A miracle....Slowy's cobra update

[leroy17]

All looking good. The shed will start to fill up as well. Maybe you need to painting angle parking lines on the floor for the golf buggies and bikes to keep them in their place.

Cars looking good and every step you take is another step closer (so profound). Nice, clean and shiny.

Pura milk will be past later to get their milk crates.

[gjkrv8]

New Shed looks great Slowy.

Car looks great too.

Things in the "Yellow and Black" are looking up everywhere at the moment :-)

cheers

Gregg

[stephen low]

Thanks guys.

And well spotted Leigh but the top crate has been modified by my middle bloke and has a dunny seat attached. He likes his creature comforts when he and his mates go off-roading - ha ha

What's most pleasing now about the Tiges is that they've helped to displace the Colliwobbles out of 5th place.

That'll not please my brother or brother in law at all as black and white supporters and gives me something to crow back at them for once - got to love that!!

Anyway the car's calling ...I'm off!

Ciao

[stephen low]

So really only Sunday to find some time on the car and as I've come down with at least a cold, I wasn't venturing outside to the garage until the ice had melted off anything stationary.

Assembled the soft top bows to refit the rear stay mounts and the side windows to re-check everything fitted. All good there.






With soft top trims how does the soft top seal between the front of the window frame and the rear face of the windscreen where they meet?

I ask as Marty didn't overcome the dimensional vagaries of the car and set up. Though the driver's side frame is nicely flush to the screen, the passenger side has a pretty constant gap of about 10mm.

I'm guessing there is perhaps some material that gets sandwiched between to provide a weather seal. Might mean both frames need some minor mods to better fit up the top. We will see.

And I assume there is some sort of protective layer trimmed to the underside of the frame where it meets the paint? I put down a couple of layers of paint tape to protect the door tops whilst doing this fit up.

And have essentially finished at the front end with all looms refitted under the guards, headlights and covers on, engine bay complete and wipers back in place. Still need to paint the inside of my over-riders and that will complete the front and rear look.



Need to review the boot loom arrangement, do some work on my heater air plumbing and consider what stereo option, particularly speaker arrangements I need and then I can start folding up aluminium.

Enjoy

[stephen low]

Despite reduced shed time, the weekend has been modestly productive.

My other thread on the demister has seen this finished and ready to be installed.

I also finally got around to spraying some chrome finish paint inside the over-riders to improve the appearance on Saturday.

This allowed me quite some time to work off old masking tape and then repolished and refit all the over-riders today.

With a refitting of the bonnet, the front end is basically all done as shown.



In terms of engine bay I just need to properly locate the windscreen washer tubes, I still need to revise the spark plug leads and align the headlights and then it is done for now.

Haven't any pics but I finished off fitting up LED's into the boot the other week to provide night time light. With panelling to the footwells I plan on having a couple of LEDs per side as well.

So all getting closer.

Enjoy!

[guye]

Originally Posted by stephen low

...
I also finally got around to spraying some chrome finish paint inside the over-riders to improve the appearance on Saturday.
...

But what about Sunday? What if you take the car out in Sunday? Will it look ok then too? 😳 ❓

[gjkrv8]

Looking great Slowy.

Hey, there's an amber glow coming from underneath the hood scoop in your photo. Looks sinister - I like it.

Looks like you'll be on the road for the warmer weather if/when it arrives.

cheers

Gregg

[stephen low]

Nice one on the Granma correction there Guy!

I'd like to hope there'd have been no tarnishing from Saturday to Sunday - lol

Just documenting the slow daily steps forward. Cleaning up the 4 over-riders probably took a couple of hours at least.

And as to sinister glows Gregg, just the light I'd left in the engine bay after having re-bolted the bonnet back onto its hinges.

But it does give some effect.

Maybe an idea for some led lighting into the future. Can light up the skirts too like the tossa's use to do on the lancers and the like - lol

What I'd really prefer though would be live side pipes that spit out flames with some load pedal application - much more impressive ha ha

[Trevor W]

Steve
Watch all those braided lines each one is a potential hack saw in your engine bay.
Trevor

[stephen low]

Trevor

All the hoses are either clear on short runs or held in place by anodised clips to ensure no rubbing. This includes clips between hoses to maintain separation and in fact improve stability.

But will be keeping an eye open over time anyway.

Cheers

[stephen low]

The car's getting closer and the title description isn't far wrong.

However I refitted up my dash tonight to allow me to start doing some measurements for stereo fitment.



It also allowed me to check that the dash would all go back in place and I can also do some planning on cockpit kick panels.



I had also finished fitting up the dash vent covers last night and am happy with the flows from both vents.

Cheers

[stephen low]

So not as much time in the garage as I'd liked but managed to get started on the aluminium kick panel work.

