Progressing to body initial work
It continues to be long intervals between my updates. Although it doesn’t really feel like it, there’s been some progress but it’s mainly been around me wrapping my head around how everything with the body work goes together.
In my color scheme, I want to have polished hinges for the trunk and hood. Turns out it’s quite labor intensive to get a good shine on stainless, especially smaller pieces. I used a pad on a drill and worked my way up from 400 grit to 1000 and then some light 2000 wet by hand and chrome polish to finish it off. It turned out ok, but will require some more elbow grease before I’m completely satisfied. However, I’ve decided to get the car registered as soon as possible and will leave some of the details to be dealt with after registration is done.
Next I installed the body for the first time, and it went on relatively easy. I think I’ve managed to get it centered (equal distance between strut tower and wheel well lip) and far enough forward (1/4” – 3/8” forward of the striker plate). I didn’t have to move the front 3/4” outriggers as some have had to do to center the nose. I pulled off the bulb seal from the rear to get the body to pull around the aluminum and once the body is in place, there’s space for the bulb seal but it seems it’ll likely tear if it try to leave it on while I position the body.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...7&d=1758679492
The hood fit pretty well and didn’t really need initial any trimming at this point. The trunk is too big, seemingly too much material on the forward edge as it interferes with opening the trunk, but again, holding off on trimming anything yet, until I have an idea for how the entire car goes together. The doors don’t fit at all and need to be trimmed. However, the hinges are interfering with the CF dash, which I need to address first. I’ll need to trim the underside of the ‘wings’ on the dash to have free hinge movement. It also seems that the body is rubbing the top of the dash ‘wing’ on the driver side as well. The body clears the 3/4” tube and moves when I push down on it, but it still rubs on the dash somehow. I’ll be doublechecking the bulb seal and also the ¾” tube padding to see if it changes anything. I’ve also added some temporary 5/8” spacers on the front of the ¾” tube and the front of the body sits well.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...8&d=1758679492
I also tried to install the windshield. The windshield legs installed ok but need to be tweaked a little. The radius at the top doesn’t match well with the curvature of the windshield and the legs need to be twisted to be made parallel. I opened up the body cut-outs but I’m getting interference with the aluminum filler plate on the PS. From what I’ve read on the forum, the hole in the aluminum panel should be cut about 0.5” deeper for easier fitment. I’ll do that when I remove the body.
Another thing to check with the body on was exactly where I wanted the seats to be. I installed some spacer bars under the seats to get a good seat angle for me. I riveted the bars to the seat frame and got some longer screws to fit and the seat is securely fastened. A caution is to measure exactly where the bolts go through the seat pan so you don’t get too close to the 4” tube. I can just barely get the nut on the bolt.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...9&d=1758679492
Finally, before pulling the body off, I measured and drilled the holes to position the headlight buckets. The cut-outs from F5 were decent but not great and needed to be moved a little. The same with the turn lights. The holes for the rear lights were correct however. The trunk latch and license plate were off about 3/8” so I’ll be using the license plate light as the center of the trunk. Worst of all was the hood, where the hinge holes on one side were off in relation to the hinge and on the other side, only 1 hole was drilled (which was actually better). The 3 holes for the strut were completely off on one side as well.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...0&d=1758679492
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...3&d=1758679529
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...1&d=1758679492
A couple of questions:
- Is it normal to have to trim the rear aluminum panels (lower lip, rear quarter pieces) for a proper fit?
- The manual mentions to rivet the body to the 3/4" frame rail with the hood spacers/bumpers. Is this still the recommended procedure?
Getting the body positioned and tweaked
The work continues with lots of small items being addressed.
Before taking the body off to make adjustments, I fully installed the headlights and the turn indicators/park lights and wired them up. I did a full light system test and it all works as intended. The lap seat belts were also installed.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...9&d=1760546185
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...0&d=1760546185
I installed the hood on its’ hinges and it works decent. The opening mechanism works well, and the hood fits fairly well in the opening. I don’t have the latches on yet but with some minor trimming and added bumpers, it looks like it will sit well. I’m debating the spacing to use for the latches. 12” from center like the manual or 14” from center as according to Kleiner. Or compromise on 13”? I’ll make that decision once I see how well the hood fits when the body is better aligned. The hood seems to be a little high in the nose in comparison to the body, even with the hinges all the way down, which probably means that the body is not sitting high enough. The temporary 5/8” spacers have compressed quite a bit so I probably just need a firmer spacer. I’m not sold on the spring washers in the hinge assembly either, as they give the hood too much free movement. I’ll replace them with regular washers and test out the movement then.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...8&d=1760546185
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...1&d=1760546185
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...2&d=1760546185
We then took the body off and started working through the list of items to be addressed.
