No idea Dan...I have not been on CC for a while or here or there at best BUT you have my contact info and can email me anytime. I notice the weather striping on the trunk. It's ERA stock which is 100% fine. The original car came with a rectangle weather stripping which I bought from a guy in Duranga, CO that restores AC Aces. Relatively inexpensive and there is a specific pattern it was installed. If interested I can give you more details. Believe it or not the WS did not go around the entire truck not did it for the hood. Also, two pin holes for drainage in the front hood corners. I can go on and on!

Lastly and this is something you can change now. The original cars did not have carpet behind the seats. From wheel well corner to wheel well corner it was vinyl. I just bought the vinyl from ERA to do this upgrade.

Again, all little details but it's what floats my boat.

Good to see you posting again Frank. Hope all is well with you, yours and your Cobra. Wish there was more happening here in CT as far as Cobra runs & events. Hope to see you one of these days cruising the shore.
Rich

I looked around for weatherstripping and ordered a bunch from various places but except for some rectangular for the hood I lucked into from McMasters, I didn't have any luck finding a suitable one for the doors and trunk that was skinned on all 4 sides. I needed a thinner weatherstripping on the hood than for the doors and trunk as there isn't much room there and 3/8 thick WS was going to bind the hood up and cause it to sit high. I went ahead with the ERA WS on the doors and trunk. I may change later. But, I have lots of different rolls of various weatherstrippinng laying around in the meantime if I ever find a need for it.

You may have started something with ERA as they did send me vinyl for behind the seats. It took me a while to figure out where the roll of vinyl went but I finally did.

I have drilled the drain holes in the lower corners of the hood and plan on running the hood weatherstripping as you describe (even drilled a small drain hole in the bottom of both doors in case water ever gets in there).

I'm not going to be up to your standard on originality but some of those things I can address as time goes by.

Thanks Frank

Hi Dan,

If you're going to put the hood weather stripping on in segments instead of continuous, you may consider a little trick I learned from an ERA owner. When cutting the weather stripping, pinch it between your fingers and cut at an angle. That gives the ends a nice tapered appearance instead of square cut. I don't know how that fits into the originality theme (probably doesn't), but would look nice.

Regards,

Kevin

I think it's less standard and more craziness!

This is the info for the "most correct" WS I could find. The original WS actually had metal flake/thread like material pressed into the strip itself.

Ron Leonard
Sport G T Motoring
1812 Crestview Dr
Durango, Colorado 81301-4932

Phone: (970) 259-0108 (970) 259-0108

Thanks Frank - is it fairly soft and compress pretty easily? The clearances around these opening in a fiberglass car aren't too uniform in areas - tight in some and wide in others.

Dan

Seeing I have the same car as you I would assume it not to be an issue but can't say for sure. I'm pretty picky and I had no issues with it. Maybe it was raised a bit when I first put it on but I quickly compressed it (hood and trunk) and left it in the sun. No ridges at all and it's been on for years...again, if you go this route there is a specific pattern that it needs to be installed. basically all around the opening but the WS stops about six inches from both from corners. Truck is the same but SW stops on two bottom corners.

Well, this was a big weekend for progress. Finally got the motor and transmission in the car and I'm beat.

Anything worth doing once is always worth doing twice. I realized I pounded in the wrong pilot shaft bushing (steel) instead of the bronze one I found. So, I tried the trick of filling the cavity behind the bushing with grease and using a deep socket that would just barely slide in the hole and then pound it with a hammer. What do you know - it popped right out. Also, the trick of putting thie bushing in the freezer for awhile before driving it in works like a charm.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...P1010005-1.jpg

I didn't remove the breather from the back of the block the first time and of course it wouldn't clear. So, it had to come back out and the breather removed. After that, the motor really did drop straight in although there isn't much room around it.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...P1010006-2.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...P1010012-1.jpg

Also, I knew my weak back and 170 lb frame was going to need help hefting that iron toploader into place so I figured I would sling it and use the engine hoist.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...P1010015-1.jpg

Of course that didn't work because the bellhousing is just too far up under the dash and the sling was blocked by the dash cowl before the transmission could move far enough forward. I also discovered my Muncie transmission dowels I was going to use to guide the tranny in wouldn't work because Ford used smaller bolts to secure the toploader to the bellhousing than GM. So, plan 2 was to try to use the engine tilter but there wasn't enough room for it either. Plan 3 was a flat piece of steel bar the I tied to the transmission and secured to the engine lift with a chain. That finally worked.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...P1010017-1.jpg

Finally, everything is nestled in place although I have a lot of odds and ends to put back on the engine. It looks like the exhaust headers are going to be a lot of fun to install.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...P1010018-1.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...P1010019-2.jpg

It't a relief to have all that done without scratches, chips or slipped disc. Miller time has started. :)

Dan,

Congratulations !!!

