I was lucky in that I only had to remove/replace mine one time after discovering I ordered the wrong gaskets. The very back - lower bolt on the driver side was easiest to get to on my ERA from the open transmission tunnel area. Your car my not have that capability or you may be well past that in your assembly. Our primary pipe bolt holes are slotted and I usually installed the lower bolts loose, slipped the pipe on and then thread the upper bolt in. Easier said than done however on the rear pipes. I kind of have a little advantage in that my hands are not large. I think I also used an ignition set wrench from Sears until they were snug. They are much thinner and shorter for tight areas. They are left over from the days when everyone had points in their distributors - but hey, that's still me. But I had to get a full size wrench on to give it the final tightening.

If you figure the location and angle carefully, drill a 2" hole in the footbox (holesaw in fiberglass) from the inside at the lower bolt's location. The last pipe (on my ERA) moves forward (not down covering the bolt) and you can get socket and extension in there working from inside the car.
Make a 2 1/2 aluminum cover plate and dab a bit of silicone to cover the hole when done.
Been there-did that.;)

Still kickin
 

It's been a long time but I got back to work on the car a little today. Had a long break due a swimming pool and self-performed landscaping project.

Installed the street hood. Too late I realized I would have to pull the radiator closure plate back off to get access through the nose to install the hinge bolts into the hood with the hood laying in the closed position. At least the exansion tank clears by about 3/8 inch. I wasn't sure it would.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps7ce077c8.jpg

Installed the side louvers. These stupid things were the hardest part of the car to paint and try to get a smooth finish. Finally ended up color sanding and polishing out by hand. Of course on the passenger side I had to dissassemble the wheel well to get it in. Another episode of backwards assembly. While I was in there it looks like for a street car, my headers may angle down a little more than sidepipe cars and there is enough clearance for a future project to modify the battery box to drop it down a little lower to a more stock location and so there is better access to the top of the battery.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps57f50f54.jpg

Trial fit the Trico washer bottle. I got this from Mickmate. It's a correct bottle but the top is a little different from the originals. But, hey - it's a replica so close enough and it has the nifty Trico decal. It clears the hood latch, starter relay and footbox in what seems to be pretty much the stock location so this looks successful. I thought I would have to relocte the relay to the stock position on the fender well but I think I will leave it for now.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps24a8cf5f.jpg

Next - install some carpeting so I can hang the doors in position and work on covering the back bulkhead in vinyl. Also, need to change the oil to get the breakin oil out and install the oil temp sensor in the pan.

That looks pretty nice. I'm enjoying this thread, and I've been missing the updates! And you can't post too many pics.

Thanks Patrick - I'm hoping to pick up the progress a little now.

Dan, that looks great. I like that fuel log too. Which one is it?

Dan - looks good. Can you tell us more about the trico bottle top re: originality? It looks fine to me?

- pity i only just saw the other comments on sidepipe fitting from a few months ago - thanks guys. The trick, I found, was to go jack up the entire car and go in underneath - 2 man-job - 1 above to guide, one below to tighten the bolts - 8 hours of hard graft later, pipes fitted.

Thanks Lippy - I'm not sure about the fuel log. Keith Craft furnished it with the engine. I'll look at his bill later to see if he listed the supplier.

Kevin - I have some pictures from Mickmate or 428Street somewhere of the correct Trico top. It may take a while to find them. From memory the fluid outlet is located in a different location on the cap and I think pointing the opposite direction. Otherwise, I don't remember a lot of difference.

Yes - multi-piece headers are a real pain. Glad to be past that stage for now.

Dan:

Enjoying the updates. Just snooped around your photobucket a little and viewed the start videos...not sure how I missed those before, but the car sure sounds healthy at idle...looking good!

- Allen.

Lippy - the fuel log is from Blue Thunder.

FullChat 289 - yeah, I'm a little surprised myself at how healthy the engine sounds myself. The cam is not a lot of duration but does have a lot of lift. Thanks.

KevinW - this isn't the photo I was looking for but I think this does show a correct Trico bottle. The fill port and outlet are located differently on the cap. But - he's missing the nifty Trico decal. :D

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...lackCobra5.jpg

A bit of a milestone today as the car actually left and re-entered the garage under it's own power. I don't know how big-foot PatrickT drives one of these things - the pedals in mine are spread further apart and I can hardly manage to hit only one pedal at a time. I'm going to have to search around for some real narrow shoes.

The clutch is problematic - I have the slave cylinder piston compressed until it's almost bottomed out and the clutch is still engaging barely off the floor. And I think the clutch still needs a little more disengagement as it's difficult to shift and engage the gears with the motor running. Shut off the motor and it shifts smoothly between gears. I guess I will have to adjust the clutch pedal to ride a little higher so I can depress it a little further and hope that takes care of it.

On a good note I checked the suspension ride heigths and they are almost right on the ERA specs of 5-1/4" front and 5-3/4" rear. The rear is about a 1/4 inch high.

Video below if you click on it.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps363acd6d.jpg

Enjoyed that, and looking through your Photobucket collection.

Hi Dan,

Good milestone to reach. Your exhaust sounds great even on laptop speakers, so I can only imagine how good it sounds in person.

Regards,

Kevin

Congrats on the first drive!

Changed out the break in oil in the motor today and also installed the oil temp probe in the oil pan. Not sure it's working though as I didn't see any gage movement when I restarted the engine. Possibly I didn't run the motor long enough.

Replace the leaking 3/4 brake master with a 7/8 master cylinder - but that's addressed in another thread.

Noticed my fuel pump was leaking gas under there. Apparently I only thought I had tightened the nipple for the incoming fuel line so at least that was an easy fix.

I can see I have one brake fluid can leaking. I sucked the fluid down in it and will try to pull it off next week and re-seal. Two out of three holding brake fluid is decent luck I guess.

Also found a pin-hole leak in the soldered flange of my radiator expansion tank. I bought it used here on the forum knowing it might be a mistake. Guess I'll see if my local radiator shop thinks they can re-solder this small area without any difficulty. If not then ERA will be getting some more business.

Worse than the above so far, I rubbed the back of my hand against the forward primary header pipe feeding oil temp probe down there and it came back covered in black powder. I took a paper towel and rubbed the header pipe and bare metal showed up. I guess the ceramic coating has failed for some reasons. It's the only one I see doing this so far. I may be able to remove that pipe (front - left side) without having to dissassemble the whole exhaust system - probably not that lucky however.

And my charging system still refuses to charge. The angry red light continues to glow.

Couple steps forward and a couple back.

Looks and sounds great Dan. Get those last couple of issues dialed in and go get some break in miles on it. Idling in the drive doesn't do it much good.

Thanks Nick

I'm back working in that direction - trying to get enough issues taken care of that I can fix the leaks, hang the doors, install windshield, tighten up the suspension bolts and install the transmission tunnel and give it a trial run.

Photo build log -
 

Since I'm currently in a reverse mode on my build of #782 I thought I would go in and clean up my Photobucket site, delete some duplicates, do a little labeling and generally straighten it up. Anyone interested - here is a slide show link.

ERA Cobra Slideshow by dclemans | Photobucket

Slideshow fixed. Runs in proper order now.

Demolition of problematic parts accomplished today. It's not as much fun removing stuff as installing it - especially the exhaust with all the slip fit joints.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...13e9a039-1.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...213a3da6-1.jpg

The exhaust is going back to the ceramic plater to be re-done. The expansion tank is going to the radiator shop to see if the pinhole leak in the tank seam can be fixed. If not I'll be in the market for a new one this time. I'll re-seal the girling brake fluid can myself.

Maybe I'll be back in forward motion in a month or so. :CRY: