Discs all set.

Spent a bit of time today finishing off the disc shimming. Ive wound up with 20 thou on the right disc (viewed from rear of car) and 25 thou on the left disc. This brings both gaps well within 10 thou of each other on each side. As you can see from the picture below the disc is bang in the middle of the caliper.

So thats it both discs set and the calipers fit OK, I will take them off for the next few operations to reduce weight and improve access.

So next step is to lift the diff up such that it is supported high enough to get the required drop on the lower arms to match road attitude. May need to beef up my work bench as the work mate has a 160 Kg limit!

Problem resolved.

New bolts arrived today and Im glad to say they fit perfectly! So thats its I can now carry on and shim up the discs which judging by my initial look are going to need a few shims to center them up.

Again many thanks to Ed for sorting this one out.

Calipers cause confusion....

Finally made it up to the garage last night with good intentions of fitting the calipers and shimming the rear brake discs.

However as always things conspired against me and I didn't get half of what I wanted done. I did manage to temp fit the rear discs with no shims.

However when trying to fit the caliper bolts through the problem occurred.

This is as far as the bolt goes in, in fact I gave it a little tap with my hammer and that jammed it in solid! Luckily I was able to get it out with the press but if I didn't have that it could have gotten nasty!

I managed to fish out on of my old bolts and when compared you can see a difference.

By measurement the new bolt is 11.16mm in diameter vs 10.8 for the old bolt. The hole in the caliper is around 11mm.

The old bolt fits OK in 3 of the 4 holes in the caliper but still does not quite fit in one.

A few emails to Ed at Wards and a quick conversation today and I am informed that Jaguar used 2 suppliers for their calipers for a while, this one used a slightly smaller bolt hole. Jag, in their wisdom, only have one part number for the two different bolts required. Ed is going to send me some new bolts to try.

Ill let you know how it goes!

Now for something a bit diff..erent!!

One of those frustrating days on Tuesday where me and the old man spent all day in the garage and didn't really have anything to show for it. Basically fitting the diff to the chassis did not yield the results I anticipated. I fitted the diff but the brackets would not line up nicely.


So after a quick call to Andy at GD who said I was doing it all wrong, and a subsequent chat with Simon (fellow GD builder) I decided to abandon initial diff fitting and build the rear axle up off of car.

Once built up the assembly is fitted and the chassis may need to be helped to fit with a sturdy bar!

With the diff now placed at a more workable height on my temporary bench I was able to trial fit the jag pivot brackets to the diff without shims. This showed me that the rear GD diff bracket fitted perfectly but the front one did not.

I tried 5 thou shims one each side which improved the front fit but it would still not go on. Eventually 10 thou on each side enabled the front bracket to fit but now the rear bracket wont go on.

10 thou worth of shim's


A bit more shim fiddling and Ive wound up with 12 thou on each side at the front and 7 thou on each side at the rear, most importantly both brackets fit and the shafts turn relatively freely.

The thinking being that the GD brackets have been drilled to suit the original jag shims, so that should have set my carrier brackets somewhere close. Next thing to do is to fit the discs and calipers setting their shims as I go. I can then fit the lower arms, hubs and drive shafts and sort hub camber. Once all this is done Ill probably drop the calipers off whilst I set up the rear toe in and thrust on car. Once all is set Ill remove the assembly, refit the calipers, lock wire the carrier bracket bolts and caliper bolts ready for final installation.

Hub sorted.

Major thanks to Ed at Wards. Despite Citylinks best efforts at delaying delivery and not ringing my door bell I now have a replacement hub which does not wobble about! Ed was great about it, especially given that it was 2005 that I originally took delivery.

Hub problem, major pain!

Whilst checking out the shims required to install the rear hubs to the wishbones, I noticed that one of the hubs has excessive free play.

The hub was free to move in and out by around 5mm and also could be rocked from side to side. The other hub was fine with no free play at all in any direction! Damn!