Given I want a stereo in the car the recent research has been around what items I could fit.

So some nominal locations for the mid-range and possibly a small sub-woofer in the rear cabin wall.



With some cardboard templating I got a fair idea about the layout around the door and into the footwell and another speaker location as shown. In the dash above the round cardboard piece taped with blue tape is the likely tweeter position too.



And then got my first true fabrication underway.



Also made my first folding 101 blue and didn't reverse the template so the protected side ended on the inside. Not an issue given carpet will cover but reminds me to think about fold directions first.

Also bought some Resomat last week and will need to start laying some of this into place prior to tackling the main footwell panelling.

Enjoy

[Modena]

You're a brave man doing all this after paint Slowy!

[stephen low]

Ah well it's just the way its all fallen together but then this metal fabrication is probably the least risky part of what I've been up to.

That's because it's all inside the cabin area away from shiny painted surfaces.

Lots of sheets and being fairly deliberate about protecting the paint adjacent to where I am working has managed so far.

But yes the sooner I finish the better.

[stephen low]

So the tin work jumped with a start but has slowed to actually getting bits finished. But there has been some progress.

Bought stereo gear to support the fit up. The 6 x 9's were an easy fit into the boot. Their location will help support hearing the music as being close to the ears. The hole at the lower passenger rear wall was an attempt to get a small sub-woofer to fit but the chassis is precluding this. Under seat might become an option later.



Also bought some small splits that allowed me to locate and fit the woofer into the passenger kick panel I'm still fabricating. Some tweeters will be positioned into the outer ends of the dash.



The speaker has been mounted onto a removable panel to allow quick access to the diagnostic plug I'd located behind on the window stanchion frame. Similarly the box I've drawn further forward on this kick panel will also become an access point for the ECU located there.

I need to add some bent segments to make the top of the panel, that is hidden in this photo, a continuous panel for the trimmer to work to, I will include a couple of cut outs to mount foot well LED's and then somehow blend the overlap between the sill and front panels and I can then say the passenger side is done.

The drivers side will be a little easier as I'll have a speaker and LED's to mount but have no hindrances from the window stanchion forward to the firewall.

Mind you the next two weekends are totally lost to family and other commitments so it will be slow going after work when I can get to it.

Enjoy

[stephen low]

Got the afternoon in the shed and managed to finish off the passenger kick panel as shown.

Will have two LED's for footwell lighting, the one installed and a second in the hole to the right of the speaker. And the two access panels as previously mentioned for access to the ECU (forward panel) and diagnostic plug that is mounted just about the speaker position.



Have had to work the panel around the windscreen stanchion and out to the door sill.



At the top I fabricated joiners where I'd had to cut the sheet for folds to bring back some strength to the whole piece. Though in 1.6mm ali it is pretty rigid anyway.



So now I need to tackle the overlap between sill and this main panel to minimise the overlap thickness. Then it's onto the driver's side for the same.

Enjoy

[deano59]

Originally Posted by stephen low

Got the afternoon in the shed and managed to finish off the passenger kick panel as shown.

Will have two LED's for footwell lighting, the one installed and a second in the hole to the right of the speaker. And the two access panels as previously mentioned for access to the ECU (forward panel) and diagnostic plug that is mounted just about the speaker position.



Have had to work the panel around the windscreen stanchion and out to the door sill.



At the top I fabricated joiners where I'd had to cut the sheet for folds to bring back some strength to the whole piece. Though in 1.6mm ali it is pretty rigid anyway.



So now I need to tackle the overlap between sill and this main panel to minimise the overlap thickness. Then it's onto the driver's side for the same.

Enjoy

looks great do you have a metal folder at home or are you doing it some other way ? ive often thought about buying one of those cheap ones from ebay for about 100 bucks for the odd bits i need to do around the place
cheers dean

[Aussie Mike]

Great work as usual Slowy. What are you using to bend the aluminum?

This is a job I want to do on my build.

Cheers

[stephen low]

Thanks guys, a blind man would be happy with the work - lol

But given it will be buried under carpet it should do.

Look back at page 12 where I posted a couple of photos of the bender I scored off fleabay.

It is a fixed edge jobbie a bit wider that 1 metre. The bending isn't razor sharp and so the bends have a bit of roundness but that is fine for this work.

Where I've had to bend too close to previous bends, I use the vice and steel clamping. This isn't too hard with this 1.6mm ali material.

It would have been nice to have achieved this work prior to paint as a few issues with the body could have been corrected to improve fit but these aren't problematic.

Cheers

[Aussie Mike]

Cool. it produces pretty good results considering how basic it is.

A pan brake is something I'd really like to add to my workshop one day.

Cheers