West Coast Cobra Owner Build Chassis # 3299

[kitcarbp]

September 2014

For my dash appearance, I wanted a flat black appearance and wanted to use something that was proven UV resistant and durable. I chose a 3M film product that is used on exterior signs with proven Pressure Sensitive Adhesive and UV stable that will not fade or delaminate from the sun loads. On a roadster its pretty important. I selected VDO Viewline gauges. To save real estate and keep the dash clean and simple I used a Speedo with telltales built into the unit. No need for individual light bulbs on the dash. I also installed dual heated seats and found a nice twin rotary control switch similar to the units used in the finest German cars. I drive my car into the Fall months with my hardtop, and the heated seats keep us comfortable when temps dip into the 40’s. Of course ya need USB ports to charge your devices too.

[kitcarbp]

December 2014

I decided on Silver with black stripe color combo. I picked a commonly available Silver that would be easy to match in the cars future. I picked PPG brand paint and selected Polar Silver Metallic from Mercedes code #761. The color has been in use well over 10 years. It has just a little fine metallic to make it pop in the sunshine. It took 3 months of body prep to get to this stage of basecoat. It was an exciting moment.

[kitcarbp]

Now that the body work was making good progress in 2014, I still did not have the traditional brake cooling inlet grills, oil cooler inlet grills or the main radiator grill. So after scouting ebay and this forum I was not successful. So with the help of a tool builder and expert machinist we designed them based on my body opening dimensions taken off the car. This is my point about feeling like a scratch build some days




Here they are fitted to the car after paint. Superb!

But after writing the program and surfacing the radiator grill we learned it will take 44 hours on the Haas machining center. So to this day that grill project is on hold. My friends were not able to free up hat kind of time without charging for that time. Who kmows maybe I will decide to AM the part from powdered aluminum metal ? We’ll see.

[kitcarbp]

December 2014

Here are pics of the stripes being painted. I used a straight gloss black from GM. Been used for decades.

[kitcarbp]

Christmas Eve 2014

Here it is on Christmas Eve 2014 getting multiple layers of clear. Best Christmas present ever! 10 years since the build began and its in paint

[kitcarbp]

January 2015

The first pic Here is out of the paint booth at the body shop just after Christmas


Then back home after paint. What a long strange trips its been so far. Lol. My trunk lid sat leaning against the wall for months while I worked on the fuel tank installation

[kitcarbp]

January 2015

Now that the car is painted and back home in the garage I could plan the next steps. By this point in 2015 West Coast Cobra was winding down operations and getting harder to get a response out of them. I was hoping to order my interior but soon realized I was marooned and would have to fend for myself sourcing an interior. In the meantime I had plenty of work to do with installing my battery in the trunk and the assembling the fuel cell and installing it. One of the first parts I installed after paint was the LeMans flip top fuel filler cap. I used a 1969 Mustang filler neck which fit nicely. Underside shown below. My fuel tank is fabricated using a poly tank inside an aluminum box that came with the ebay body purchase. I built the poly tank to be able to open it back up and upgrade to an in tank fuel injection pump for the future fuel injection I will add

[kitcarbp]

Spring 2016

So after fruitless attempts of buying the interior from the now defunct WCC in winter of 2015, the car sat for over a year. I was over budget, way over budget after the body work so decided to design and fabricate my own interior. Ive never tried this before. “Look Mom..... no hands”. I watched alot of you tube on interior builders with alot of experience. I then found an interior material supplier that made it easy to buy the stuff I needed. The seats were the easy piece. Purchased Cobra branded seats from England using Factory Five. Simple. Then I disassembled them to install the heated seat elements

Aftermarket heated seat kits made it easy to incorporate them into my build

[kitcarbp]

Interior Planning Spring/Summer 2016

So my story is at this point of my build Im over budget but the body work and paint work turned out really nice and while not show quality from 1 foot away its awesome. None the less my driver paint job cost way more than I expected. Making the hard top fit correctly was very costly in labor and contributed to busting the budget. But it looks great.

