Speedo and Tacho Swap

Saturday 15th February

Well the dash is back out and the speedo is to be sent back to Speedy cables. Why? Well, I didn't calibrate it properly and when I test drove it a 20 mile run put 800 miles on the clock!! As I'm not planning on doing much more than 3,000 miles per annum I wanted it setting back to zero.

I had hoped that I would be able to get the dials out and swapped over without removing the dash but they were fitted really tightly so end the end it was another (and hopefully for the final time) dash out job! This is certainly something worthy of warning other builders about as it is impossible to reset the odometer without returning it to the supplier.

Saturday 22nd February

The dash is back in a looking good with the new instrument set up. The steering wheel has been realigned and the indicators cancel correctly.

Another job that needed sorting after IVA was the horn - I had asked Andy to look at this when he prepped the car but it must have been over looked and the tester didn't even the horn at IVA. The way I had it wired meant it worked on the push back position but not in the self return position. There were some mods that were needed to be done to the relay wiring which I had overlooked during the build. Essentially there is a thin purple wire that is looped across two relay terminals which needs to be cut and then an earth fitting to terminal 86 (not terminal 85 as per the build notes)

Post IVA Photoshoot

Saturday 18th January 2014

Today was another massive day in the story of this Cobra build. Andy had advised me last week that Steve Hole, editor of Total Kit Car Magazine, was visiting the factory and wanted to do a feature on GD and what they had in build. Andy told him about my car and said it was a good example of an old school Cobra and Steve asked if I would object to him doing a photoshoot and write up on my build.

As you can imagine I was delighted with this news and needed no encouragement to agree. I arranged with Andy that he would strip back all the nasty ugly IVA bits and bobs and make the car look pretty in time for the shoot.

When I walked in to the factory and saw my car gleaming I couldn't hold back the smile - it looked every bit as good as I hoped it would when I first set about my build - better in fact because it has been built to my exact specification, by me and my good mate Ali and there isn't another car anywhere in the world that is the same as this. It truly is unique and I love it.

Sadly, when I arrived at the factory, the rain was pouring and the sky was black and the chance of a photoshoot seemed impossible but after a cup of coffee and a good old natter with Andy and Steve about the build the rain stopped and we were able to get a few photos taken. To add to my pleasure, Steve was really complimentary about the car and said if the images come out ok he wants it to feature on the front cover of the Stoneleigh issue of the magazine and he also asked if I would object to having the car on the stand for the weekend. Andy also told Steve that he would gladly have my car as his factory demo car - high praise indeed from the main man himself.

Steve has promised to send me copies of his professional images, but for now heres a few I took myself.

Mean and Menacing

Reflections

Cute Ass?

6.3ltr V8 455bhp EDA Blueprinted Engine

Ready to Rumble...

Door Cards

With the doors having been adjusted for gaps, alignment and fit, it was time to trim them with the door cards.

Had a read through a few other blogs to get a rough idea of the best way to fit and went with the following process.

The door card is held in place by 7 clips and the door handle itself.

First thing to do is check the position of the door handle relative to the hole in the card that it has to pass through. The door handle can be moved left or right by loosening the cap heads that hold it in place. It is important that (a) the two sides are equally balanced for aesthetic reasons and more importantly (b) to ensure that the door will close properly without the door card fouling the latch mechanism.

Once i was happy with the positioning of the handles, I used a small punch to create a hole in the door card leather for the handle to bolt through and I fitted each of the 7 clips into the remaining holes. At this point I didn't pay too much attention to their orientation as I had decided they could be positioned properly when the card is offered up to the door.

Courtesy Lights

The GD loom comes with feeds to both doors for courtesy lights. GD tend not to fit these but I think its a nice touch and useful when using the car at night, so have decided to fit them. At a later date I will also take a feed to a separate override switch.

I positioned the door switches centrally between the two escutcheons and trimmed the length of the plunger to suit. The switches were then simply connected to the GD loom.

I have then broken into the loom circuit to take feeds to the lights which I have mounted in the dash under trays.

The dash is back out again at the moment so I will have to wait until its back in and connected before I can test everything.

