Owner built on a budget;

[rustyBob]

Merry Christmas Ray,you and the "crew"are awesome, I will check in over the weekend to see the progress but for now i'm going to spend time with wife,son,and daughter-in-law who is 2 mounth pregnant(our first grandchild) may peace be with you........

[Hray]

Dec 24, 2009 update

Ray 5 hours, Craig 3 hours;

267 hours, 34 days down, 56 to go.

Mostly cleaned out the workshop space. I organized work space behind body shop area so i could finish cleaning and painting motor and accessories and to allow more room in body shop area for a cleaner work area.
Removed body from chassis hopefully for last time. cleaned chassis real good and moved it into the corner and covered it over to protect from overspray and sanding dust.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/...63094b46_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4041/...16228091_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/...f2e30706_b.jpg

Chassis will remain covered over until the body is ready for its last blocking out. While Craig is working on body I will be getting the motor and all accessories ready for reinstall. We plan on making it a driveable chassis again and then installing body for last time, do last blocking out and then paint it on the chassis. The doors, hood, trunk lid will be off the car for painting.

PS: Rusty Bob you are gonna love those grandkids, i have 4 of them, once they arrive life as you now know it will cease to exist.

Happy Holidays to all. Ray

[Krewton]

Merry Christmas Ray. Looking good.

Kenton

[Hray]

Dec 26, 2009; Update

265 hours, 35 days, 55 days to go.
Worked yesterday with Tyler (11 year old grandson), he was about the only family member that wasn't sick so we spent a few hours in the shop.

Tyler spent just over an hour with the sand blasting cabinet, he got the four roll bar brackets blasted, and painted, he also blasted the bell housing, and he painted the brackets and spent about an hour on the polishing machine.

I spent most of my time creating a make shift spray cabinet and keeping a good fire going in the stove, and presanding the bumper bracket tubes.

Today Saturday Dec 26, we had all the family over for christmas eats, games, and gifts. I managed to get some seat time in with my new present, the Wii Indy 500 race car game.

Here is tyler using the sandblasting cabinet, this is normally the welding shop, but since we were forced out of the front shop we are doing our prep work here to keep front area cleaner to anticipate primer and paint. the fuzz and oils from the polishing are not good to get on the body of the car. They could cause problems.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/...ca80cb33_b.jpg

Tyler is the first one to try out the new paint cabinet for brackets and small stuff. We have a swivel J bolt in the top so you can turn the items around to paint all sides.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2535/...9807f593_b.jpg

one of the advantages of being small is seen here. you can see our home made J bolt at top holding the roll bar brackets. Notice the extreme high tech sides of the cabinet to keep dust from entering the cabinet and to contain overspray getting out too far. (if this ain't a redneck shop I would really like to see one) no offence to rednecks intended.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2735/...e82b45cd_b.jpg


Here is a before and after photo of the aluminum bumper bracket tube. This if the first cut, we will do two more finer compounds and then final polish before done.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/...3928bceb_b.jpg

Tomorrow should be close to another full day on the build.

Ray

[rustyBob]

HI RAY.....looks like you may have another CAR GUY on your hands there........
he does good work on the polishing and paint.......
keep it up....

[Hray]

278 hours, 36 days down, 54 to go;


got headers painted with cilgen temp coating, cleaned up the new door hinges for paint, craig got the body primed, used half gallon of poly primer for this go round. cleaned a few other parts,

later............

[treblig]

I have a new roll bar, 2" and chrome, 275 or OBO

[Hray]

292 hours, 37 days down, 53 to show time.


Craig worked on blocking out body some more, I spent several hours chasing parts, and then got 3 of the four trims rings roughed out for the roll bars. I also installed a few more lights in shop and put together the fan vent system for the paint booth.

