Hand brake relocation

I was given a lot of advices during this build. Most of them are simple: plan your build, then build according to that plan. The beauty of this project is that it's possible to build anything and everything. It is also the problem of the build. There's just no end to all the "good" ideas that "need" to be implemented.

However, sometimes things just don't work out. My hand brake was exactly that. I got all the parts out of the box. Then, I bolted everything in place. Then, I realised that it's all horribly busted.

The hand brake assembly was hitting the mounting bracket.

If you were to look inside the transmission tunnel from the top, you'd see the cable rubbing against the frame.

Also the aluminum panels would not let the hand brake move freely.

I checked with others and it was consistent. Lots of trimming and filing would be required to get the assembly working correctly. And then, some creative tricks to help the cable move around the frame. All that meant the modifications had to happen one way or another. I picked up my cutting tools and ...

The cable bracket was not so complicated and was easy to fabricate new.

After some welding in very awkward poses, it looked like this.

Of course, a double coat of rust proof paint made it look like it was meant to be there in the first place.

And all assembled it looks like so

A side from making the hand brake work, there was another added benefit from moving the hand brake from the passenger side of transmission tunnel closer to the driver. Apparently, the driver with all the harness buckles done up cannot rich for the hand brake. If you are like me and put your seat belts on as a first thing getting into the car without even thinking about it, then you'd find yourself undoing the seatbelts to release the hand brake. It sounds like frustration already. Throw in the five point harness without easy release button and the frustration grows to the whole new level. The new location is just between the driver seat and gear shifter. It's very accessible and looks better too.

Lights on

Here's the story. The wiring is this scary monster that no one wants to deal with. I know many car guys around here. None of them would advise me to mess with the wiring. Frankly, I am the same.

However, during my planning stage of the build I evaluated my options:

1. Do it the Factory Five way. Take all the donor wiring and shove it wherever possible. It's easy. It should work. It just does not sound right.
2. Do it the right way. Take a box. Put all the wires in it. Mail it to Art at wirediet.com. Enjoy your life. But I am cheap and don't know any better. Hence, I ain't doing it this way too.
3. Do it the hard way. Well, if the guy in US has a business that does it for big money I can do it myself. This is a sort of logical progression of thoughts, no? Too bad you were not there to tell me otherwise. I am going this route.

The idea is simple. The donor car is a complex car that has a lot of electrical systems. Moreover, the donor car has a lot of mechanical systems with additional electrical systems controlling them. Now, my cobra has significantly less mechanical and a fraction of electrical systems. Take air conditioning for example. Obviously, the hardware is not required. That alone means that the clutch and pump wiring is not required. But that's not all, Ford has a monitoring system in place to keep the pressure in check. Also, we have wiring for ECU that ensures that the motor runs well with the additional load and that the cooling fan is operating at proper speed. I did not mention yet that the blower motor is not reused and all the controls and knobs are in the garbage bin too. I think it's clear. There's a bit of unused wires. Extrapolate it to include Ford's fancy sound system, convertible top, day time running lights, air bags and collision detection, power seats, power doors, power windows, and even, wipers and windshield washer. This now sounds like a lot of extra wiring. The wires are heavy and bulky. This is where the diet is required to loose some unwanted weight for the sake of going fast.

This is what I have to start with

 It looks manageable from this angle

  

I also armed my self with the official Ford wiring diagrams. It's amazing how Ford makes it's documentation available to everyone for a small fee. I paid for 3 day subscription to access wiring diagrams on motorcraftservice.com. I basically went through all the diagrams and printed the relevant ones.

Next step was to ensure that I don't mess it up. I wanted to be able to get the engine running. This would mean that all the essentials are there. More importantly, the OBD2 would give me hints at what is broken.

It is not pretty but it does not have to be. It just has to work.

And work it did! Let's tone the hype back. After all, all I did was connect all the plugs together as they were originally in Mustang. If it worked there it'll work here. Time to have a beer anyways.

Cooling system goes live

The task at hand is to mount the radiator and run some hoses. How hard can that get? There's even a page in the build manual with step by step instructions and illustrations. It reads like this: step 1, take a metal bracket and rivet it to aluminum radiator ... That's where I put the book down. That manual never stops to crack me up. If I were to do exactly as they say, the aluminum radiator will come loose after a few heat cycles. After all, the hot aluminum will expand far more than the mild steel and eventually loosen up all the rivets. I generally avoid dropping vital parts while driving. 

Let's look at what Ford had for their radiator support. No surprises here. We have some steel brackets with rubber bushes. I like that. I will use that. Of course they don't fit. Cut, weld, drill, spray paint, bolt it up.

Nice! It looks like it was meant to be there from insertion. Yes, the peg you see is the one that usually holds your kitchen cabinet shelves in place. There was no room for another bolt but that peg will do the job of preventing mount from rotating.

And the radiator is in! It's never that easy. I still need to come up with some sort of lower radiator support. For now, a bunch of zip ties will hold it up. 

This is the lower hose with the fill tube build into it. It has to stay but with a small alteration. 

Time to connect the dots.

Here all the parts were joined with stainless steel tubing and the cooling system was completely sealed and ready for water, at least in theory. I did fire it up and run it. The system was burped accordingly and eventually the heater joints showed the signs of leaks. It turns out there are some missing o-rings in those fittings. It would be nice if they were included as part of the heater kit or at least mentioned somewhere in the documentation. I found out about their existence after intense googling. 

So maybe I was too ambitions to say the system was "going live". However, as with many aspects of this build, is anything ever done or finished? The o-rings will be put in once I do the wiring behind the dash and pull the heater out. The lower rad support will be built once the body is on and the final incline of the radiator is determined. For now, it's done.

A short, 2 year, break

Some say I am a slacker. Or that I gave up all together. But all we know is that I had to put this sticker on my car.

Yes, Top Gear is back. Well, it's officially called Top Gear but is not the show you might think of.

Anyways, I took a year off from the build when my daughter was born.

And then another year off, when a lady smashed into my Subaru. :( I gave it a lot of thought and consideration and replaced it with the same Subaru but in gray. :) And once again, I had to put all the good things in Subaru that make it my car. Of course, that means putting that sticker on.

However, the Cobra is not forgotten. More to come.

Heater valve trick

It's never as simple as it looks. Here's my example. Say you want to have a heater in your Cobra. Sure, just add a heater. Vintage Air have a kit for you ready. In the box, you will find everything you need to install it. I am sure you could install it properly following the instructions too. However, it may all go south right after. Small caveat is that Ford is not designing things with logical mind. Apparently, the coolant flow from one cylinder head to the second on the Ford V8 engine is routed via heater core. Wait what!? This would mean that in the summer heat you'd still have the "heat" on. That can't be right. Yeah, I don't fully understand the madness of that engineering decision. Actually, I did not give it much thought. All I know that it's not going to work for me well with the good old shut off valve that comes with Vintage Air. Luckily, it did not work for Ford too. Rumor has it, Ford Ranger the same issue and was equipped with one of these:

It's the heater by pass valve. Back in the day it was cable operated. Then it was blessed with vacuum actuator that is completely useless to me. But extra parts are never a bad thing. Let's get to install all this. Once again, a set back. The heater core has these AN-6 or -8 fittings soldered to the it. These mate with some 90* barbed hose adapters. Long story short, there's no room in the engine bay. The heater bits are literally a quarter of an inch away form the cylinder head. It may work but I am not conformable. If the engine vibrates enough it may come in contact and the hell will cut loose and ... you get the idea. Obviously, I can make it better by breaking it

After a trip to the local Home Depot and some pipe cutting and soldering - voila!

That shortened the pipes by an inch giving more than enough room for engine wiggling. Now back to that valve. Once again, it just does not work the way it is. The vacuum actuator is pushing to open while my cable needs to pull to open. Basically the direction of opening and closing needs to be inverted for the valve to work with Vintage Air knob. This time I went to the local hobby shop. These guys build air plane models of some sorts. But they are friends with anybody how "builds" in general. They gave me some parts that they use for actuating plane bits with radio control servos.  I found some piece of plastic in the garage and mocked up valve

I gave it a test run and it proved to be plausible. Out come my grinder and drill to produce this final result. 

I then installed this on the car with all the 4 hoses hooked up. Now, when the valve is "shut" all the flow is sent through bypassing the heater core. However, when the valve is in the "open" position the flow is sent completely via heater core. All the positions in between will divide the flow proportionally. Thus, the flow from one head to the second head is never compromised one bit. I have to agree that the spider looking setup does add to the already busy looking engine bay. Oh well..