West Coast Cobra Owner Build Chassis # 3299

[kitcarbp]

The Pandemic of 2020! Time to Finish the car!
So like most folks in March of 2020 I started to realize daily life was about to change. We didnt know how it would change but it would be profound. So I seized this opportunity of being stuck at home and off the road to finish my life’s work...... my unfinished song, or symphony. At this point I only needed labor, not much money to finish it. My Magnum Opus was about to be completed and debuted to the world...

Final assembly begins

First project was to get my O2 sensor bung installed for a future injection project so I could reinstall the exhaust system.
Here are photos of that mini project to weld it to the stainless steel passenger side header collector. The welders out there will notice my basic set up for back purging Argon on the backside of the weld to ensure a good long life reliable weld. Then a little metal polish to finish it. I dont weld.........but I know a guy! The pic got rotated but the O2 sensor will sit about 8 oclock position. Not ideal for sensor life, but its not visible, I’ll just treat the sensor as a maintenance item.

[kitcarbp]

Here are pics of the stainless exhaust system that came with the kit from WCC

[kitcarbp]

Heat shields under budget. So after shopping around for heat shields they were all over my budget. The prices made no sense to me for a simple curved stainless plate. So I ordered 304 stainless cut to my dimensions including nice radius’d corners that Chip Foose would approve of. I purchased the Stainless heatshield clamps from Finishline years ago and installed them. I had to relocate their mounting standoffs for my application. I took my flat pcs of heatshield to an architectural steel fab shop to run these through sheet roller for the exact radius I needed. All done these cost about 50% of aftermarket shields

[kitcarbp]

Oh. Forgot to post my humble garage with no lift to build the car ( except the body and paint that was outsourced) I used only one side of my garage to build the cobra.
Its not the size of your toolbox fellas, its the dude behind the tool that matters. Lol.

[kitcarbp]

Ok so the biggest lesson learned ( of about 1,000 lessons) on my build is never underestimate the labor it takes to make your hardtop fit to your Cobra Body. Since this was my first Rodeo, I had no idea. I shot my budget to hell on getting the hardtop to fit correctly but the results are priceless! The hard top took over 40 hours of cutting, glassing, and sanding and repeat ! to get it right. Here are progress photos.

[kitcarbp]

Here are the Southco brand hard top fasteners I used. The ferrules are custom machined from stainless bolts.

[kitcarbp]

So The body shop was finished with the car and hardtop in 2015 but the hardtop still needed the black stripes. The underside of the hardtop was still unfinished. One thing lead to another ( life) and in 2016 the hardtop was still sitting at the bodyshop without the stripes but cleared. Then the bodyshop calls and says they are closing up business, come pick up your top! So I was there the next day and bought home the worlds most expensive unfinished hardtop
Fast forward to the New Pandemic World we are living in May 2020 and once I mostly assembled the car and got some miles on it, the goal was to have my hardtop ready for October 2020 for a big Hot Rod event in Ocean City MD. It was the 19th annual pilgrimage to Mid Atlantic Hot Rod Mecca for about 3,000 registered hot hods and another few thousand that just show up and cruise the coastal strip. Its called Endless Summer Cruising OC , every October
Enough Story, here are the hardtop completion photo progress
I had picked out the foam backed headliner 2 years prior. I also wired in a modern LED dome light

[kitcarbp]

May 2020

Here are more hardtop progress pics