First off was trimming the CF dash wings to clear the door hinges. I had marked the areas that needed addressing and it was quick work with a drum sander. The CF is actually quite a pleasant material to work with (with the correct PPE). I also took this time to align a switch in the dashboard to make everything symmetrical.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...4&d=1760546219
I trimmed the aluminum around the rear quarters and bottom lip just a little bit. Probably not enough but I’ll take off a little at a time to get as good a fit as possible.
I then drilled and cleco’d the transmission tunnel cover. I’m not doing a removable cover so I will rivet the cover in place and cover with carpet. My goal is to register the car and get some shakedown miles on it before I button everything up and cover with carpet, so I’m not too concerned with the cover not being removable. The flanges on the cover were bent to fit flush with the side. I’m riveting the top of the panel into the ¾ tubes from the top to minimize any movement/flexing.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...3&d=1760546219
The windshield is interesting. The legs need to be twisted and bent to fit both the glass and the frame. The brass is easy to work with and the chrome plating seems to hold up well, but it’s a lot of iteration work to get it to fit fairly well. Since I couldn’t get the windshield to seat with the body on, I’ve been adjusting the fit with the body off, to get it parallel with the frame. I’ll drill the holes in the legs and do final adjustments once the body is on, but the starting position is better now. I’ll add spacers to fill any distances I can’t twist or bend out, as needed.
With all this done, I mounted the 5/8” spacers as body support in the front using the large and small included bumpers stacked on eachother and a long rivet. I hope they hold up better than my temporary spacer.
Texas Registration and dead at a traffic light
With the car mechanically completed, I took my daughter out for the first ride. It just had a basic string alignment but drove ok and everything seemed to be working well. 5 miles in, we were standing at a traffic light and the engine just died. There was no crank, I cycled the ignition, fuel pump, master disconnect, nothing. Just completely dead. My daughter got in the driver’s seat and I started pushing it out of the way, to a parking lot close by. Before we had made it across the intersection, there were 4 other people helping me push and 2 cars blocking the road behind us to keep us safe. Gotta love Texas!
At the parking lot, I continued to check everything I could think of. Ground was good, no loose connections to the fuel pump, the inertia switch was fine. So I called my wife to come tow us the last 1 mile home. 10 minutes later, just as my wife showed up, the car just started as normal, so I drove it home without any further issues. I started it up a few hours later and drove another 5 miles and had no issues.
I have a separate post with support from the forum in working out the issue. It seems heat related but it’s unclear what’s actually happening. More info in the other thread.
The following day, my son and I took a drive to the nearest CAT Scales to get a weight certificate. It was a 14 mile return journey and we were prepared with tow ropes etc but we made it there and back with no issues. The car weighed in at 2380lbs. We also had our first encounter with admirers, which was fun. In hindsight I should have prepared my son better on some of the details, but he did well talking about it while I was getting the paperwork/certificate in order.
The only thing remaining in preparation for TX registration was getting the car ASE Master Tech safety inspected. It’s been a struggle to find an ASE Master Tech, with current certifications, willing to do the inspection. Not wanting to take on the liability was the main concern. I’d been actively looking for probably 6 weeks until I finally found a guy willing and eager to do it. The inspection itself was pretty simple. He was very impressed with the quality of the work which I’ll take as a badge of honor.
Armed with all the paperwork and the experiences from other TX registration threads on here, I got an appointment with the DPS (TX DMV) and took the plunge. I spent an hour at the Regional Center to get ‘a letter’ saying the car was eligible for registration and then headed to the local tax office for the registration process. It took another hour there, but I walked out with my cobra registered as a custom vehicle. It would have taken at least another visit or 2 had it not been for the knowledge and information shared on the forum, do lots of thanks for that! I now have paper plates and I’m legal! I should have my real plates in about 2 weeks.
I set the ride height to 4” in the front and 4.5” in the rear and took the car to a local Christian Brothers and spent 2 hours there getting a wheel alignment. They were all very interested in checking out the car while their alignment guru worked on it. The base measurements and string alignment got me in a pretty good spot, but the difference in driving after getting the alignment properly set up is still significant. It feels very planted now.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/atta...0&d=1763907818
Let the shake down tests begin… 😊