A quick email to Ed at Ward Engineering confirmed that I should return the hub for it to be checked, so thatwas that, off it went today and hopefully I should get it back in time for next weeks assembly game!

Still I cant fault Ed, its well over a year since I had these parts. Im not sure if hes charging me though, thats yet to be worked out!

Not much happening.

Not much to report at the moment, no time spent in the garage for a while now. Hoping to get up there next week during my weeks holiday.
Here's the plan.
1) Fit Diff to chassis by top four mounting bolts.
2) Fit diff carrier brackets to chassis.
3) Fit diff pivot brackets loosely to diff.
4) Fit lower pivot bolts through brackets into pivot brackets.
5) Fit shims and bolt up pivot brackets.
6) Remove diff and setup on floor at required height to set geometry.
7) Install brake discs and calipers adjusting shimming to centre disc on caliper.
8) Fit hub to lower arm, adjusting the shims Ive forgotten to buy!
9) Install drive shaft to hub and ensure fully home.
10) Install drive shaft to diff output flange using camber shims to set camber.
11) Adjust toe in at this stage.
12) Fit assembly to chassis (easier than it sounds as I cant lift the diff on its own!)
13) Check toe in again.
14) Check thrust.
15) Adjust as required. (I think this is going to be the killer!)

So that's it, the plan for next Tuesday, Ive a few things to order in before then so Id best get on with it!

New carb.

Here's a few pics of the new carb, its rather large!



Just for interest really!

Some Progress.

Started preparing the rear axle parts for assembly today. First up the diff carrier brackets needed the pivot shaft holes cleaning out as some paint had run in.

Round file and some wire wool sorted that out.

So now the pivot shafts can go through OK.


Using new bolts Ive temporally mounted the brackets to the diff after cleaning the paint from the mating faces.

After this I turned my attention to the lower arms and again cleaned out all the shaft holes, installed new grease nipples and bearing's.

So that's both arms ready for installation.

Its getting to the point where I can put off no longer the assembly of the rear axle, still not convinced I know what I doing though!

New Gauge & dash direction.

As always I change my mind on a frequent basis so keeping up is not easy! Ive moved away from the classic look back to a more modern feel. I'm back looking at Autometer gauges and I like the look of the Cobalt range.

And illuminated.


I hear the purists shuddering but care not I!

For the Speedo, Tacho, Fuel gauge and oil pressure gauge I will use the full sweep units. The fuel gauge is programmable so it can be set to match any quirks of the sender caused by the tank design.

And for the water temp, oil temp and voltmeter the half sweep units will do. This is worth doing as the half sweep are nearly 50% the cost of the full sweep but they are the same size.


The blue illumination will match the push button switches Ive chosen, again a much more modern take.


The warning lights will be those as supplied by ETB.

With a couple of standard Lucas flick switches for the lights and fan controls that completes the dash items.

Gauge dissapointment

Ah well, not everything goes to plan but my latest dissapointment will no doubt be approved by the Cobra purists.

The all singing, all dancing, Autometer Nexus gauges I had hoped to use are not suitable for use in an open top car. (see the "check these Gauges out link")

A quick email to Autometer confirmed the following.

"The Nexus instruments will not be easily seen in a convertible. The gauges have a tinted lens on them for a clean look when they are powered down. However, the tinted lens also makes it difficult to see in bright sunlight. We have had people use the Nexus series in a convertible, but they were in a shaded area."

The dash of a Cobra is hardly a shaded area so that's them out of the running, too much cost to take the risk I'm afraid.

Now thinking to go a bit more authentic and use either Greengauges or Smiths Electric Cobra range. Either way this will at least be considerably cheaper than the Autometer units. Ho hum.

Stoneleigh 2007

Took a trip up to Stoneleigh last Sunday, I hadnt intended to go but my dad fancied it so that was good enough excuse for me!

Took in all the usual suspects, paid GD a brief visit to collect some nuts I needed and hunted down suppliers of silicone hose. If GD cant supply the Ford set in red I wil use an alternative supplier. Ive added potentials to the suppliers list.