Steering

As the dash is back out, its important I get all the various bits and bobs in and around this area sorted before doing the dash final fit.

An area that was left really rough for Blyton was the steering wheel/shroud set up. Ive been using an old Vectra steering wheel while the car is still in build and I had planned to just cover over the centre boss with padding for IVA as I have a nice wooden Mota-Lita replica wheel to go on once everything is finished - for some reason you cant have a wooden wheel for IVA - but I'm seriously thinking about buying a leather trimmed wheel for use on track days. If I go with this option I will use this for IVA rather than the scruffy old Vectra one.

Old Vectra Steering Wheel

For Blyton, I had fitted the column shroud in place without trimming in leather and it was a bit of a tight fit so I have opened up the hole for the ignition barrel and the deburred the apertures that have been cut for the wiper/indicators stalks. I also had to cut an opening for the column rake adjuster. It looks like GD have enhanced the shroud lately as some of the earlier builder seem to have had to cut all of the holes out.

Note aperture at rear left for the steering column adjuster stalk

In order to trim the shroud, I taped the joins together and then sprayed all over with contact adhesive. I then lay the leather (starting at the bottom so the join wouldn't show) onto the shroud then slowly wrapped it around. I then trimmed the edges where they met and waited for it all to dry before fitting the stainless facia to see what it would look like

A slight concern I have now is how i actually fit this over the column with it all in situ :( Oh well a problem for another day..

Talking of problems, another one identified at Blyton was with the way I had fitted the dash and steering column there was no room to allow the column to tilt and as a consequence the wheel was sitting much too high and partly blocking the driving view. This will be rectified by putting spacer washers between the steering column and screen support bar. The aperture for the steering column in the dash will also be opened up by cutting a lower bottom edge of the opening before doing the final trim. 

Doors

Another area requiring some final fit attention are the doors.

• Latches need adjusting to allow a smooth close
• Escutcheons need fitting around the hinges
• Courtesy light switches need fitting to the 'A' pillar
• The tops of the door edges need some minor gel coat repairs
• Door cards need fitting

Escutcheons & Latches

In order to fit the escutcheons, I had to ensure that both doors would open the same amount. I checked the measure measurement from the edge of the 'B' pillar to the edge of the door. This means that the escutcheons effectively create the door stop so its important they are fitted correctly. To allow me to do this I loosened off the hinges and then marked and fitted them using M4 button heads and nylocs.

I then adjusted the door fit, checking gaps and latch operation before tightening the hinges back up.

Quite pleased with the final result as it really tidies things up and looks like a professional build.


Courtesy Lights

I had previously drilled the mounting holes for the courtesy lights in the dash under trays - I'm having a separate light for each side that will illuminate the footwell - but I hadn't got around to wiring them in. The front section of the GD body loom has a positive feed to both doors and an earth which the door switches can be connected to but there is no feed back to the lights themselves.

This is relatively easy to resolve as you just need to break into the wires going to the switches and run a return back to the light.


Gel Coat Repairs

There are a few other areas needing gel coat repairs which I plan to address in one go (possibly even get GD to do them during the pre-IVA checks)


Door Cards

Need to read up on the best way of fitting these as this is one job that will make a big

Carpets 3

Some more photos of the carpets going in...

I still had the drivers side of the transmission tunnel carpet to fix in place. The chalk line shows where the carpet needed to be cut to allow it to fit into the extended footwell. This then needs some final trimming using offcuts - I will get on to that at a later date,

After fitting the transmission tunnel and rear bulkhead I moved on to the side panels. These are a little tricky to get right and you ned to make sure that you have trimmed the door edge down to 12mm. You also need to trim the leather edging as there is too much surplus and then where the bends are you need to cut nicks to avoid it puckering. A little ticky but all that was needed was a little trial and error.

The pieces that fit in the footwells against the front bulk were next. As the piece on the drivers side has to accomodate the pedal box, there were two options. One, I could cut around the pedal box or two, I could just cut the holes and then bolt through. I decided on the latter method. and got the positions by drawing around the holes on the bulkhead (after taking the pedal box back out) with chalk and then positioning the carpet panel in place and pushing against the holes. The chalk then transfers on to the back of the carper where I was then able to use a punch to make holes in just the right places.

