Cobra Tool Kit - redux

[Dan Case]

There is like many subject Cobra/427 Cobra, is disagreement on jacks. I will agree that most cars 1962-67 received LJ22 jacks. I have a however though. Go back to 1984. I was hunting an original jack. Another owner, an original owner of his car, wanted a genuine production run HP289 camshaft so he could return his Cobra back to street specifications after his foray into racing. I had camshaft in a FoMoCo tube with a shipping label dated in 1963. His had his original jack. We swapped even up. The jack he pulled out of his car was a 12DL. The LJ22 and 12DL are similar but not the same. One cast what appears to be a forged saddle and one a cast saddle. The retainers that keep the concentric inner outer thread sections from just going around without extending are different sizes and will not interchange (tried it). My take on it is that they were built for different maximum load capacities.

Anyway, back in the 1984-85 time frame, long before I started taking pictures of variations, I found a small percentage of Cobras with 12DL jacks. Since then people have been standardizing on the LJ22 whether or not it was correct for their particular car or not. There are variations in tool pouches, wrenches, wrench clamps (holds the individuals together in a bundle), pliers, and screw drivers so variations in jacks actually does fit the small car company mold so to speak.