The CRC area was again well attended with one of the biggest turn outs of the day.

You dont get a good impression form this pictures but there are a lot of Cobra's there!

I think the most unusual thing I saw was this dash.

Nice job, thats the actual car painted onto the dash (somewhow!)

All in all a good day out and I only spent £4.50 on some P clips!

Parts update.

Finally arrived!!
Is wrong to get excited about some parts from the USA? Anyway they all arrived in good condition, the starter is smaller than I expected and the carb is bigger! The ignition module looks to be a good unit and most annoyingly comes with a link cable to go between the ignition and dizzy so I dont need the MSD one Ive got. Still the MSD one looks to be a better grade cable and its got sleeving whereas the Summit one does not. Ill stick some pictures on here later.

Still waiting.

Well at least my box from Summit has made it to through customs and is now sat at Bristol international hub awaiting a letter to arrive on my door mat asking for more money. Then once Ive paid that they will deliver it, no one will be in so it will go back to Bristol, I will spend hours on the phone trying to talk to a human before getting it redirected to my local post office (hopefully) for 50p or worst case to my parents for £5.50!!

Beginning to think the extra $30 for UPS might have been worth it!!

Wheres my stuff then?

Well after tracking my parcel through the US it left Chicago on the 23rd, flew to the UK and disappeared into the black hole known as Parcel Force. Maybe its stuck in customs but as yet Ive no way of tracking it. Hope it fairs better than the last one which resided in a puddle for a few weeks before they delivered it in bits with my fuel pump all rusty!

Taking advantage of the dollar rate!

With the pound worth over $2 I couldn't ignore the opportunity to capitalise. So after a bit of working out what would actually be cheaper imported I phoned Summit and ordered the following.
Edlebrock 1405 600 cfm manual choke carb.
Ford Racing Parts Hi Torque mini starterSummit Ignition box.

Oh and the cable to plug the Ignition box into my MSD 8479 dizzy. (its just a cable so no pic I'm afraid!)

I was going for the MSD 6AL but was offered the Summit item instead. On paper they look very similar except the Summit unit is digital and has a rotary switch to set the rev limit and dip switches to set the engine configuration. Whereas the MSD unit uses plug in modules to set the rpm limit (at extra cost) and a on time cut link to set the engine configuration.

All in all it work out around £50 cheaper than the MSD and looks to be a better unit, Time will tell!

So adding up what Ive spent, Ive worked out that the equivalent parts from UK sources would be another £200. Now I'm happy!

Summit are really easy to order from and really helpful, with their lines open 24hrs a day it makes life easy.

Diff collected today.

Breaking from the engine build updates for a minute...
Today I collected my rebuilt diff from Russ Derbyshire. Thoroughly nice bloke with RAM fitted with an RV8 that sounds awesome. Russ has done a great job on my diff, heres the before pic..



And the after pic..


Now all I need to do is work out the shimming of the pivot bracket's to get the right geometry, this could be fun!

Getting to grips with this.

Nothing much to add other than Ive put in the links to Picasa2 and uploaded some engine pictures. Ill do more as time permits.
Sorted out the historic posts now, so they will appear in months fairly close to where they should be.

Where did all begin?

The Beginning.
Many years ago as a child I was forever reading kit car magazines and thinking one day Ill build something. I always wanted a Countach replica.

Forward wind about 18 years and I finally have the time and money to actually do something about that childhood dream. I start thinking about building a kit and begin looking around, I stumbled over the Cobra replica club website, www.cobraclub.com, and that got me interested in Cobras. Its just something about them that has got be hooked and some would say obsessed!

After lots of looking at the various marques I settle on the GD427, to be honest as soon as I saw the chassis design I thought, that the one, someones thought about that, and thats where Ill leave the story for tonight.

More the come!

Up and running.

Well this is the second blog setup to track the build of my GD427, the first is on the CobraClub website. Im giving this a go to see which works best for me.

Ive a fair bit to update so bear with me as theres a lot to cover!