Here is picture of the front end getting some block sanding done. also see my home made fan vent system. I will place house hold furnace filter in front of the fans to catch most of the overspray from getting on the blades, this also prevents bugs from flying into the shop when we are not running the fans. I will open the back door of the shop which goes into the area where the sand blaster and wood stove is at. I will build big fire in wood stove to heat the air which the exhaust fan will pull into the paint area. The back door will also get furnace filters placed in it to prevent dust and bugs from getting into the paint room. The three fans allow for lot of volumne but do not create turbulence.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2685/...31087016_b.jpg


Here are a couple pictures of the roll bar trim rings. I got the insides roughed out fine, now to shape the outsides and then drill and tap them. we want studs in the so no screws show from the top side.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2620/...3325892c_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2632/...0f86bc5b_b.jpg

Craig discovered the PCL poly primer that I use is much better than the evercoat polyprimer that he uses. I had a quart of left over pcl from ramble last year and sprayed it on the car and we then sprayed on a quart of the evercoat. today he started block sanding and fell in love with the pcl and I had to go buy a gallon more so we could abandon the evercoat. It is about 20% more expensive but worth every penny of it.

No word yet on being accepted in the autorama. Surely our past history will assist them in deciding to accept our application.

later Ray

[Hray]

Tue and wed update;

314 hours, 39 days down, 51 remaining

yesterday I went shopping for grommets or similar to trim out the roll bar trim rings, found a o ring the perfect size at the fluid tech business. found a u shaped rubber trim at capitol rubber. Still not sure exactly what I was wanting to use, Stopped by home depot, visited the section of the store that sells door sill plates and weather stripping stuff. Found this T shaped rubber on this door weather proofing trim. pulled the rubber out of its slot to check the shapt. it is about one inch tall with a slanted t at the top. got a piece of it and took it home. We decided it fit so well that we are scrapping the trim rings and going to use this all by itself. i think I will use it also for the bumper supports where then meet the body. So the half day of making trim rings is gone by the way side. If the new rubber moulding works as good as we think it could be something others would like to use. I will photoghraph tomorrow.

Craig is still working the body and doors etc. we put on second round of primer today. I worked mostly deburring the motor, getting it ready to reinstall.

A couple of gearhead friends stopped by today to make fun of us. No problem I am used to that.

Later Ray

[rustyBob]

looking good Ray...........
can't waite to see it finished............

[Hray]

Jan 1, update;

338 hours. 41 days down, 49 to go;

upon sitting the black valve covers on the engine it was quickly apparent the colors did not work together. went and bought some light gray, and also new ford gray, the ford gray might have worked but not what I wanted. Craig has some other brand cast gray, tried it and it worked, repainted the entire motor and bell housing again, got a few accessories bolted back on the motor. Criag spent 4 hours working on the roll bar, grinding welds and using body filler to smooth it out, he got another hour in on block sanding the underneath side of hood and trunk.

PS: Bob i think we are much more ready to see it done that you are.

I went back to check on first phase hours, that was 175 for preassembly and trial drives. We are now at 513 hours in the total build and a good ways from being done. We will go over the 500 estimate. But, at the onset I was really only planning on building 'just a nice driver'. The Autorama entry was going to be just for fun and not really expecting to be competitive, just a good reason to get it finished by a specific date. I really had no idea that Craig was going to come get this involved and take the build up a couple notches higher. I also did not anticipate building new hinges, and I did not figure on doing a roll bar at all. The car should still be done by the autorama date however, it will be between 700 and 800 hours for the total build. When you really get serious about detail of every last little detail the time goes straight out the window. Until a person has built a quality show car, and not even a custom, you better look at a thousand hours invested from out of the gate. if you start fabricatiing stuff, and modifying roofs, and body lines look at two thousand hours real quick.

If you ask me this car hobby stuff has gotten way out of hand, maybe this is why rat rods, and retro rods are becoming so popular again, they are much more reasonable to build.


Even with all this attention I do not expect to trophy at autorama, we are not spending enough money on bling and fatman suspensions, and all those other name brand bolt on items. But that will be fine I will have a very very nice car to drive around. it will do ok in competition at smaller local shows.

Ray

[rustyBob]

I never got the impression you were doing this for a trophy anyway............
there is nothing wrong with setting goals for a build....especially the finish date.
step back drink a cold beer (or3) take a deep breath and enjoy the time you are spending with friends and family and when the car is done just think how proud those who helped are going to be when it is finished.
those 2 boys are going to be able to say WE helped grandpa build a Cobra.

