Door Locks and Cards

It took a full day to do this, much fiddling and fettling. I didn't take many pictures whilst actually fitting the locks so here is the drivers side finished:

We marked the rough position using the door card, then cut a nice wide slot for the striker. The driver's side striker had to be spaced off with 4 ugly washers. The passenger side only required 1. The passenger door doesn't quite seem to fit flush with the lock, possibly the addition of the door seal is pushing the lower edge of the door out a bit. May require some future fettling. Door cards were easy, drill some holes in the correct position and tap it in. I say easy, the passenger side took me 4 goes at getting the holes right, but fine in the end. Door hinge finishers also fitted, and door seal.

You will notice of course that the lower hinge estutcheon thingy is the wrong way round. I shall correct this, then immediately fall on my sword. As an aside, we found these very tricky to position as they have to fit right up against the door seal lip and the body isn't quite flat there.

Fuel Tank

I painted the mounting straps for the fuel tank with a few coats of Hammerite and seeing that the car is on axle stands for gearbox removal it was a good opportunity to fit the fuel tank for the last time. The filler neck also went on, and the earth strap. I was pleased to find when we did the straps up good and proper I could get my hand between the front of the tank and the De Dion beam, something I was a bit concerned about before. Oh, also we drilled out and re-did the rivets in the boot floor so the flat rivet heads were underneath, instead of the knobbly ends digging in the tank as before.

Handbrake

We were a bit apprehensive at fitting the handbrake as the forum is full of posts about people having trouble with it. The rear cables went on easy enough, bit fiddly with the clevis in each hub but not too bad. Its worth saying that the handbrake components in the hub came fully assembled and all I've done is just pop the rear brake disc over the top and  hook the cables on so we have missed out on a lot of the difficulties that others have described.

Right, handle on:

The cable then routed through the bulkhead as low as possible whilst still clearing the chassis lurking behind. The front cable then routes round to the half moon thingy.

I pulled the cable as tight as possible on the threaded section on the equaliser above so all the adjustment was taken up at the handle. It was then a case of adjusting away (easy with no seats) with Naomi turning the rear wheels by hand until the handbrake shoes grabbed. The IVA manual says the handbrake must hold the car on 4 clicks. As the car was in mid air we don't know if it will hold it but you can't turn the wheels by hand. Not the same as parked on a slope I know, but still it would appear to work. The IVA manual doesn't say how you achieve 4 clicks. I had to straddle the handle with one leg outside the car and pull like a mad person.

Clutch fork removal (and gearbox)

No sooner was it in, now its out almost immediately. The clutch fork needs shortening, therefore it needs removing first.

After browsing the cobra club forum and reading that gearbox removal is impossible without the engine also being removed (or at least off its mounts and shuffled forwards) I was a little apprehensive of attempting this, but not completely deterred.

First, I supported the rear of the engine with a nice big bit of wood under the flat-bottomed sump. I was a little concerned about this but didn't really have a choice as my borrowed cranes have all gone back to their homes. Max reminded me that most of the engine weight is on the mounts so it should be fine.

Right, so, back of engine supported. Gearbox on hydraulic jack (with wheels) aligned fore/aft. Remove fixings from bellhousing and move gbox+bellhousing backwards.

For some reason I thought at this point I could reach in, pop off the clutch arm and remove it. I forgot about the flywheel and clutch. So, next step: remove bellhousing from gearbox and put it back on the engine.

Our spirits were high at this point and I somehow managed to remove the bearing from the fork and manipulate it out of the bellhousing. Unfortunately we were deflated slightly by the gearbox being jammed in the chassis to the rear so at this point it couldn't be removed as the splined end would clash with the opening in the bellhousing before it was at the required angle to take the gbox out from the top.

The bellhousing cant be removed as it wont clear both the flywheel/clutch and the gearbox shaft. Solution = partially remove bellhousing and dangle it on some string off the scuttle hoop, then heave the gbox around (taking some nice chunks out of the chassis powder coating of course) et voila!

Re-fitting is the reverse of removal.

More clutch clearance issues

Does it ever end! Decided to fit the clutch slave cylinder now that someone explained which way round it goes (oops!) and I was met with the following:

I can just about squash my little finger in the gap. Obviously this is bad. I've seen solutions on the forum of chamfering the corner off the chassis but that sounds extremely drastic to me. Local makers-of-metal things Mackays in Cambridge may have a job to do for me, namely a bracket that raises the slave cylinder by 10mm or so. The slave also needs to move out 5mm as its jammed up against the oil filter. It's a good job I'm not fitting the oil cooler immediately as the sandwich plate on the oil filter won't fit with the slave cylinder there. What a mess!