Unbelievable Story

[Ian XII COB]

It's Friday 26th July and I'm sitting at my pc feeling fed up and dejected, where should I be... I should be at Leighton Buzzard, 3 hours into an SVA test... but I'm not.

I thought it might be good to share my tale of woe with you all... well at least it will give you all a laugh. I think I should join the cobra club and write this in full as an article for Snake Torque.

Body shell arrived in August 1999; I spent most of the winter and spring working on it when I could bear the cold of the garage. Had the shell almost complete, all holes done, wiring loom fitted, all seams flattened down. I decided to give the gel coat a very light flattening with 1000 w&d to take out the very slight surface orange peel. What do I find the gel coat over the top of the body is about paper thickness; soon as I rub it it just goes through to the glass underneath... no good for finishing as a polished gel coat. Discussion with GD results in a promise of a new shell. I must say that GD were very good about the situation and explained that my shell was built by a subcontractor who they had since sacked and brought the body shell manufacture back in-house. 5 months later a new shell and I start all over again.

In the mean time I meet an Australian guy who is also building a GD. He has a scheme to have his Chevy 383 built in Australia. Sounded like a really good idea as the Ausie dollar is at an all-time low making the engine a very good deal. We placed the orders with a promised delivery of 2 Chevy 383 motors end January/beginning February 2001. This date comes and goes, there is all sorts of reasons for the delay which my friend family checkout and appear true. Time ticks on and progress is made but just not as fast as we were promised. Photos of the engines half built arrive and we pay the next instalment. It is now end April 2001 and still no engines. At this time the company starts to get difficult to get hold of, and another couple of months goes by with failed promises. We then hear that the owner of the company has closed down his business without ever supplying our engines. Frantic phones calls to Australia reveals that he has passed the build of our engines over to another engine building company so it looked like all is not lost. However, they spend the next 2 to 3 months trying to get all the remaining bits out of the original company so they can complete the build. This fails and we were left with no choice but to start litigation against the first company to get our money back. So now besides building a Cobra I also find myself running a court case just for the fun of it! Take this as a warning to anyone considering ordering an engine from abroad!!!

I then have to save some more funds to buy a second engine, which I ordered and arrived 4 weeks ago. Over a long weekend we assembled the engine to the Trmec and install it in the chassis. We are 15 minutes from the first ignition, I just wanted to bleed the clutch and open and shut it a few time to ensure that the clutch plates are fully aligned. It's a twin plate clutch with a hydraulic bearing in the bell housing to open the clutch, should give me a fairly light clutch peddle. Then, you guessed it, there is a problem. The banjo fittings on the release bearing are not sealing properly. So we do not risk starting the engine and start the job of removing the body, engine and gearbox to investigate the problem. We started at 6pm and by 10pm had the whole car stripped down again.

Over the next week the hydraulic hoses are checked by Think Automotive and they just say that they have tightened them up and they will not leak again. Last Thursday evening we start reassembled the car (getting pretty quick at this by now... any one need a good pit crew) All seams to go together well and by Friday 5 pm we start bleeding the clutch again and can't believe it but there is still a leak from the bell housing area. Anyway to try and keep moral up a little we decide to start the engine. This time I was happier with the clutch alignment as we did it with the gearbox in place and the bell housing removed.

We had primed the whole fuel line to make the starting easy, and on the third pull the engine burst into life and sounded really great, apart from a slight noise for the first few second that sounded like a stuck starter. The noise went away and the engine ticked over happily at 1000 rpm. No leaks.. thank god.

We turn it off and let it cool before starting the job of dismantling the whole car again. Three and a half hours later we are splitting the engine and gearbox, and sure enough there is a problem with one of the hoses. However, the leaked fluid looks grey so I put my finger in it and it feels like grinding paste. Panic looks like something has destroyed itself. Looking at the gearbox input shaft sleeve reveals the problem. There is a three and a half millimetre counter bore in the end of the sleeve, which was not there before. The clutch builder has got his dimensions wrong and the sleeve was pressing against and distorting the rear of the two clutch plates. The sleeve got so hot that it had temper colours along it and had cracked for half its length.


So this week I have got Think Automotive to re-make all the hoses and this time they will be tested. I have also had the good luck to find a company with a Tremec sleeve in stock in the UK. This has now been machined to reduce its length and give ample clearance. On the banjo I will also be using Dowty washer seal and not the horrible copper compression washers that keep leaking.

Tonight we start again! And hopefully third time lucky. This is the story why I'm sitting here at my pc and not at the SVA test station.

Surely I must hold the record for the most problems encountered whilst building my Cobra. But I'm still determined to get this thing working and I’m sure that when I do I will forget all about the problems I have had... well almost.

PS do I hold the record for the longest post ever?

Ian

[robert]

Ian

You have my sympathies, I know about the sub-contractor you mentioned, as always, the first couple of bodies were very good, and they subsequently went downhill. I can remember Andy sending a number back.

Thankfully, Paul at GD is sh*t hot with his GRP work upstairs where they make the bodies.

The engine saga is very dissappointing, and just highlights the issues when buying from abroad.

Robert
Forum Admin

http://www.cobraclub.com/flags/UK.gif

[kdavies3]

Ian.
You have my sympathy too.
I've just had to beef up the drivers door on my Dax as it had the oposite problem the back of the door where the door latch is positioned was all gelcoat and no glass fibre, consequently after a few slams setting the latch the door cracked and split.
Luckily it's happened before I had the car painted. I've repaired myself rather than go back to Dax.
There's also a few patches on the shell where the black gelcoat has no colour so thats another reason I'm painting it rather than polishing up the gelcoat

hope you get sorted

cheers

Kev Davies

[wilf]

Ian - sympathy for when the build goes wrong, I guess most of us who built our cars had problems to a greater or lesser degree.

If you want to cheer yourself up, then take a look at Andy's stories at www.cobralads.com

Apart from anything else they are a great read. This guy destroyed two brand new engines as well as a multitude of other bits. And is still smiling. His nickname is "the butcher" - you will understand why once you have read a few of his tales.

Keep your chin up - it WILL be worth it in the end, and all the more satisfying because of the issues you overcame along the way.

Wilf

[breskit]

Ian,

I can only further sympathise with you. I sometimes wish I had sufficient funds that I could spend out on a new engine. As it is, I only spent out £150 for mine and reconditioned it myslef (thanks to Haynes!). so if things go wrong for me it is a little less painful.

However, I hope that the new engine you have works well for you and let's hope that the rest of you build is much, much less worrying.

Tony B

PS. These sunny days make me wish I started my build years ago!

---
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tony.breski

[Ian XII COB]

Sunday night and things are looking a lot better!

Car is all together apart from trim and a slight brake problem. Engine fired up again but this time with no noise, and clutch works fine.

The change from copper compression washers on the clutch hydraulic release bearing banjo fittings to Dowty seals cured the leak problem. The mod to the Tremec input shaft sleeve has worked. It has been reduced in length to 80mm and now gives the twin plate clutch enough clearance.

Clutch is very good with a fairly light peddle pressure and very good feel. I have had a slight problem getting the brake peddle pressure very good, it goes down about half way and is very spongy. This is despite most of Saturday evening and Sunday morning bleeding the brakes. Is this a known problem with GD's ? and does anyone know of a cure?

Electrics all worked, except for the battery charge light stays illuminated, although with the number of times it has been run yesterday and today I think it must be charging. The battery still seems to have plenty of charge.

All going well I hope to have the car ready for SVA in 2 weeks time.

Ian