[Hray]

JAN 2, update

346 hours, 42 days down, 48 to go.
Craig took day off,

I managed to get the intake manifold blasted and treated with cilgen high temp coating, painted a few more accessories, then painted the inner fenders and got them clear coated.

Ray

[Hray]

Jan 4, a two day update:

371 hours, 44 days down, 46 to go.

Yesterday I polished the rest of the bumper spacers and drilled holes in the door to get ready to install door panels after paint, installed intake manifold and couple of accessories. Craig finalized the powder coating cabinet to get ready to powder coat tomorrow.

Today Craig got the dash modified, made the opening for the steering column smaller and filled the cut out holes on corners. I installed motor and drive tran back in the chassis and begain to to hook a few things up.

Here are some pics of the last few days.

A few days ago i painted the motor a cast iron grey, but when I put the black valve covers on the head the colors clashed, it had a green tint to it. here is a picture of a more pure grey, it fits in fine with the black and aluminum colors.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2799/...5bca5ce4_b.jpg

Here is the motor and trans staged for install on the morning of Jan 4th.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2778/...4634a9dd_b.jpg

Here is the motor back in the chassis,

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/...2d26a1af_b.jpg

I was concerned about the air cleaner clearing the hood, looks like the air cleaner is below the top of the cowl, therefore it should not be close to the hood.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2654/...4bb6e5a7_b.jpg


Here is the dash sitting back on cowl after the smoothing, it will require one more small coat of filler and some light sanding before being painted, we will paint it so the glues will hold better for the covered dash.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2739/...91d17226_b.jpg

Here is the picture of the painted inner fender, I got a little heavy in one place and put a run in the clear coat, but that should sand out just fine. main thing is the color went down about as perfect as I could expect. This is the stripe color. maybe before end of week we will see the underside of the hood painted with both the canyon red and the heather stripe. We will paint underside of hood and trunk but rest of car will be painted at one time. We figured that if there is a slight color change it wont matter on under side.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4011/...9e7ed31c_b.jpg

Tomorrow we think we will be powder coating the engine accessories so I can reinstall them while we get the body ready for paint.

Nite all, Ray

[*13*]

The Grey motor looks nice! Keep up the good work!

[Hray]

384 hours, 45 days down, 45 days to go.


Got the seven pieces powder coated today, came out real good for first attempt.

I then got most of the seven pieces installed on motor.

Looks like today is half way thru the final cosmetic stage of the build. I certainly do hope we are more than half way there. Even if mostly done before the 45 days I am sure we will find some little improvements to continue on until the final setup day. As has been said 'these cars are never really done, at some point we just decide to stop working on them'.

Will get pictures of the new powder coated objects and tomorrows progress tomorrow nite.

Ray

[rustyBob]

paint time must be getting close..........

[Hray]

Update for jan 8, 9, 10

434 hours, 50 days down, 40 to go;

Had birthday parties and wedding to attend so not much time on build for last couple of days. At least wasn't any funerals.


Still working mainly on chassis, got a new vintage air heater system installed today. got the wiring to elect fan done, got the wiring of steering column done. I think all that is left of wiring is the courtesy lights. The gas lines are all run to the carb. New horns are installed and working.

we should fire the engine again tomorrow and set timing and dial in carb and make sure charging system and the electric fan control is all working appropriately. Wednesday or thursday the body should go back on and get secured. With a little luck paint will be on by end of next week.

[Hray]

447 hours, 51 down, 39 to go;

Today we spent most of the day cleaning up again, but did get the front shocks painted and reinstalled, tightened all the front suspension stuff, got the sway bar hooked up. Once motor was in and with some weight on he arms the sway bar was a direct hook up. Nothing offset as was thought to be the case several weeks back.

craig soldered on the last of the wires on the steering column, we took off that riser tube on the cobra valve covers to insert a pcv valve.

did not get it fired today but hopefully tomorrow we will tune it up and make sure electric fan is operating properly.

we make a list of to do items, get them done and we then have another list of to do items, wonder if it ever will stop. At this point of doing very detailed finish work it sure takes extra time. We are touching up the frame, and other items on car that have gotten a little abused in the build.

[rustyBob]

are you still going to make the Autorama ????????