Journal: February 2002

	Choose Your Month Pick a Month June, 99 July, 99 August, 99 September, 99 October, 99 November, 99 December, 99 January, 00 February, 00 March, 00 April, 00 May, 00 June, 00 July, 00 August 00 September 00 October 00 November 00 December 00 January 01 February 01 March 01 April 01 May 01 June 01 July 01 August 01 December 01 February 02 May 02 August 02 January 03 Final Entry

  Sunday 2/24/2002, Well, something finally happened worth updating the web site over. I finally got the body back from the paint shop! Unfortunately after ten months it's not done! Gary had been promising me the body would be done every week since the end of December. Actually when he first took on the job he promised me I'd have it by the end of June. Well June came and went as did July, August, September, October, November, December, January and now February. Things blew up last week for some reasons I wont go in to here but I ended up picking up the body, paying Gary and putting this rather ugly chapter of my Cobra build behind me. At this point the body is black with one coat of clear on it. There are some problems with the edges around the cockpit and the doors have not been painted. Unfortunately this means I need to find another shop to finish the paint. I'm hoping it wont be too hard since all the tuff stuff has been done. One word of advice to anyone taking on a Cobra build. Get a contract with the body shop that specifies cost, all details of the job and a time frame!

The good news is that after looking the body over at home I found that Gary did do an awesome job on the seams. They are invisible under the black paint. If he would have taken this much care with the rest of the job it probably wouldn't have come to this. So my next step is to mount the body and line up the hood and doors. I want to mark it so it can be removed for final painting of the stripes and clearcoat. The doors might also require some bodywork to get them to match up with the edges of the body

During the last couple of months while I've been waiting I added power steering from the donor Mustang to the Cobra. This requires a special bracket for the power steering pump to relocate it where the air conditioner compressor used to be. I used the hoses from the Mustang but they needed some creative bending to get them to fit. Another more expensive but better option for this is to purchase braided hoses and a proportioning valve from Heidts. Some say the valve prevents twitchy steering. While I was at it, I added aluminum offset steering rack bushings from Breeze Automotive to help eliminate bumpsteer.

I've been busy touching up the paint on the frame as well as cleaning and painting some of the bolt heads that started to rust. I also replaced the rectifier plug on the alternator after I heard that they are prone to over heating if they have been removed several times. I figure it's money well spent after hearing about cars burning up due to this.

So that's all for now . I just posted a journal entry that I wrote in December but never uploaded to the site. You might want to go back and check it out. Wish me luck finding a new paint shop.

  Monday 2/25/2002, I just remembered that the problem I had with the rear leg of the rollbar being too short has been fixed. The easy fix would have been to get a longer piece of pipe for the leg but I didn't want to do that since I already have it powdercoated. Darrell Martin from the Cobra Forum machined a plug that extends the lower rollbar mounting point. I can't thank Darrell enough for this. The part fits perfectly and he did it for nothing! That's the great thing about the forum, when you get stuck someone is always willing to help. You help somebody and somebody else helps you. So thanks again Darrell. I hope to be able to thank you in person some day and see your Coral Cobra. It looks awesome in the pictures.