Overview

This blog is intended to document the build of my Gardner Douglas Mk4 Cobra; partly as IVA evidence, bit primarily to help others learn from my mistakes and/or successes.

I will endeavour to post as often as possible, with a view to entering a single post for a particular element of the build process, however inevitably some things may not be completed in one go. All posts will be tagged so it should be easy enough to find the information you seek.

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Saturday 2 September 2017

Rigid Brake LInes

The rigid brake pipes come coiled as a kit already flared with the fittings installed, these were uncoiled and straightened by stretching them between myself and a friend.  The shorter of the two is for the front and the longer is for the rear, the kit also comes with a couple of 'T' pieces and the flexible hoses for each brake.

Front brakes
The 'T' piece was loosely bolted to the pre-installed rivnut adjacent to the lower diagonal brace mount, this was tightened fully once the pipework was complete.  Starting at the front a handheld pipe bender, I created the first bend then offered it up to make sure it was right before continuing with the next.  This process was repeated until all the bends were complete.

The pipe route is shown in the pictures below:
From 'T' piece, along lower frame and under engine mount...

...continues along lower frame then up round tube to aluminium block.

The flexible hoses are different lengths, the short one goes right and the long one goes left

Rear Brakes
The rear 'T' piece is bolted in the centre under the frame above the front diff mount, the rivnut here was a little loose so I tightened it with a spare bolt and a couple of nuts.  I used the same process of offer up, mark, bend, check, move on as I did for the front pipe, starting at 'T' piece and moving towards the alloy block.

Two shorter rigid pipes go from the 'T' piece to some brackets where they meet the flexible hoses.  The brame was drilled and tapped for the 'P' clips.

The pipe route is shown in the pictures below:

From 'T' piece along right hand upper frame rail...


...up frame rail above gearbox...

...final right angle to alloy block.

Right hand side from 'T' piece to flexible hose bracket

Left hand side from 'T' piece loops under fuel pipe, functional but not pretty, will redo this!

Fuel lines pt1

Fuel Line
The fuel line is the bigger diameter pipe in the kit and comes coiled up with a 90 degree bend at one end, this bend goes at the front.  I carefully uncoiled the pipe, you can buy pipe straighteners but I found pulling on one end whilst a friend holds the other does the job perfectly well.

The pipe runs along the left hand top chassis rail to just behind the body mount, then dips down slightly to avoid the handbrake cables, over the front diff mount before doing an 'S' bend outboard and over the driveshaft.  I drilled and tapped the frame to secure the pipe with 'P' clips, adding a little grease in the holes to hopefully stop corrosion.

90 degree bend approximately 25mm in front of cross member

Routed along right left hand top chassis rail...

...slight downward bend rear of body mount...
...over front diff mounting plate...



...'S' bend outboard and over left hand driveshaft.

Chassis Collection

I was hoping to use the August bank holiday weekend to assembly as much of the chassis, thankfully GD had it ready for collection on the 23rd so I booked the day off work.  I have a double garage but with shelving all down one side and other equipment down the other, it would have been a squeeze with both the body and chassis in there. I didn't want to just leave it outside so I had to think outside the box.

Old 4 man tunnel tent is a perfect fit for a Cobra!
With the garage clear I set off to Grantham, roof bars fitted and trailer in tow.  I had previously dropped of my engine/gearbox at the open day in May as GD needed it to fabricate the engine mounts, so that would go in the trailer, the chassis on the roof and the many boxes of other bits filled the boot.

Chassis is only about 75kg so easily goes on the roof (didn't do much for my fuel economy though!)

Thankfully I have a large estate car
The first task on the list when I got it home was to lay everything out and identify what goes where and with what etc.  It turned out there were a few bits missing but a quick email to GD has those in the post.
Front suspension components

Rear suspension components