Chapter 4 - Separation Anxiety

[nolastyankee]

With the Cobra up on jack stands looking very much like a pallet kit that someone happened to drop an engine into, Dad and I were feeling great about our purchase. My father left for home that Thanksgiving weekend with plans for a body buck in his notebook a promise to return at Christmas time.

I couldn't stay out of the garage in the next couple weeks. Every visit to the Cobra resulted in a few more pieces coming off the car.

One of the problems we noticed while running the engine in the Rescue Cobra was a prominent exhaust leak on the passenger side. Fearing something bad, like a hole in the headers, I reached into the engine compartment to free them from the car. My fears and my disassembly were both eased as I learned the source of the leak...The two outside header bolts were properly torqued and required a bit of effort to break free. The rest were easily removed without tools... Now, fishing that header out of the engine compartment was another story altogether.

A call to Alan Weaver ensured that we had a wiring diagram for our project and just a couple days after it arrived in the mail, the wiring harness came out of the car. I can't stress enough the importance of documenting the wiring as the car is both assembled and disassembled. Although the car ran before it was in boxes all over my house, the addictive process of unhooking can result in a mess later. Simple pictures like these can make a world of difference when troublshooting.



Shameless use of your digital camera is not only a great way to bore your family, it is invaluable for figuring out what the car looks like in those inaccesible areas. This is much easier to look at on your computer than on your head under the dash.

When unhooking the front light cluster, leave the headlight and turn signal indicator hooked up. Separate or clip the harness just upstream of where the wires split to the individual lights. If you didn't do the original wiring, you might not realize that this is the location where the harness joins the light wiring. At this junction you can see both the harness wiring indicators and the light wiring pairs. The same is true for the rear lights



With the rat's nest of wires neatly coiled up in a box, the car began to look much better. In fact, we could now clearly see that the cowl brace was looking a bit rusty and in need of serious cleanup. Another call to Alan Weaver indicated that these cowl braces are fabricated in place, and that there is no way to get them out of the car for refinishing. Continuing our conversation, Alan began to give advice. "You don't want to unbolt that top plate from the footwell. You didn't take the hinges off either, did 'ya?" A neatly labelled bag of hinges and bolts on the garage floor indicated I was guilty as charged. I couldn't bare to tell him what we were going to do next.

Let me preface this paragraph by saying that my father and I are engineers and builders by experience, degree, and trade. That having been said, we are very comfortable in our family tradition of over-building and over-engineering everything we make. Combined with our penchant for perfection, that rusty cowl brace was never going to make the 'cut' in our car. Without publicly going into details that would give dear Alan a heart attack, suffice to say that we are extremely pleased that even the heavily corroded cowl brace shows not a speck of oxidation on the interior.

The last step was the remaining body bolts. We could hardly contain our excitement as we phoned the entire neighborhood to gather manpower to assist with the removal of the body. This has been said many times here, but cannot be repeated enough.

[i]No fewer than four people are required to remove a Cobra body. We had six and there were no complaints and the job was easy. Don't try this with less! Even if not a matter of weight, it is important to keep the body from over flexing when off th

[pgermond]

I'm lov'in every minute of your experience [:P]

Phil

427 Roadster, #4279436
Southern Automotive FE
3:31 and Toploader

Roseville (N.Cal)

[Brent]

This may end up being Unique's new FIA assembly manual.

Engineer/Author

Great work yankee.

Brent

[eliminator]

You have to understand the hood, trink & door hinges thing, they deal with alot of folks with varying degrees of mechanical ability. Not that I am all that good but I was forced into the trunk ajusting process so all that was totaly taken out and re-shimed and adjusted, as was the hood hinges. I can now adjust these in my sleep, no big deal. The doors are fairly simple too, so I have had them all apart. The hood has to be the easiest to adjust of the three. I dont know how anyone could get everything aligned properly without loosening some of these hinges[^]. Now I will get a Verbal Warning from Alan!!! Keep up the good work, you may want to condsider a Novel in the future.

Eliminator

[Poorboy]

You might to extend you buck out so it supports the nose. Left as is it might droop some.

Poorboy

[nolastyankee]

Poorboy,
Thanks for the tip on the buck. I noticed as I was posting the picture that it was taken before we adjusted the body on the buck. It is about a foot farther forward now and the supports the front of the foot wells. I'll also throw a saw horse under the front end to ensure that we don't sag. Thanks, BC.

Unique 9122 - 289 FIA Cobra - The Legendary "Spence" Car

[eliminator]

Brian,
For the nose, a jackstand works just fine with a block of wood on the top, just to support it. I even found that the rear needed a little support before I added some glass and matting behind the bulkhead.

Eliminator

[pgermond]

HEY [:P]

Where is chapter 5 [?] Did you guys hibernate for the winter, or what? Inquiring minds want to know


Phil

427 Roadster, #4279436
Southern Automotive FE
3:31 and Toploader

Roseville (N.Cal)