Projects DRAG SNAKE "Vintage Terror!"

You didn't.

 

Well we are back on the Cobra. We had a quick hiatus to work on my daughter's Riviera. The kind of work going on there (cutting, grinding and welding in new floor pans) jept the freshly painted Cobra in the corner and covered. Lol

But this weekend we got the shop back in order. Today Dad started polishing the Wimbledon white. Of course he already knocked the paint down where needed with 2000 wet paper. Now he is starting with Meguires 105 compound.



She is sure cleaning up nice. We are about start the reassembly process.

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Starting with 200 looks pretty good, must be some good compound.

 

Man, what an awsome team you and your dad are, you are both lucky to have such a good working relationship.
Enough with the mushy, the clocks ticking, better get after it.

 

I hope you mean THE FINAL REASSEMBLY PROCESS.

 

For Now! LMAO!

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Burning the late night oil. On the final polishing stages.



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Looks nice Randall, tell dad to keep up the good work. Not like we have heard of what you have done.

 

10,000 comedians out of work because of Covid shut downs and here you are...
LOL

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Besides I have a few other cars on my plate this week. Lol



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We we got a lot accomplished today. We got all the lights back in and installed permantly now. We also rewired them all properly and cleaned up any loose ends etc. All the wiring is now nicely tucked away in mesh harness looms and mounted up and out of the way. We also got the bumperettes back on mounted firmly in place. It took a while to track down all the body grommets for them but I finally found them all etc.

Now the license plate holder and light was a different story. While it had been installed before we had never taken a look at how it actually got wired up. In typical "Prince-of darknes" Lucas protocol it had complicated internal soldering needs. But we managed to get it together and in place hower ever we had to drill hole in the trunk lid (yikes) for the wiring.


My vintage plate is tweeked a bit, from nearly 60 years of laying about somewhere...LOL! To address the issue I created a reinforcement plate to mount it to before mounting to the holder. It worked really well. However after mounting it neither Dad nor I liked the angle. The original style bracket, which mounts the plate (plates) only at the top sort of pushed the bottom out a bit at an odd angle. We decided to utilize the bottom hole, put a rubber stopper on the back of the plates and mount it to the trunk.


Yep you guessed it, two more holes in the heavily over worked trunk. Dad was sort of twitching as I marked and drilled the holes. Can you blame him....? LMAO!

 

The stupid thing though, after all of that work the crazy Lucas lights work just as expected. Well at least close...I mean normally you would think flip the switch and nothing...Right? So take a look. They actually work, however they basically shoot light everywhere but the damn plate! LOL

 

Front end back together and wired as well.


Headers back on as well.

 

Up late I see. There is no rest for the wicked. What do those guys know ?

 

Yes...well we had a little detour back through brake land. During the light reinstall on the rear I crawled under to wire up the brake light pressure switch. When we tested it, there were no brake lights. So I crawled under to make sure the butt style connectors were secure and on the right poles etc. That is when I noticed we were leaking brake fluid (profusely) from the pressure switch "T" fitting. From where it was coming from it was obvious one of my amazing double flare jobs was not so amazing. LOL

Honestly I did not like where he stupid switch wound up anyway as the length of the brake line we were using basically precipitated the original placement. But at the time that is what we had so that is where it was placed. Since we now had the opportunity to do it right, we snagged a new line (12" longer) and put it the whole set up in an area where we have much better access to it etc. By the time we got it all back together and ready to bleed the brakes again, we discovered we were out of brake fluid. Par for the course. So we just left it and installed the headers instead. LOL

But we are getting there!

 

This photo was posted on a Facebook group I'm a member of. The young woman is fashion icon/model Twiggy (in a transparent plastic dress). The car was identified as an AC Ace. How would one be able to tell the difference?

 

Look under the Bonnet. (Hood for the Yanks)

 

Haha, yeah! I was just wondering how anyone could tell just by looking at the portion of the car that is visible in the photo.

 

Somebody, PLEASE get that girl some cheeseburgers!

 

Google her and you will see she grew into a very beautiful women. Even at 70 I would let her sit on the fender of my car. Lol

 

Riiiiiiiiiiight.


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Now I don't want to start a trend here with girls and Cobras but I do have a couple of favorite "VINTAGE" pics with some interesting subjects.


From the movie "The Killers" a very young Angie Dickenson poses in front of Cobra. Now supposedly this is the same car, later shot red for Viva Las Vegas. It was on loan to MGM and when it finally came back it became Dragonsnake number one.


And this is Terry Bagley. She was actually a secretary for Shelby. She posed for several shots with a Cobra the day she took part in Carrol's racing school. Not too many people know about it but Shelby ran a race car driving school for the Cobras. Probably a good idea!