So now with my seats sourced from Cobra brand in England, I started shopping interior suppliers to help me build my own imterior.. How hard can this be? Foam, vinyl, carpet, measure three times, cut twice. Lol. And a bunch of glue
Answer: I used this company to find out

https://www.albrightssupply.com/

[kitcarbp]

Here are pics of the interior fabrication and installation

[kitcarbp]

Spring 2018.

So the way I like to learn new fab skills is the tried and true ; crawl, walk and run process. So I started with the carpet as the first step of my interior. For the carpet top edge that ringed the cockpit, I decided to get it binded at a local carpet store that had the binding equipment. I purchased the silver color binding edge and took it to the carpet place. It was like $20 for each piece to have bound. THe binding machine does it in like 1 minute, super fast. The wood steering wheel shown was only used during the build and not used in the final design



I used this high temp spray glue for carpet and foam and vinyl. I put that Sh!2 on everything!
It sticks to everything ! I had to mask off most of the car to keep the paint safe

[kitcarbp]

Here are more progress photos of the interior. I selected a matte low gloss vinyl for the dash and doors that I matched to the Cobra seat vinyl material. All of the backing boards I made were cut from 1/8 or 1/4 inch inch Black textured ABS since it had to be water proof if rained on. ABS is so easy to work with, you score it with a knife and break it.

The best part was laying out my dash pattern on the living room carpet while my wife was away. I had masking tape and foam trimmings everywhere! The Schroth racing belts popular for autocrossing Are shown here installed

[kitcarbp]

Summer of 2018

More Of my home made interior made in my little home garage.

[kitcarbp]

More interior. Notice the home made floor mats with bonded edges using silver fabric

Notice the door contact switches I use to run the speaker wires. I started looking at production car door contacts but found this hot rod supplier who invented these for us builders. They work great and are awesome Highly recommend these. They are called WIDE Contact. Wires in door eliminated.

[kitcarbp]

Summer 2018
More photos of my interior build. After 4 cans of adhesive Im almost done!

[kitcarbp]

Dec 2018

Now with he interior just about done, i was planning to take the car back to JBL automotive in Dulles , VA to have the paint wet sanded and buffed to remove the minor imperfections in the paint. You have to be 8 inches away to see the imperfections. JBL did a good job overall. in my automotive career im used to managing small dust in clear coats and sending the parts over to the polishing team before shipping the parts so OEM level quality.

Life got busy again with stuff and tons of work travel and the car sat. In 2018 I set a new personal record for travel with 250 nights away from home. 2019 was better with only 180 nights away but the car still sat. Here is an off shore shift knob that looks way better then it functions and Im gonna be replacing it soon.

[kitcarbp]

Here are more interior pics from 2018. In he last pic notice my fire bottle mounted to the steel floor at base of seat. My seats are fixed and not adjustable to maximize head clearance to the hardtop. I can reach the fire bottle while still harnessed in if needed. Hope Not !

[kitcarbp]

More interior pics

[kitcarbp]

The Pandemic of 2020! Time to Finish the car!
So like most folks in March of 2020 I started to realize daily life was about to change. We didnt know how it would change but it would be profound. So I seized this opportunity of being stuck at home and off the road to finish my life’s work...... my unfinished song, or symphony. At this point I only needed labor, not much money to finish it. My Magnum Opus was about to be completed and debuted to the world...

Final assembly begins

First project was to get my O2 sensor bung installed for a future injection project so I could reinstall the exhaust system.
Here are photos of that mini project to weld it to the stainless steel passenger side header collector. The welders out there will notice my basic set up for back purging Argon on the backside of the weld to ensure a good long life reliable weld. Then a little metal polish to finish it. I dont weld.........but I know a guy! The pic got rotated but the O2 sensor will sit about 8 oclock position. Not ideal for sensor life, but its not visible, I’ll just treat the sensor as a maintenance item.

[kitcarbp]

Here are pics of the stainless exhaust system that came with the kit from WCC