February 2000

3rd February 2000

iscovered a small leak from the header tank. It's a one off special that Crendon supply. They're made from copper with a soldered lip. John makes them in two halves, a top and a bottom, and then creates a flange that is soldered. The leak is only a very very small one, but enough to warrant doing something about it. So I bought some Bars Leak to pour into the cooling system to hopefully stop the leak. When I arrived home from work and thought I'd have a go at this little job. I poured the Bar's Leak into the cooling system and followed the instructions. Which basically meant running the engine up to operating temperature. While I was running the engine at tick over, a neighbour from across the road came over and asked if everything was alright. I explained the situation and then he said "We can't hear our television".

I said "What do you mean?"

"We've turned up our television to almost full and all we can hear is your engine booming away in the background and drowning out the sound of our television."

I gave my apologies and explained that I didn't know that it was causing an annoyance. We had a good laugh about it, but it did curtail any further tinkering for the night. In future I'll have to turn the car around so the exhaust pipes are not facing directly towards their house.

4th February 2000

John from Crendon phoned today to see if we wanted a come over to his workshop as the Discovery channel where filming a programme about a guy who had built a cobra replica. They wanted some other cobras and their owners so they could talk to the people and film the cars. As it was sunny and dry as Jill and I set off. When we got there we were greeted by eight other cobras and their owners. We had a great day being interviewed and filmed. My car was also photographed to appear in the Club section for the Kit Car magazine. So I'm looking forward to seeing the programme and article.

6th February 2000

I went over the Crendon to pick up another header tank to swap the one that had the small leak in it. When I returned I fitted it and even this one had a small leak although it was smaller than the previous one. I phoned John at Crendon to advise him and he is repairing my original tank. I also swapped the HT leads, for a set of 8mm Moroso leads. The original ones were fine, but their routing left a lot to be desired, so I thought I'd invest in a new set and re-route them. They certainly look a lot better that the previous ones.

11th February 2000

I fitted a rear view mirror today. It's the same specification as the original mirror on the 427's and it's a pig to fit afterwards. However the mirror was not 'E' marked so there was no way I could fit it before the SVA test otherwise the car would have failed. Fitting the mirror after the event took more effort that I anticipated. I could not drill the holes to site the mirror with the windscreen in place, so I had to take out the windscreen. Plus I could not get my hand behind the dashboard to fit the washers and nuts to the bolts without partially removing the dashboard. Thankfully the Crendon makes things easy because it is designed to have a removable dashboard. Even so I was a struggle to fit the mirror. After about three hours work the mirror was proudly sitting on the dash and looking the part. I'd reassembled all the parts I'd taken off and was admiring my handywork. I moved the mirror slightly and heard a cracking or glass. Yes, the mirror glass had cracked! So after all that effort the mirror had the last laugh. Luckily I can just replace the glass without too much hassle, but it did make me smile - afterwards that was - a long time afterwards.

12th February 2000

I ordered some black and silver number plates today for the car. They should be in stock in a couple of days. I also fitted the wing emblems which I'd decided some time back I wasn't going to fit. I had to put in some side indicator repeater lights to get through the SVA test. However, I decided today to remove these and replace them with the 351 Ford Windsor plate. The plate sits just above the wing louvres on either side. When I sited the repeater lights I knew that I might change these eventually so I sited them in a position that the holes would be hidden by the plates.

Took the car for a little run today. It's now on 460 miles and due for it's first oil and filter change at 500 miles. I'm due to go to Le Mans in it this year so I need to get some miles on it beforehand.

13th February 2000

The weather today was cracking. I had some work to do indoors before I was allowed out to play. Jill and I managed to put about 40 miles or so on the car. As I said before the weather was great, clear blue skies, cold but not uncomfortable once we were wrapped up and the heater chugging away in the background. It felt really good to be out in the car.

26th February 2000

Ordered some carpet and carpet edging today as I'd received the plans from John at Crendon for the carpet layout and the hood arrangement. I've decided to do the carpeting myself with Jill's help. The layout is quite easy with no major kinks or difficult areas. Well that's the theory anyway.

I fabricated some small end caps for the door seals today. They fit up by the door striker plates on the top of the weather seal. Up till now I'd placed a small drop of sealant to hide the end of the strip, but the cap does look much neater. I also fitted some new black and silver number plates that I'd ordered. They certainly make the car look a lot more period looking.

27th February 2000

I started to make templates for the carpets out of brown paper. I used a black marker pen do get the lines against the paper and then cut against the lines with scissors. I then edged the brown paper with tape to make it stronger and then re checked the template for accuracy.