Now in my possesion

Having completed our road trip to collect the Cobra from Absolute Pace and getting it settled into it's home, I was faced with the drama of working out where all the bit go.
And just when you think you have it all, more parts turn up.
When you see all the parts laid out on the bench, it becomes quite a daunting task to identify them. There are 13 compartment boxes with all sorts of nuts, bolts and different fittings and all quite clearly labelled once you can find what you are looking for..
I purchased this Cobra as a package that included everything I need so I am not running around looking for bits and pieces. Not only do you have all the parts but it is a very cost effective way of building a Cobra.
In my next post, we start the assembly of the components.
See you next time.

Cheers

Russell

Body and Chassis Meet for the First Time

The chassis has been completed with all the hinging points mounted and the body has been trimmed and cleaned up and is now ready to be fitted to the chassis.
The body is lifted on to the chassis and an alignment jig is attached to ensure that the profile of the body maintains it's correct shape.
With the body correctly aligned to the chassis, pre made fibreglass mounting profiles are firstly fitted to the chassis with screws then bonded to the body. These mounting profiles run under the front fenders, under the dash area, around the rear bulkhead and rear boot area and along both sides of the exhaust tunnel.
Once the alignment is confirmed, the body is removed and final bonding of the mounting profiles is carried out
Tabs have been incorporated into the body mould for the fitment of a piece of timber to maintain the cockpit gap when removing and installing the body.
At this stage the cut outs such as head lights, tail lights, bonnet scoop, vents, side pipe and roll bar holes are done. The body is then refitted to the chassis and doors, bonnet and boot are fitted and aligned. It is at this stage of construction that I take over.

Until next instalment.

Cheers

Russell

Body Construction

The Pace 427 body consists of full gloss, perfectly straight body panels constructed using high carbon content composites which are very light weight (around 46kg) and a lot stronger than fibre glass. The doors are constructed from a carbon/kevlar combination which gives additional protection for the occupants from side impact



A wide choice of high gloss gel coats are available and the finish straight from the mould is exceptional to the point that unless you require a show quality finish, paint is not required.
I have chosen to go with the black with either a wide silver or satin black strip with narrow 1/2" stripes on either side of the wide stripe

The body, once removed from the mould is sat in a rack that holds the form of the body until it is ready for trimming. In the photo you can see the rack that holds one body upright and another on top upside down.

The body goes through a trimming process where all the rough edges are removed and a general clean up takes place. The body is placed aside for general curing ready to meet up and be matched with it's chassis. More on this next post.

Cheers

Russell

Back Tracking...

While I was waiting for my body and chassis to be built there was a lot going on in the back ground and I would like to bring readers up to date on the process.

Once I had figured out the way I wanted to go I ordered a Cobra with finishing kit (this kit contains all component to finish the car including wheels and tyres, no donor parts except drivetrain) from Absolute Pace in Queensland. I decided early on in the process to keep the asthetics as near to original as possible and very old school while the suspension and drive train would come into current times.

The pics above are of the all aluminium monocoque chassis construction process through various stages.

Next post I will go through the body construction from laying up the high carbon content body to completion.

Cheers

Russell

It's been a long time coming

I finally picked up my Cobra from Absolute Pace on 29th August. A friend of mine and I did a road trip from Geelong to the Gold Coast with our trailer to pick up the car which I thought was the better thing to do as I do not completely trust the freight companies with so many boxes of bits and a perfect outline of a Cobra to be seen by all. At least if it was in my possession and things went wrong, well, that is my fault but after 3800klm we got back in perfect condition.

The trip went very smoothly and my co driver was good company as he is a car nut as well so he has taken a lot of interest in what I am doing. Probably the only issue we had was the cladding of the trailer was popping rivets to the point we had to pull over and tie the sides of the trailer together

Having got the car back home, we just rounded up the neighbours and lifted the body and chassis onto a trolley that I made
Then started to sort out where all the bits go.

I am a long way down the track now but I will post more pics in the next few days.