Well, that didn't fit

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agnoraan
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by agnoraan »

Thanks Migge, Rog, I'm putting some 6 mm foam around the edge of the roof flange that the door seal and the screen will sit against that. It seems quite snug at 0 mph. At the moment I'm up against it timewise for Silverstone, due to this

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Nige
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Phil Riley
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by Phil Riley »

Brill!
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Roger King
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by Roger King »

agnoraan wrote:Thanks Migge, Rog, I'm putting some 6 mm foam around the edge of the roof flange that the door seal and the screen will sit against that. It seems quite snug at 0 mph. At the moment I'm up against it timewise for Silverstone, due to this

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2871

Nige
Probably a long term thing as you're prepping for S'stone, but the issue with sidescreens as that the reduced air pressure over the surface as you move along tends to make them bend outwards into the airstream. The idea is to 'load' the mounting pins so that they lean inwards, hence AC's fitting of a couple of brackets with buffers on to hold them out against the loaded pins. You may be OK because they will sit against the hardtop flange, but make sure they have a decent 'set' on the pins.

Reminds me of my Series III Landie - every month I'd open a door, put my knee on the inside of the frame just below the window and bend the top in to regenerate the seal. Same principle!
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Roger King
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by Roger King »

...and talking of preparing for Silverstone, whose idea was this concours thing? I'm now high on Raceglaze 55 and Solvol Autosol and my fingers hurt from prodding spokes and grille slots. I bet it rains on the way there, too. Ah well, back to work - still got the inside of the exhaust pipes to do... where're my 'big boy' pipe cleaners?

Interesting to see if the ACOC next door have any offerings, though
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agnoraan
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by agnoraan »

Whilst waiting for parts to arrive so that I can revamp the cooling system, I thought I'd make a start on tidying up the engine bay.The inner arches were covered in some kind of heat insulation stuff, which was looking a bit tired, so I decided to bite the bullet and try and make some aluminium inner arches

The engine bay before I started.


Image

I decided to leave the inner arches in situ and treat them as if they were "arch liners" as on a modern car. they're also structural so it made sense to leave them alone


The aluminium arches are just an attempt to make it look a little bit more original looking, though I'm limited as to how much I can do as the engine's in situ and I don't really want to be taking it out at this stage. It'll make the job an awful lot harder doing it this way, though that's offset by how much quicker I can do it :lol:

First thing was to make some cardboard templates

Image


Because the car has a master cyinder and servo in the way, I've had to take that into account when trying to make this work.

Image


Once happy with the fit of everything, the pattern was transfered to some 1.5 mm thick 1050 aluminium, which is nice to work with. Everything was "dry assembled first on the bench, all of the holes for the rivets were drilled and the whole lot held together with panel clamps. Once happy that it fitted together ok, it was then a case of fitting it all into the car like a giant aluminium jigsaw.


Image

Image

Image

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Well, that's two days of my life I'm not going to get back :lol: Tomorrow it's on with the other side which should be a whole lot easier as I don't have to contend with the servo etc. Once the arches are in, I can then turn my attention to detailing everything and maybe chop out the front crossmemeber and fit an "X" style one in its place like the originals. A 4" part of the square section will have to remain on the ends though as that what's holding the suspension together.

Nige
Last edited by agnoraan on Sat Jan 11, 2020 1:15 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Paul Blore
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by Paul Blore »

A very neat and tidy job Nige, very well done as usual.

Paul
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peterc
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by peterc »

Nige,
Very impressive, especially being achieved without removing the engine.
I assume that you butted the Ali up to the rad mounts e.g. Without unbolting the rad at all.
What about the area in front of the rad. I had visions that I would need to remove the rad and bracketry in order to get the job done without obvious gaps.
I must get some patterns made to see what is possible.
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agnoraan
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by agnoraan »

peterc wrote:Nige,
Very impressive, especially being achieved without removing the engine.
I assume that you butted the Ali up to the rad mounts e.g. Without unbolting the rad at all.
What about the area in front of the rad. I had visions that I would need to remove the rad and bracketry in order to get the job done without obvious gaps.
I must get some patterns made to see what is possible.
Peter C
Hi Peter, I had already panelled in the grille area in front of the rad, with the side panels riveted and bonded to the inner arch and "sandwiched" between the radiator and the inner arches, as you can see in the photo below.

