Heat shields and front suspension

Polished stainless heat shields now line the engine bay, although I've left the protective grey film on them until I stop mucking about in there so I don't scratch them!

And the front suspension has been assembled. How's that bling of the bell crank! I polished up the aluminium crank itself - that alone took the best part of an hour each side!

(The polishing I did with a modified 1HP bench grinder, buffing equipment and compounds I've researched on the web while waiting for the kit to arrive.)

Heat cloth and pedal box installed

A few jobs completed this weekend. Finished installing the aluminised glass fibre heat insulation in the engine bay and transmission tunnel.

Assembled the pedal box, and cut an opening in the front of the drivers footbox to accomodate it.

And received my tyres yesterday too. Sweet!

First, some dismantling

Happy New Year! 2015 - the year of my cobra :-)

It is much easier to work on the car with the body removed. In fact for some jobs it is really essential. Fortunately, AP ship the body mounted and aligned with side bolted (and not loctited) but only temporarily fixed front and rear, so it is a fairly straight forward task to remove.

I built a wooden frame with the same width as the chassis so the sides bolted straight on. Then a couple of pieces of timber to spread the load from and rear. The body is mainly carbon fibre so is quite rigid and light, plus there is framing pieces bonded inside where the front and rear firewalls are that actually keep the curve across the body in shape.

I don't have much space, so this frame and body contraption is now lifted into my carport roof, and my daily drivers can slide underneath just nicely.

The working garage is now much roomier without the body; I've turned the chassis around so I can begin work on the engine bay heat shields and pedal box next.

Thanks very much to Pete and Ben who dropped by in Pete's 'Stang for a look-see and ended up working for a few hours! Here's a gratuitous pic of his car!

She has arrived!

Well Christmas 2014 will be long remembered in my household. Last Friday I accepted delivery of my Pace 427 S/C kit! So we have the chassis and body (fitted - for now) and umpteen boxes of parts!

As you can see, everything is well packed for shipping, and packaging of the parts is well thought out (with little boxes for all the bolts). I have most everything at home now (except the engine, gearbox, diff and exhaust system).

So the next few weeks will be full of sorting and making up sub-assemblies, as well as finding a temporary home for the body which will come off to give easier access to the chassis for the bulk of the mechanical build.

Body time

Laying up the carbon fibre and kevlar body is next, with a new blend of blue I think we're calling Indigo. Yes, it does look a bit Cadbury, but in the flesh apparently it 'really pops'. 

Finally, she's out of the mould and fitted to the chassis. We just need a few more holes cut, then on to the next stage which is packing all the bits.

In the meantime, back at my ranch, using my newfound welding skills I've built a trolley to host the build for the first stages. Much like the trolleys at the Absolute Pace factory you can see in the pics above. I just finished an intro to welding night course at the local TAFE.

Chassis Completed

My chassis is done now and occupies the showroom, waiting nakedly for the body.

Another Cobra is Born!

Well yesterday I received very exciting news. My Cobra chassis is now on the jig being welded into shape. Should start to see some good progress now.