Gearbox & body materials
 

Rebel1 ratios are the thing, I dont really need a great high gear so I can cruise at 130mph, so a 1.1 will do me on either 3.27 or 3.08 rear end ratio.

Are you contemplating the straight cut gear set with the G Force or the road helical cut gear set?

Grumpy, yep you are right I wish I had done the repair in polyester resin, mixing different mediums is not the best. I read where epoxy is better for repairs and bonds very well with polyester, but probably for glueing stuctures etc, hope it should be right, not a big area and I am going to post cure it, and then fill with Epifill or suchlike. Time will tell and the body shop said they will handle it if it becomes a problem.

With Respect %/

Not wanting to debate what can be a super technical discussion involving the various properties of resins and laminate/composite engineering..I will refer any interested parties to the following FFR site moderated by a professional auto car refinisher who has, over time, perfected the fine art of repairing and refinishing cobra bodies and who I believe has repaired/painted a variety of cobra bodies from a variety of manufacturers.

http://www.ffcobra.com/FAQ/body2.html

Note his comment : I grind the seams and cut the body open and fill the seams with 3M vinylester blister repair filler in one day.

There are very real advantages for the use of Vinylester, read the various posts on the subject in the forum "Ask street rod painter"

http://www.ffcobra.com/cgi-bin/ultim...1000&submit=Go

Lastly, Many have used the west systems epoxy resin in preferance to 3M Vinylester. ( also commented on that forum) This I do think is an overkill but, if one wants the best...why not.

I guess it is similiar to the finish we use on our cars. Mostly we use a colour coat and a clear top coat over predominently an epoxy primer surfacer. Why do we use this top of the range finish product when a lesser refinish product will do the job??...because we want the best!!!. We want it to look great, and look great for as long as possible.

Using that same argument...why not use the best top of the line repair systems/fillers under that top of the line refinish?

Cheers

Ant..Re Gearbox and my thinking....

I've got a 3.31 Jag rear ratio and am running 295/50/15 rear tyres.

Also got a speed limit on our roads of 100 - 110 Klm....At a tyre diameter of 26.6 inches and a cruising speed of approx 105Klm with a .63 5th gear, the motor would be revving to say approx 1700 RPM....far too low..it would be off the cam. At a .80 5th gear it would rev to 2200 approx..much better.

My want is to have a good highway cruise rather than a high top speed.

If I go with the G-force it would be the helical unit although I have heard excellent reports about the straight cut unit.

Noisy tho. :D

Body fillers and transmission
 

Les,

Thanks for your input, the guy at the paint shop agreed with your ideas, the worst that can happen is due to expansion on a hot day the epoxy might expand differently to the polyester, but its not on top of car, and with a good coat of epifill etc................!
The painter, who has a waiting list of customers and does overseas classic cars, did my first Cobra (sold) 12 years ago in a paint called "clear over base rapid application? break that down and it was called officially Cobra paint, it wasnt the best compared to modern paints now, but I visited the present owner and its in absolutely concours unmarked condition - it had an epoxy filler about 1/4-3/8" thick on top of guards in places, as the body was an early poor example, we spent the best part of a year on it getting the gaps and shape right.

Transmission, I will go for a Richmond five speed with a 3.04 first gear instead of the 3.28, and being 1.1 top gear, and run my 3.27 or 3.08 that gives me respectively in top at 6500rpm with 27" diameter tires (160mph, 170mph) anyway its all theory at this stage. The biggest decision is what diameter wheels to run if I get 15" slicks I will stick to 15" and I dont think there is a very good variety in 16's!

Epoxy and Coremat
 

Rebel1,

I would like to tap your knowledge on epoxy again please, my car has Coremat to stiffen the last 2-3" of mudguard edge, I have ground into it to do a further repair! My question is as Coremat originaly had a binder in it designed to be used with polyester resin, I hope epoxy is compatible with this Coremat?
My main repair was bonded partially onto tapered Coremat, I am probably being to fussy as its non structural!

Hi Ant, as long as you are bonding onto polyester inpregnated cormat which has cured then the bond will ok.

However, dont lay coremat down with epoxy because you'll end up with a gooey mess.