Image

I haven't removed the radiator to do this, in fact I've only removed the horn, taped up some hoses out of the way and put the header tank to give me a bit of clearance. The front part of the new aluminium inner arches is now bonded to the front aluminium panels, with the join hidden behind the radiator side tanks. Obviously doing this work would be a much nicer looking affair if the body was off the chassis, or at the least if the engine etc wasn't in place. I would far rather have been able to make theses inner arches in one piece without having to resort to riveting it all together, as it would have looked so much neater. Even if the engine wasn't in there, it would have still been virtually impossible to do it "correctly" as you still wouldn't be able to squeeze the full size panels into the area they're supposed to be as they'd be too tall to fit between the chassis rails and the body itself. I hope that makes sense.

The centre panel is straight forward enough to do, but it's when you get into the front and rear panels it starts to get awkward. I made some "L" shaped brackets which were riveted to the tops of the chassis rails, and the bottom of the panels were then riveted to the brackets offering support there ( you should be able to see those rivets in the photos). Where it became really awkward was trying to get the panelling to go around the master cylinder and servo. This is made up from three pieces, all riveted together in situ, but all mocked up on the bench first, with all the holes drilled and held together with panel clamps

The passenger side was easier, but due to the depth of the arch towards the rear, I had to make that panel in two pieces. I riveted a plate behind the top panel, so that the bottom panel could be riveted flush to it, making it look a much better joint than if it were overlapped. hopefully this photo will show how it's done


Image


The ends at the rear of the arches are fixed by screws and rivets to the inner arch, just behind the side vents on the wings.

This is the finished passengers side


Image

Tomorrow I'm cutting out the top crossmember and substituting it for some round tube in the form of a "X" as per the original style :wink:


All in, it took me two days to make the templates for both sides and it's taken two days to panel out both sides, but I think it looks a lot better than it did and was well worth getting a stiff back leaning over the car for so long. I just wish that I could have made them as one piece without all of the bits being riveted together, but as I said, that's not possible on a body that fixed to the chassis, or with the engine in situ
Any questions just let me know and I'll try to help :D

Nige
Last edited by agnoraan on Sun Sep 04, 2016 8:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Roger King
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by Roger King »

Changing to the 'X' member would give you the opportunity to relocate your header tank, maybe. Then the stock Ford thermostat housing can connect up en route to the rad.
Don't how fussy you're getting, but you are obviously succumbing to 'the Cobra disease', so might the time to point out that your wiring loom coming to the front of the car to feed headlamps, ignition, fan thermostat etc. etc. should be fixed right under the bonnet shut along the top of the new aluminium showing in your last pic. It goes across behind the bonnet hinge and comes round to the R side for coil etc.
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agnoraan
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Re: Well, that didn't fit

Post by agnoraan »

Roger King wrote:Changing to the 'X' member would give you the opportunity to relocate your header tank, maybe. Then the stock Ford thermostat housing can connect up en route to the rad.
Don't how fussy you're getting, but you are obviously succumbing to 'the Cobra disease', so might the time to point out that your wiring loom coming to the front of the car to feed headlamps, ignition, fan thermostat etc. etc. should be fixed right under the bonnet shut along the top of the new aluminium showing in your last pic. It goes across behind the bonnet hinge and comes round to the R side for coil etc.
Hi Rog, if the header tank is mounted at the front, it's still below the level of the top hose. Unfortunately, the engine sits quite high in this car, so I still wouldn't know how much coolant is in the system, which I think was the problem for it over heating at Cranleigh. Mmm, wiring, I absolutely hate it with a vengeance, I can barely wire up a plug :lol: :lol: , and it's like listening to someone speaking martian when they tell me how to wire things up, my brain just switches off, it's the spawn of the Devil. :lol: At the moment the wiring runs along the top of the chassis rail on the n/s and is pretty inconspicuous, I don't know if I really want to go redoing that to be honest. It's never going to look original, this car is more of a very rough facsimile of a Cobra, so I think I'd best think about this one, but thanks for the heads up :wink: is it really worth doing this??

Nige
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