Journal: September 1999

	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

Tuesday 9/7/99, Drum roll Please.....The Mustang teardown is finally finished. It's amazing what a difference using quality tools can make. I bought the correct 6 point sockets and a breaker bar at Sears and the A-arm bolts came right off. This relieved me to no end since I've made it this far though the teardown without breaking a bolt and I really didn't want to start with these. I also sold the Mustang carcass today. The guy that bought it is a confirmed Mustang nut and will use it for parts on two of three Mustangs his family owns. I sold it for $350 and he is picking it up. I know I could have sold the parts for more, but it's worth it to me to have it out of here before the kit comes. Speaking of that, I've been trading e-mails back and forth with Ginny at Wallace trucking. The plan is for delivery this Sunday or possibly Saturday depending on their schedule. I can't wait! I came up with a list of all the little extras I'm going to need to complete the project. So far the extras list is worth almost $4000. I may have to find a way to trim this, since my original budget for these parts was more like $1600. Things like fuel cells and steering racks really add up. Id' still like to come close to meeting my goal of $18,000 before paint and bodywork, but it's going to be tough. Decisions, Decisions. I hope to have the final donor teardown pictures posted this week so I can concentrate on the kit when it gets here.

Friday 9/10/99, The cobra is here! I got a call this morning at 6:45AM from Ginny Westerdale saying they were crossing the Pennsylvania / Ohio border and would be here in two hours. Great news you might say, but I was expecting them on Saturday or Sunday and had people lined up to help unload the Cobra then. Friday morning was out of the question for these folks, so I was a bit concerned, but figured I might as well go with the flow. Wallace, Ginny and her brother showed up at 8:45 with my Cobra and another one they were delivering for Jim Chatas in Michigan. They have an enclosed single car hauler so a little creative packing was required to load both kits. Jim's was packed in the standard Factory Five shipping crate with mine chained to the top. It worked great. We split the cost of the crate in exchange for a better rate with Wallace. Don't know how Jim feels, but I'm happy with the arrangement since they delivered it to my door for less than Consolidated Freight would have charged to deliver it to a terminal. The car looked great, but getting it out of the trailer with the available manpower had me worried. Luckily, just as we started to unload it the guy who bought my Mustang carcass showed up to with a friend to remove the mustang. He was kind enough to help us unload the cobra and really saved the day. Thanks Tom! Unfortunately, I had about 2 days worth of work to do today so I had to go into the office after we got the Mustang loaded up and I didn't get a chance to play with my new toy. Following work we went to a high school football game so I didn't get to check it out until 11:00 PM. It was worth the wait. I'm really pleased with everything. The body and frame look great and every thing seems to be there with the exception of the control arms and mirror which were backordered. I'm very impressed with the quality of the kit and the care they took in packing it. Well it's late and I've got to get up and do a total inventory of the kit tomorrow . Should be a fun day!

Monday 9/13/99, Sad to say but now that the cobra is here I haven't had much time to spend ogling it. I do find myself opening the garage door every time I pass it just to make sure the cobra is still there. I've checked out the body pretty closely from above and below and must say I'm pleasantly surprised. I'm no fiberglass expert, but it looks good to me. The seams and door edges will take some work but I was expecting that and it's nothing drastic. The passenger door which has been a sore spot on some previous kits looks like it will line up without much trouble. At this point I'm slowly going through the boxes, counting parts, checking them off the packing list and grinning a lot. This is fun!. I really like the way the parts are labeled on the packing list as to the box they are in. This should make it much easier to find them when they are needed. My son Cody spent quite a bit of time this weekend working on the new improved Netscape compatible web site. He's setting it up with pulldown menus that should look much better at lower resolution and will work with Netscape browsers. If you're reading this Cody, Thanks! You're doing a great job and I'm really proud of you.

Sunday 9/18/99, Please stay tuned Cobra fans. This has been a week from hell at work and I haven't had time to sleep, much less work on the Cobra. Next week looks even less promising, but hopefully things will calm down a bit after that and I'll be able to get started. I think it must be some kind of test from the powers that be to deliver this now and not let me work on it. I keep telling myself it's only a car, but then I find myself muttering "yea right". So if I can't work on it ,maybe I'll do a little planning. Lets' see, I guess the first thing I need to do is finish checking all the parts against the packing list. (I should be able to do that tonight) Next, I need to build a body buck (stand) to hold the body stable while the frame is assembled. Then I need to clean up and paint the suspension and steering parts I'll be re-using from the donor Mustang. Finally, touch up or paint the frame and get started with the assembly! It should be a hoot when I get started on it. Until then please bear with me and keep checking back.

Sunday 9/26/99, I actually made a little progress on the car this week. First , I got all the parts checked against the packing list. They were all there down to the last rivet. I also received the back ordered rear control arms and outside mirror this week. Now I have every thing I need to complete the kit except time, but I'm going to be working on that. This weekend I made a trip to Lowes and picked up a bunch of goodies to build a moveable body buck. I also hit Autozone and got brake parts, gaskets, plugs, wires, distributor cap and fuel filter. I'll be updating the Costs page when I switch the Web site to it's new format. This week I'm going to make a trip to Summit Racing to pick up a clutch, shocks, some engine parts, a Flaming River steering knuckle and maybe some seats. It is so nice to have Summit just up the road Thanks to all of you that have been sending E-mail, keep them coming.