delivery. The gearbox fit also determines the precise length of the propshaft (so I’ve been told), so partial delivery also doesn’t make sense either. Patience…

So, that means we’ll need to clear out the whole garage, again, and having some wheels on the chassis makes that a whole lot easier. Ideally I want to have the suspension set-up completely by that date, but we’ll see.

One thing I noticed at the front was that the damper bracket opening was a bit smaller than the one on the left. This is probably caused by the welding process which puts strain on the metal and causes it to bend. We’re talking 2 milimeters I think. With a piece of thread and two M12 nuts I carefully widened the bracket a bit, just enough to get proper clearance on the damper.

“It’s been 117 days since my last confession…”

So, perhaps a little status update is in order. Although I declared the garaged finished earlier, there’s always something that needs to be finished/improved. So, this summer we place 2 new windows in the south wall.

Although not a very big job, it always takes more time than originally planned. And yet again, I forgot to take a picture of the finished project!

Blogging wise, time was spent migrating from Blogger.com to a local WordPress installation. This allows me to use all the server stuff I already have in place in the office anyway and gives me a bit more control over the blog. I also got fed up with google analytics slowing the blog down even further than I do myself with all the pictures.

WordPress also gives me a couple of extra options which would be harder to do at blogger:

• iphone specific theme;
• support for pages and posts within my ecto blogging client;
• support for both categories and tags;
• more flexible uploads which I’ll need shortly.

I have tried to keep all URLs the same where possible. All feeds and links should still work as they did on Blogger. I had to sacrifice the ‘Followers’ widget and the ‘Profile details’ which are Blogger specific items. There’s some work left to cater for Internet Explorer users (although they should use a better browser anyway).

Work on the cobra has been a bit slow, partly due to the above. All donor parts are basically done and waiting for me to put them on to the chassis. For the front-end I assemble the uprights, at first a bit baffled why the ball joints did not fit.

First, with the help of an el cheapo gazebo, I created an improvised spray booth.

This worked much better than expected. After a bit of testing to get the viscosity of the chassis coat right and the spray gun adjusted, spraying the two bike parts was a quick job. The goal was to record the settings for the gun, the amount of solvent to use and, obviously, look at the end result.

The chassis coat, when sprayed, gives a unique finish, more matte than brushed. The breather is no luxury, this stuff is nasty.

The rest of the day was spent masking the jag parts. I’ll probably spent tomorrow completing the masking and re-assembling the bike, so I can get it out of the way (you can just see it behind the tent on the left)

Here’s roughly how it looked before we started:

Here’s the best comparison I could find for the outside view. Apparently we did not take a picture once everything was done, odd.

This shows much better what it was all about:

I started with putting all nuts and bolts from the chassis kit loosely in place. This is to see if i got them all, but also thinking that their destination is probably the best place to keep them instead of in a drawer somewhere.

Next up was getting some (more?) wax into the inside of the chassis. Finding a small enough applicator which would also fit the venturi attached to the compressor turned out impossible, so one throwaway aerosol it is then. An easy 15 minute job with nothing to show for. I needed some more…

Still somewhat hindered by the thought of not doing things in order for the build I instead created a storage place for the bottom plates of the car-lift.

While a useful end result, I realised I was just making up excuses and needed a ‘real job’, so, I decided to do the front-brake-pipe run. Here’s the end result:

Gave me good pair of sore thumbs. I can’t attach the p-clips to the chassis yet, as i want to use the same rivets as GD has been using, but I do not have such a rivet gun yet. I feel another tool purchase coming up next week

Enough said…

GD is having an Open Day next weekend. As my chassis is probably in the jig right now i thought it would be nice to visit them. Combined with a small trip through the UK, sounds like a nice little holiday.

I hope I can get a look at my chassis there and shoot some pictures of it. Obviously the planned ‘ride-along’in the GD427 is something i look forward too also.

The Garage is more or less ‘done’, just planning for some racedeck stuff on the floor a bit later

Oh, this is not how it actually looks at the moment (it’s full of stuff again), but for rembering how it looks empty and clean and all…

That is, finishing up the garage. Next monday the new cement floor will be ‘poured in’.

1. a GM 5.7 liter v8
2. a limited slip differential of ratio 3.54 or 3.31

Not much to do but wait until it’s done.

I’m going for a visit to Speedon tomorrow; visit their new location and hopefully get a step further in planning out the project.

Next up is the outer wall.

At the end of the second day however, first beginnings of the new inner wall are there! We’re getting a real door too.