Possibly spring will turn a new page
 

We are in the middle of our second, perfect spring-like day so I started #782 up and couldn't resist taking a short drive on nearby streets of our small suburb that are actually maintained and were not turned into gravel roads like Little Rock and No Little Rock this winter. I'm not sure when Little Rock last did a street overlay - possibly several decades ago. And they can't seem to understand why south of the river, the streets all look like bombed out sections of the Hanoi highway. Some sections of boulevards were nearly completely shut down last week by all the vehicles with bent rims and blown tires scattered all over the road due to crater sized potholes.:JEKYLHYDE Fortunately I live north of the river.

The engine noise seems to be solved by the exhaust gaskets. No ticking noise at all on start up - just some light sewing machine like noise when it got hot. I need to change the oil and get the 10W-30 out of it for some 15W-50 per KC which may quiet it a bit more.

Turn signals didn't blow the fuse so that's good.

Brake noise is gone after sanding the pads.

Good start to spring - hope it lasts. :)

Hey Dan,

Good news - hope you can get some miles on the car this Spring. We have pothole issues around here as well but they're already out in force filling them. We had some good rain to wash the salt off the roads so hopefully I'll be on the road soon as well. Our area used to use salt mixed with gravel which left a lot of gravel debris but, for some reason, they didn't use gravel this year, so that's good. Easier to dodge pot holes in the Cobra and will just avoid driving at night for a while - that's when you really can't avoid them.

Glad the issues you were working on seem to be resolved.

Kevin

Glad you got your issues worked out, I think I may have inherited your exhaust leak. I have a slight ticking sound on the driver’s side and I'm not sure if its at the heads for slip joints. Just something to look at next time its raining.

It won't. Something will break soon, it always does.:cool:

Forgot to include that my speedo now is dead solid at above 20 mph. Below 20 still hops around a little. I figure the cable is running a little rough in the sheath at low rpm so with some more miles I hope it will continue to smooth out at low speed.

Kevin - they increased their use of salt here this year for some reason, but we have also had a lot of rain so that isn't so much an issue. But the sand and small gravel they spread with it is still windrowed down the gutters and lane divisions. Fortunately our small community does the minimalist approach which is just fine with me - at least half the people out on the bad roads shouldn't be there anyway. I wasn't kidding about the Little Rock area potholes - they actually had 2 and 4 lane roads shut down last week for all the disabled cars scattered about in the lanes with flat tires.

Gary - good luck with the tick. The little piece of tissue paper stuck on the end of a long rod is about as good a tool for checking gaskets and connections for exhaust leaks - but still not great. I basically had to disassemble mine before I figured out I had a header bolt washer trapped between the block and the header flange.

Aw man - I'm trying to be optimistic. Don't be a doubting Patrick. :)

Dan,
Glad to hear that spring is showing up for you. I usually can take mine out at least once a month through our entire winter. Had it out yesterday morning to give a ride to a friend who had never ridden in a Cobra before. It was great!
What did you do to your speedo cable? Can you point me to the thread? Mine swings at about 40mph and I need to address this some day this spring.

I sure hope you have tons of miles of smiles in your stunning ERA this summer Dan. I sure love that car!

I think there's more than one possible issue with these but it appears mine was due to the play of the inner cable in the outer casing. The inner cable is about 5/16 inch +/- shorter than it should be and if it shifts up towards the speedometer unit, it ends up barely engaged in the plastic gear and can start to strip and slip in the plastic gear at the transmission.

Someone said they made a little spacer to fit over the cable in the connection up at the speedometer so I made one out of a piece of aluminum tubing. But then I found a bunch of small washers that were a perfect fit inside the upper ferrule and the square cable head fit through the center. I stacked a bunch of them in there after doing some rough measurements (probably 7 or 8 of them) and that keeps the cable shifted down towards the transmission and well engaged. I also pulled the center cable out and got some graphite dry lube and lubed the cable good. It came out of the casing from the speedometer end. I also kind of tugged it around to where all bends in it were as great a radius as possible (didn't really change anything much). The combination seemed to steady it quite a bit and it seems to be getting better with more use. Above 15 to 20 mph it's really steady now.

Might be something here that will help.

Here are some threads pertaining to it:

http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/era-...ng-little.html

http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/all-...le-bounce.html

I have found that if you don't drive your Cobra, then nothing breaks. :p

Dan,

Enjoy the car and do not spend too much time worrying about small things like not being accurate below 20 mph. Hell, the car does not want to be running below 20 anyhow and how long are you there, a second? :roll eyes: Enjoy and don't let Patrick get you down. He's just jealous that your car looks so nice and isn't a funny shade of "What did the dog leave on the carpet now?" :eek:

I just made mine more accurate by slightly lifting the cable as it goes into the speedometer. I think the cable is slightly worn creating a little slack in the square section where it goes into the speedometer.

Phil

I'm not surprised. I noticed as I wiggle the cable on mine the whole gage display moves around inside the speedometer housing. The good thing with the reverse reading speedometer and the reverse adaptor is that it allows for some repositioning to get a good approach for the cable.

Cool. I thought about using some white plumbers tape to use as a spacer to make the square part of the cable ever so slightly bigger. I will drive a while and if it gets finicky, I will go that route before replacing the cable.

Phil