Glue the carpet down and refit the pedal box hopefully for the last time, although you will notice the brake light switch is attached to the pedal box but I haven't as yet fitted the switch to the cluthc pedal that needs wiring into the loom to prevent starting without having the clutch depressed. I'm hoping I can retro fit this if I decide to go down this route without removing the pedal box.

When I first fitted the pedal box what seems like many months ago now, I was concerned that the pedals sat too high off the floor of the car. I bought some 20mm expanded foam off eBay and cut this to size to put under the carpet. At the moment I haven't glued this down as the footwell carpet is also padded so it might not be necessary after all.

Once the rear carpet was in the passenger side, I couldn't resist putting the seat and harness in pace and resting the leather panels I have to cover the transmission tunnel and rear bulkhead to give me a proper feel for what the interior was going to look like when finished.

Dash 4

Finally got the dash fitted for the first time and its a bit of a squeeze and will need some fettling to get it to be just right but its a good start.

It will also need to come back out in order to finish the wiring for the courtesy lights which I have fitted into the dash undertrays, to fit the heater ducting and to stick on the piping which finishes it off really well.

Its only going in now so that I can get the car running for the track day at Blyton.

With the dash fitted, I then did a temporary first fit of the column shroud. There is a plastic surround that comes with the steering column that fixes in place with two cap head. The stainless shroud facia is then fitted to it. To do this I drilled through the plastic and fitted a pair of Rivnuts to allow the shroud to be held in place with stainless cap heads.

The aluminium frame will need some trimming to fit properly around the column rake adjuster and ignition barrel and the edges will then need rubbing down before I can glue on the leather cover but it will do for now.

And this is what it looks like fitted...

Dash 3

The dash wiring is now finally sorted and the wires that come off the dash loom to the steering column electrics and the front section of the body loom have all been identified.

Once I am happy with the fitment of the dash I will cable tie them together to neaten them up as it looks like a whole lot of spaghetti at the moment. Who said old Hi-Fis were messy???

Dash 2

Been having a look at the dash undertrays and seeing how they fit in place and I'm not overly happy with the idea that they rest in place and the back and then simply are held there with the lip of the dash.

Reading some of the other blogs I see that several builders have had a tab welded in place that they can attach them to but having no welding gear and no access to anyone that has locally I needed to come up with a different approach.

In the end, i decided to drill small holes in the underside of the dash and screen support bars and fit rivnuts. I then drilled through the undertrays and fixed them in place with button heads.

This gives a firm enough mount that wont rattle and will support the weight of the MSD box located on the passenger side. Glad I didn't decide to cut a space for a glove box now!!!

Carpets 2

Made a start in fitting the interior carpets today - this needs to be done before the seats, harnesses and handbrake can be fitted.

The main sections are fairly easy to identify and I test fitted them without using adhesive to start with just to make sure they would fit ok.

Test fitted

I had already made the decision to fit sound proofing materials to the transmission tunnel and front and rear bulkheads so i was a little concerned how the adhesive would take but it turned out to be fine. Once again I followed advice in other blogs and glued a section at a time (see below) starting with the rear of the transmission tunnel.

Being glued in separate sections

I then did the front of the tunnel.

Once the transmission tunnel was sorted I moved on to fitting the rear bulkhead carpet. Before this can be fitted you need to cut away a couple of pieces of bodywork to allow the carpet to wrap round into palace. The sections marked on the photos below show this.

Overall I was pretty pleased with the result but there is some work to be done to get the side walls of the transmission tunnel perfectly flat, the section around the extended footwell also needs sorting and the end pieces of the rear bulkhead may have to be held in place with screws inside dished washers.

Dash

Made a start on the dash today. It had been lying around in the garage for weeks and I was dying to start cutting holes but I didn't want to do that until I had the gauges to double check the sizes.

One thing I wasn't overly happy with doing was thinning down the GRP to allow the toggle switches (for heater, lights and fog) to pass through as they only have short threaded sections to push through the GRP, the foam and the leather.

