Jesse builds another Cobra #11,061 - First body work shots

[Blitzboy54]

It's good to have friends

Thanks everyone for the kind words. The weather has been spectacular this weekend and I have a couple hundred miles under my belt now. It been great. I'm really glad I am driving in gel coat. It's the best way to shake it down. Things I discovered so far that needed attention:

1. Clutch was too tight, let it out and it hooks up real nice now. HOWEVER I get the strangest squeal in the clutch pedal. To my ear is sounds like the the pivot on the pedal needs lube but I can't be sure. It's a little odd. It comes and goes

2. Shift boot. I purchased a shift boot from Redline Goods. I used the Factory Five template but the hole on top is cut for the stock shifter. The coyote shifter is thicker. So I cut it and tucked it back inside. This doesn't really work for a number of reasons. I ordered another one and modified the top hole to 1 inch. I cut the top off the rubber shift boot and use it as a "gasket" to keep the heat out. I will share pics when my new boot shows up in a few weeks.

3. Seats - it did not occur to me that the seats might not be that comfortable but it might be the price you pay for buying custom seats overseas. I am going to play with seat angles this week and see if that improves it but my wife and I talked about it on our ride today, and I think what the real solution is when I pull the seats out this winter I am going to have the bottoms re done. Needs double the cushion.

4. ALIGNMENT

My friend Scott reached out to congratulate me on being legal and to tell me he had all the stuff at his place to do an alignment. I took him up on his offer. He said to plan on being there all day and he wasn't kidding. Home alignments are not for the faint of heart. Its extra hard without a lift because of access but we did manage to get it done. We started at 9:00 and finished at 4:00. We did walk up to the diner and grab lunch in there too.

The best part was the digital level kept resetting itself as the battery's were going so we chased our tails for a while until we figured it out. One time because we were both tired we set the camber to the prescribed -5 degrees. When I stepped back and looked the wheel looked like it had been in an accident. We couldn't figure out where we went wrong until Scott looked at me and said "wait, 5 degrees or .5 degrees"? I should have taken a picture. The best news is we got it done, took it for a test drive and the car drives fantastic. Straight as an arrow.

I can't thank Scott enough, that was a long day. I really appreciate it.