Before I could fit the roll bar I had to do a straightening job on it or should I say a spreading job. The lower section of the bar had closed in by about 12mm and wouldn't line up with the pre-cut holes. I had to enlist the help of a patented roll bar spreading tool.
Once the roll bar was at the right dimensions and fitted through the holes in the body, I fitted the lower roll bar brackets and positioned them in the correct location.
I found that I had to relieve the holes in the body quite considerably to allow the brackets to locate and to also allow the rear support bar to obtain the correct angle so it would align with the bracket in the boot. The tricky part of this is the gap that the rear support bar goes through is less than 1mm so the geometry has to be pretty well lined up, Pace certainly had a think about this.
One of the things I paid a lot of attention to is to make sure that the roll bar is easily removable and the tightening of the bolts doesn't sprag everything up. This is not an important issue but to me it is just good engineering.
I purchased a 13 row oil cooler to mount in the mouth of the Cobra purely because I reckon it looks good. When I started to fit the cooler it became apparent that I needed a much taller cooler to fill the opening that is there for this purpose. The reason I went for a 13 row cooler is because that is what the Cobra fraternity recommended. After a bit of research I found a 16 row unit that fitted the dimensions perfectly
With this new oil cooler, I used a standard aluminium 50x25 U channel for the lower mounting bracket and a top mounting plate and it worked a treat.
One of the problems that I did have was the steering backlash that was proving very difficult to diagnose. I first thought the rack was defective as you couldn't feel the movement in the steering shaft. After a lot of messing around and being aware that the steering universals only had one lock screw which fixed onto the round part of the column and not the flats was a very bad idea, I removed the universals and drilled and tapped for an additional set screw that clamped onto the flats of the steering column. Once I had reassembled the column and tightened every thing up, I was staggered by the difference this made to the free play in the steering. I could not feel any movement prior but once I had clamped onto the flats, it was obvious where the movement was. I am a very happy camper.
Another little trick to remove play in the steering column was a bearing devised by Dave Stean in W.A. that fits into the steering column shroud and removes all side play in the column and centralises it all. Bloody great idea.
Another neat feature from Pace is the steering lock shroud, just finishes it all off. There is a bit of cutting and jigging around but it fits perfectly.
The original hole that Pace had provided where impossible to bolt to as you could not access the nut to fasten it so my mate Darryl came up with the captive nut system which solved all the problems.
Ok, my auto elec has called and is now free so lets get the Cobra over for final wiring of all the extremities like head lights, tail lights etc.
In an earlier post you will see a tilt tray trailer that I used to get my car to the elec but unfortunately that got stolen and I had to use a tilt tray truck which fitted the job after some very skillful driving in a small cul de sac.
In my next post, all things being equal, we should hear the patter of little Cobra feet or maybe the roar of a 5.0 Ford coyote. Damn, I can't wait. Hope I can put a 1st start video on this blog.
See you when the smoke clears,
Cheers Russell