Never ceases to amaze me just how big those 427/428 motors really are compared to a 289/302. The manifolds will be challenging, I had to do some trimming and fiddling to get my FIA headers & exhaust setup to fit properly and I had a lot more room to work with!

Keep those pictures coming, car looks great! :D

That trick with the pilot bearing was really slick. I always wondered how one would remove one after it was pounded into place.

Did you soak the bronze bush in oil before installing??

No, I didn't. I had read conflicting reports on if that did any lasting good or not. I had thought about soaking it in a pan of hot oil, but in the end I just gave it and the pilot shaft a light smearing with Mobile 1 grease. Fortunately, my habits are that I never sit for more than a moment with the clutch disengaged and trans in gear. I usually park it in neutral and let the clutch out at lights and when idling.

The things use to be impregnated with oil years ago but they don't seem to do that now when you can find a bronze bushing. I didn't feel comfortable using a sintered steel bushing in there.

Thanks - yes, it's tight. But it does fit. John (Grubby) had said it could be dropped straight down with the clutch and bellhousing in place. I had the clutch in place but left the bellhousing off. I think I would have had to do a little manuvering to get it in with the bellhousing on it. Tilting the motor is of no use. It needs to go in, straight down and level.

I still need to check it out with a level and may have to move it around a little on the mounts before tightening them down. The transmission mount has a some adjustment up and down and I guess I'll have to do a little checking of u-joint angles to make sure I end up with a couple degrees deflection to ensure the needle bearings rotate.

Just put the transmission output centerline at 3.5" (+/- .25") above the top plane of the X-member. If you have the Jag-based suspension, the differential angle varies as the suspension goes up and down. Matching angles with the suspension unloaded will not work.

We've used that height spec for 30 years, and never had a problem with the drive-shaft.

Bob - this is a timely note. I was just getting ready to write about this subject after playing around with an angle gage on the drive train this evening. I'll set it at 3.5 inches.

Thanks

Jeeez - no body warned me I should have dropped the radiator in the car before installing any front suspension parts. I thought I would take a few minutes this morning to drop it in and it won't go - the lower outlet kept getting hungup on the pass side upper a-arm bolt. After taping and padding a bunch of things I was finally able to twist and turn the radiator enough for it to slide by that and then thunk - it hung up on the sway bar. So I had to remove the bolts from it so I could pull it down and get the radiator to fall into place. And then of course the top mount and baffle are a very tight fit and took a lot of fooling with. My 15 minute job took about 1-1/2 hours finally. %/

Not much progress lately - too hot this summer! Now I have some other projects I have to get done. But I did get my 2-1/2 inch tail pipes for my undercar - rear exit finished up. This thing will breath through the exhaust anyway. I decided to paint them with high temperature paint since they would be pretty awkward to ship off for plating. The headers, head pipes, mufflers and clamps are going off for ceramic plating. I plan to also wrap the portion of the tailpipes behind the tire since I will only have about 1/2 inch clearance on either side. I will have a hangar at the rear of the muffler and at the tip of the tailpipes (hanger is shown). I also have a bracket at the high point behind the tire that will bolt through the aluminum panel to the structural frame rail in a tapped hole. Rubber hangar material washers will isolate the hangar. This will rigidly hold the pipe laterally in position behind the wheel so it can't move around.

Also waiting on a fabricated rear intake manifold breather from Survivor Motorsports to solve the interference problem with the heater hoses.

I need to start on the wiring next and once that is in I should be close to firing it off at last.

Dan

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...psfcbb8a1b.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps77d5bec1.jpg

Must have dozed off at the computer and double posted.

Finally - a nice Fall day. Finished up insulation in the cockpit and also most of the wiring installation. Still have to put some sound dampning on the trunk floor before carpet.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/IMG_1663.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/IMG_1657.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/IMG_1655.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/IMG_1656.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/IMG_1653.jpg

Fantastic job, Dan!

-Allen.