 

Fuel fill cap location. ACEs and Cobras used different locations. ACEs had caps installed on the ridge of their rear fenders. The prototype Cobra had its cap off the fender away from the side of the car and production Cobras has theirs installed in the center of the rear cowl between the top flange studs and boot lid.

Late in production Shelby American ordered chassis specifically for racing. On those chassis they had AC relocate the fill caps off the center line of the cowl to the right. The large quick fill caps Shelby's works used would have enough wind induced lift around them to literally pull fuel splashing around in the tank out of the car to make a cloud of fuel that could literally get to the back and neck of the driver. Not good. The first fix was adding sheet metal windscreens for caps and the final fix was move the cap away from the driver and perhaps an remote tank vent (don't remember any more).

 

Thanks for the explanation!

 

It is not the first Dragonsnake CSX2019. CSX2019 was red and used in the movie Viva Las Vegas before being converted to a drag racer and painted blue (the paint it still wears).


The Cobra used in the movie Killers was black and a chassis later than CSX2024. CSX2001-CSX2024 had zero provision for cockpit heaters or windscreen demister (a.k.a. defogger). Messrs. Hugus and Shelby had racing in mind not creature comforts. It wasn't until a first batch car was purchased by someone in a climate that a heater was to the buyer a requirement that any thought of such things came up. That early Cobra got something cobbled up to satisfy the buyer. Heaters got added to the chassis requirements from AC Cars. AC Cars started off with what Ken Rudd used in his Rudspeed ACE RS2.6 Ford powered cars and modified the design for Cobras. Delaney-Gallay (spelling?) made them heater systems. CSX2025 was the first new chassis incorporating a heater during initial construction with all changes required from wire loom onwards.



Between CSX2019 and CSX2068 several chassis were used for public relations, press cars, and in movies. Some of the invoices charging production companies for use of Cobras still exist. Historians have not zeroed in on which car was used in the movie Killers but it very clearly had features later than CSX2024 including an AC Cars installed heater demister system. The candidates are black cars and there was more than one ‘loaner’ that was black.

 

You are welcome.

 

This shows that cap location

 

Thanks for correction, Dan. Always great have to your wealth of knowledge on board. I had read somewhere that they used the same Cobra in both movies, although I wondered about it because in Viva it had a shorter windscreen etc. Thanks again, good to hear from you.

 

Kinda of a long day in the shop but we got quite a bit accomplished. I started out to just do a quick rear brake bleed from the before mentioned brake light switch edit. My daughter did the pumping and we knocked it out but when I crawled in to just check the pedal, I could feel it moving a bit. You know, that tiny little release, barely noticeable but enough to know something is not tight somewhere! Ahhhh!

It didn't take long to find it, it was the rear mastercylinder. It was leaking between the boss and the copper crush washer. To be honest, I remember not being very happy about Tilton's approach to sealing the outgoing lines. I removed the fitting to have a look and it was obvious, the copper washer was a bit too large. No one makes one the perfect size so after giving up searching, we had to modify one ourselves. It worked so well that I took the time to remove and replace the rest of them, (front brakes and Clutch) just in case. But that killed the better part of the morning.

 

After getting it all back together we sat about the real task for the day, finishing up the cockpit fire walls etc. I have been putting off doing the rear section but today was the day.

I started with the passenger side and after making a really good posterboard template, I cut it out of .040 aluminum and popriveted it in place. It looked really good. Then we flipped the pattern and it fit the driver's side like a glove. I went ahead and cut it out etc. However before could install it, we had to make some decisions on the seat belt harness mount.


Now a very long time ago, even before the body was on the car, we sat the seats in place and decided how high the should belts mount point would have to be.


We placed a roll cage bar across the back between the two solid upright mounts. As you can see that is what the belts are laying over in the photos. With the driver's side seat in place before we moved forward with the rest of the rear firewall, we made sure those measurements still stood! And as you can see, they did.


Just to be sure, I hopped in and tried them on for size. No issues, they are in the perfect spot.


I did run through the gears real quick making sure I had full range of motion etc. Everything seems to fit just as planned.


We looked around a bit for something to installer on the driver's side rear firewall to allow the belts to come through but that would not run the risk of fraying or wearing the belts over time. I had a few Simpson belt slip buckles laying about so we decided to use them. After marking and cutting the slits in the panel, we pop riveted them in place.


Of course at some point it will all be covered in a loop carpet but for now, we can at least finish their installation. We have a few small corner area and trim pieces to install and of cours the trans tunnel but we should be able to knock that out tommorrw and get her all sealed up.