Wow,
You guys sure have taken this thread wrong! At least from my point of view. Ed wanted a fabulous Cobra custom made, and like every new Cobra owner, wanted it now. (Relatively speaking anyway.) Ed simply took the car home before it was "knowingly finished" then found some things that he just wasn't happy with and likely so. Leaking modified gas tank/fitting- bad thing in any capacity, then a "shameful" display of not finalizing the car and leaving the "test" bolts in place for the roll bar instead of the actual "correct length" bolts! Never did that before and I assure you it will never be done again-at least out of my shop.
I have preached safety about these cars for 40 years or more, I even "tried" to form a safety guide like the NSRA uses 15 years ago and caught every kind of hell you can imagine on this web site! Strictly on a volunteer basis, the same rules and guidelines the NSRA demands. But I felt like the #1 Democratic nominee for President! Geesh!
Ed is a Big man...especially compared to me! I made the car as ergonomically as possible for Ed, dropping the floor, modifying the interior especially the rear firewall, changing the dash, etc. More changes needed to be made for him especially since he got the car home and got to examine/use it more. Lot of things that were very custom and just did not work out. All of which Ed poured a lot of money into and they were either faulty components or simply did not or would not work and had to be removed. Dozens of areas from CR-II with faulty construction, (one of the last bodies that were delivered from CR II) like all of the hinge plates that had to be cut out / re-glued, re-fiberglassed in place. Just adding days and weeks to the build. Then he gets it home only to find the rear license plate was so thin the special "Jack Nuts" I use in areas like this actually pulled through the glass! (This will be fixed absolutely permanently by inserting a steel plate behind the license plate holder and the fiberglass.-Daring it to pull through again!)
AND a biggy that I was absolutely responsible for but none the less totally embarrassing AND dangerous! I don't even remember if he posted about this, When his car was ready for the custom interior, (Which held us up months, three special trips to the upholsterer -150 miles-). Ed's car was the hardest Cobra I have ever manually had to push! As big as Ed is, and two other people pushing the car, simply leaning on the car and it should have pulled a "wheelie" and left burn marks on the pavement! In reality it should have been a Huge red flag to yours truly that something HAD to be wrong. But no, for what ever reason it never entered my mind. I wanted to make up for time lost and get his car done!
Took it to a very, very professional shop to have it 4-wheel aligned (Straight axle no less but with custom rear adjustable arms) and to change the transmission to an AOD to work with his 3:73 gears. Again a small fortune spent, new tranny, torque convertor etc.!
Horror's AGAIN, his brand new totally awesome expensive motor refused to start again, (Blown power valve on his new Holley! OK, now three BIG men and me pushed Ed's Cobra into this shop for the work to begin. An hour later I got a call from the owner, said they found a problem, hem-hawed around and finally after being told, "Spit it out" what problem now!? Seems in the haste to get his car done I called one of my friends in to help out install the front wheels and a few other things. Now this guy was no rookie in any sense, has owned his own shop for almost as long as I had. He self admittedly, after seeing the "Bad parts" this shop had found, determined the Front Wheel Bearings where put in "BACKWARDS!. Bearings totaled, of course, races gone, spindles scratched, ego flat as a skipping stone and of course more money and more delays while all the parts were replaced/repaired!
So much for trying to gain time!
And of course Ed who was taking all this in, I called him every time and told him about the glitches that kept popping up. Ed was emotionally great regardless of the problems, cost, time lost, cost of Rolaids and Pepto-Bismal!
Buffing: I actually "Planed" Ed's paint job. Very long and tedious process, then wet sanded it with 600 Wet/Dry paper, then 800 W/D paper, then started the Buffing. The way I finish a custom paint job requires at least three full buffing treatments. By the time #2 was finished the car was looking pretty damned good! Also by this time Ed's car was late by months! Ed wanted to take his car home! His friends were questioning him weekly wanting to know when his imaginary Cobra was going to show up?
Ed wanted to know about buffing, said he was taking the car home and he would put the final buff coat on over the winter. I showed him a few buffers, the compounds that I used and a real quick lesson in buffing. I think he even posted here -somewhere- asking the forum if anyone had ideas on what type of buffer they used and where to get a good deal on one?
This is about the time the dull/glazed spots on the body showed up, the gas tank started to leak - months after it was done! (?). The roll bar bolts that were too long, the trunk fiberglass.
If the shoe was put on my foot I think I would have gotten a legal DV-Hunting license!
Ok, Ed's lost his abnormally Hi-level cool, and simply said to heck with it. AND, even though everything was fixed or corrected and what wasn't, was going to be. (WE even picked a new start AND finish date!)
Ed decided he had had enough! Time to move onto another/different project.
I know a very large Lot of you watched his car from the first bolt to what should have been the last. You saw the body fitment, a lot of the customizing, almost the end of the buffing, the car did and still should look pretty darned good! But, again enough is enough. WE all know that your/a Cobra is NEVER DONE, but you should at least be driving it after a given amount of time! When Ed decided to sell, I waited for some people that wanted this special Cobra to grab one hell of a deal, it seemed to me that the whole thing was about to fall through, so I BOUGHT IT! Who better to finish this Cobra to the ENTH' degree? Besides I have been Cobra-less since I gave the original Double Venom to Cystic Fibrosis and personally since I could NOT afford to buy DV-I back what better choice then this one!
Cpteddie is very welcome at my table ANYTIME! Pass the Smores and Hot Chocolate please.
DV
P.S. Just went back and read some of the latest posts! Wow, does appear that this whole thing was getting both of us a little hot under the collar. Oh-well, never a dull moment on Club Cobra!
All is well that ends well.