Whilst at Stoneleigh, Charlie Donaghy (who's amazing Cobra was on the GD stand) explained that he had taken a different approach. It was one I decided to copy.

This method was to cut out a rectangular section of dash that was big enough to house the switches and then fix in place, using M3 countersunk head set screws and nylocs, a 1.5mm thick stainless/aluminium  cover plate. The fixing holes for the switches can then be drilled through this giving a much more solid feel and without the risk of the GRP ever breaking with repeated use. 

As this plate stand proud of the dash by 1.5mm, the rest of the dash is then covered with 1.5mm rubber sheet, rather than using the usual foam as supplied by the trimmers, cutting closely around the metal plate so that no gaps will be seen/felt once the leather is applied.

The leather is then bonded to the rubber. 

The holes for the gauges cut using a Stanley knife

I used a small punch to make the holes for the warning lights (the holes had previously been drilled in the GRP). The lamps and gauges were then pushed through and fitted prior to wiring. This method gives, in my opinion, a much more professional and modern looking dash with no indentations where switches are clamped in place. I had bought a stainless steel fascia for the switches which is engraved for IVA purposes but I felt the dash looked better and more period without it so I have just used adhesive labelling which can be removed later.

With everything in place it was time to try and figure out how to connect the dash loom to the various instruments. First off, a call was made to GD to get a wiring diagram for the dash loom as I didn't receive one with the loom. I then went about labelling each section of the loom to make it easier as I started to make the connections.

A few more calls to GD to clarify where the wiring diagrams for the loom and the instruments were at odds with each other and it was eventually all wired up and ready to be fitted into the car and connected to the body loom. 

Sound Proofing

Wanting to get the roll hoops finished, I realised that the top section of boot carpet needed to be fitted as the roll hoop legs pass through this. This got me thinking as to whether or not I should add some sound proofing material to the inside of the boot (rear bulkhead) and inside of the car too for that matter.

I know GD don't bother but I had spoken to Charlie from Ireland at Stoneleigh who had used it on his car and for what it costs I thought I would do too.

CBS had a stand at the show so I bought a pack while I was there and made a start on fitting it to the rear bulkhead.

While I was at it I also applied some to the inside of the doors.

 

I was now ready to concentrate on fitting the boot carpet so I could get the roll hoops finished off.

Seats

My interior arrived a few days ago and with a few hours spare to work on the car on my own I was looking for something new to do. Well, having a big box of new stuff and not getting to grips with it is like having new toys at Christmas and not playing with them so I decided I would have a look at how the seats and runners all go together.

As soon as I bought a seat into the garage I couldn't resist trying it in the car - just to see what it looked like - I didn't sit in it or anything like that... honest!!!

Just to see what it looks like

The runners are bolted to the underside of the seat using 4 button head screws that come with the runners. These bolt into captive nuts that are hidden under the leather of the seat. Once you know roughly where they are they are quite easy to locate.

I then used a bradawl to open up the leather and expose the captive nut and test fitted the button heads.

The first seat went according to plan but I ran into some trouble on the second seat as the one captive nut was defective. I was unable to repair this using a tap (my tap and die set seems to have a different pitch for M8 to the seat mounting bold) so i drilled a new hole and fitted a rivnut in line with the next position in the runner.

The runners were then fitted without further problem. It looks like the runners I have are of a newer design than on some of the other builds I have looked at as the adjuster bar is easily removable. This is a real a bonus for IVA as I understand the seat needs to be in a fixed position if the head restraints aren't seat mounted.

Couple of tips here...

1. Make sure you put the runners on the right way round, ie. check which end goes to the the front of the seat so that the adjuster bar isn't at the back of the seat.
2. The distance between centres on the seat mountings is 330mm - there is only one way up the runners go using this measurement. The distance between centres for the side of the runner that mounts to the car floor is 300mm - this is a pain as the car floor is predrilled at 330mm.
3. The spacers are used on the front mounting bolts only - no spacers are used at the rear which is contrary to the build CD

Seat Runners

Received the next consignment of parts from GD today.

Sorting through the fixings for the seats, I couldn't quite believe how many bits and pieces there were. Think I will be waiting for the seats to arrive before attempting to do anything with them.