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Journal:
December 1999
Sunday 12/5/99, It's been a relatively successful
week on the Cobra front. I found a shop (Midtown Welding in Dover Ohio)
to sandblast my donor parts and weld my steering shaft , brake pedal and
gas tank. Dropped them off Friday and they should be done by next Friday
I'm getting the following parts sandblasted:
Differential
Front control arms and spindles
Brake calipers and backing plates
Quad shock brackets
As for welding, He will be lengthening the steering shaft,removing 1 1/2
inches from the brake pedal and fixing the small rust hole I found in
the gas tank. The tank also needs an internal baffle brazed, so it will
need to be opened up to provide access to the baffle. Since it needs opened
anyway, I asked him to cut the top rear section out of the hump in the
tank and then invert it to provide additional clearance for the passenger
side quick jack bolts. Tom Christoph made a similar modification to his
tank and seemed to work out well. I'm getting all this done for $130 which
seems like a quite bargain since that's what a new gas tank would cost.
For those of you that have been following my ramblings for a while, you
may be asking what happened to the fuel cell? Unfortunately, money! I'd
feel more secure with one, but I just can't justify the cost now.
(Note: Welding the steering shaft is no longer necessary. New kits come
with a one piece mid-shaft.)
I also prepared more donor parts this week. Cleaned up the master cylinder
and painted the pedal box to match the frame. I think I also found an
easy way to clean up the wheels. I got a metal wash tub, five gallons
of lacquer thinner and I have one of the wheels soaking now. It looks
like this will be much easier than brushing on the stripper.
Saturday 12/25/99, Wow, twenty days since I update
the site. I'll try not to let that happen again. So first and foremost
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I sincerely hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas
and that if for just one moment, people are thankful for all that is good
in the world.
Since my last post I got all the
parts back from the welder / sandblaster. They turned out pretty nice,
but still required some wire brushing to smooth out the pits from the
sand blaster. He was able fix all the problems with the gas tank and did
a great job welding the steering shaft and brake pedal. After I picked
up the parts, I dropped off the rearend and drive shaft at Cookson's (a
local shop that specializes in truck and heavy equipment drive trains).
They are shortening the shaft to Factory Five's spec of 10 3/4 inches
and I'm having them install Ford Motorsport 3.55 gears in the rearend.
I had a call from them earlier this week saying they were done, so hopefully
I'll be able to pick them up next Tuesday.
It's necessary to cut a notch
in the spring mount area of the Mustang lower control arms so they clear
the coil over shocks. This was accomplished with minimal cussing, all
the parts are painted and everything is ready to install. I ended up replacing
the ball joints on the lower control arms since one of the boots was torn.
Also bought new wheel bearings and seals for the front end. So at this
point, I have the aluminum F pieces installed on the front of the frame
and the lower control arms are in place. I hope to get the front end buttoned
up during my Christmas vacation and then move on to the rear for the New
Years break.
Soaking the wheels in lacquer thinner does wonders for stripping the clear
coating from them. After a day or so in the mix, the coating is pretty
mushy and comes right off. All in all though I'd definitely recommend
getting wheels that don't need refinished!
Hope to get some pictures posted shortly
and get Web boy to finish up his color picker. He's getting a new hard
drive for Christmas so he owes me. Merry Christmas to All. Hope some of
you find a Cobra under your tree!
Tuesday 12/29/99, Another Christmas come and gone.
I had a great one! Lots of nice gifts, but mostly time. Family time, Cobra
time, Private time. It was wonderful. The wife and kids gave me some cool
accessories for the Cobra. They include Cobra emblems for the hood and
trunk, awesome polished bezels for the rollbar, a Shelby Motors license
plate frame and some reproduction AC pedals for the brake and clutch.
They all came from Finishline.
Great stuff and a great customer oriented business.
It's my understanding that FFR use to offer the emblems with the kit but
were forced to cease and desist to avoid litigation from Carol Shelby
and company. I guess he is also trying to register the shape of the 427SC
to squeeze some royalties out of the kit manufactures or put them out
of business. Sounds more like a marketing guy than a racing legend.
I picked up my drive shaft and rear end from Cooksons on Dec 27. I was
disappointed in both. They didn't install new universal joints in the
drive shaft as I had requested, but what really hacked me off was the
price to install the gears. $352 just to install the gears. Most places
would charge about half that, but they weren't budging on the price and
I wanted to get my rearend back. Live and learn and avoid Cooksons in
New Philadelphia Ohio. Guess I'm sounding kind of negative here, but greedy
people really piss me off.
The front end is coming along nicely. Both sides are bolted together,
but I still need to install the rotors and brakes. I also installed the
firewall this weekend and test fit the steering shaft. It's almost starting
to look like a car.
It will probably be next year until I do any more updates, so have a great
New Year. I'll be at work telling them "I told you it was going to
be fine."
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