Projects DRAG SNAKE "Vintage Terror!"

Well we are just about finished with door mounting. The completed passenger side went on and looks about 90 percent. Pretty good for our skill level in this arena. And last night we duplicated the custom mounting work to the driver's side hinge and got it installed. We also did the initial trim out on the out and inner skins. Here is the hope for the big day off tomorrow: Quickly finish the door mounting and set it aside to bond etc. and then remove the body.

There are a ton of final (cut on the dotted lines) to remove mold access etc. from nearly every edge of the cars body and roof. After that is all cleaned up I will start all the final chassis welds. If all goes well between our well placed mid-week Celebration of Independence and the ensuing weekend, we will hopefully be very close to back together and ready for the Meltdown Drags! Yes that is correct...the Cobra is headed to the Meltdowns.

So about two months ago it was painfully obvious to me that we were not going to be race ready by the Meltdowns. It had been a very lofty if not totally unrealistic goal in the first place but what ever keeps you motivated right? Anyway we have a lot of respect for the event and the great guys that work so hard to pull it off every year (not to mention the hand picked competitors). So I emailed them to pull the car out of the show and give someone else a chance to race in this amazing event. A couple of weeks later one of the founders called to say the group has been following the build and while they are disappointed the car won't be there but they completely understand. Then he asked if maybe we could bring it anyway and display it.

I was blown away by the gesture and of course accepted the invitation. To be honest we had an amazing time last year making a couple of 9 second blasts in the Austin but the best times we had all weekend were just hanging in the pits and visiting. So the Cobra will be there pit side (in what ever condition we end these next couple of weeks in). We are just going to go hang with the car and soak up the pure '60s drag race ambiance of the event. So if you make it to the show come by and say hello. It will give you a chance to critique the build in person...LMAO!

 

A little piece there for shows. In the real world it will be 24" wide by 36" tall and will stand on it own etc. I am doing one the same size that describes the original DragonSnake program and has photos of the handful of original cars in action from back in the day. It will tell the whole story of how they came to be.

 

Well obviously it is the 4th of July. A few minutes ago Dad set up a tube behind the cab of the decorative '40 Ford in our front yard. He asked my 18 year old daughter if she had a smoke bomb in her bag of fireworks...she did.



It was funny but the bomb was sort of a dud. Zoe said here this is a better one and unsuspecting Grampy lit it off!



He really should have seen that coming. LOL... Happy 4th to all and all have a fun and safe night!

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On a more serious note we did spend some productive time in the shop today.
We finished mounting the driver's side door, adjusted more on trunk fitman and started disassembling the body.



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Did you you mark everything?

 

One of the last tasks before removing the body is cutting the hole in the new outer skin and making sure things fit. In the limited shade beside the shop we measured twice, marked twice and cut once!


Then we installed the hood, crossed our fingers and closed it! Like a glove baby! But we are only halfway home. Will the new taller hood scoop clear the Webers?


Survey says? .....Yes!


Plenty of room to breath. And after holding our breath for a bit...now we can breathe too! LOL

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Yep...bagged and tagged..lol

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After finding out for sure the Webers weren't sucking on the bottom of the scoop...LOL...I decided to check the original 289 scoop that came with the car. I read some where when the cobras ran the Webers carbs they had to have a taller scoop. Later on I understand they used the 427 scoop??? So I sat the original scoop on there and sure enough, it just sat on the top of them and then still missed sitting on the hood by a good .75"!

We did some trimming to clean up the new scoop. Trying to decide if we want to rivet the unit in place (as the originals were) or if we want to use some small bolts to allow us to remove the scoop in the future if we needed or wanted to etc.

 

Thumb tacks.


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I've always thought cars with riveted on scoops looked racier than moulded in.

 

According to my "Cobra" historian/expert...all of them were originally riveted on. In fact, he said they did not come with a hood scoop (talking about the non-team cars etc.) unless you requested one. All of the hood scoops were fiberglass. There is an interesting article about them....I will try and find it and post it...

 

"Thumb Tacks?" Come on Gammz it is a Cobra. You can't just thumb tack it together you know. It's not like it's a Ranchero or something! LMAO! How are you guys doing? Ready for the Meltdowns! The old hot rod is looking pretty cool, been following some of the progress on the Meltdown thread (I like the graphics!)

 

We are ready to go. And Rancheros take duct tape man! Maybe a chunk of bailing wire here and there.


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Love your build! Your build sheet is saying Moiser Axles. Should it be Moser? Not sure.


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Yep...typo...thanks. I need to proof all the text before we print them.

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Final fitment tonight on the last door. Just about ready to lift the body off the chassis.

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Did you consider cutting the shorter scoop so the tubes fit tightly out the top, could look drag racy ???

 

We actually did consider it. Dad mentioned if neither of them fit that we might need to cut holes in them and expose the Weber throats through the scoop. ....AND it might have looked cool if things were on more of a level surface. But with the engine tilting down a bit towards the rear and the drastic drop in the hood from the cowl down to the front, only the first set set of them and a small bit of the row two would make it up and through. The rest would just be empty holes. Fortunately though the taller scoop fits.


The one issue I have with it is the lip is very thin (too thin). When I say lip I don't mean the part that gets riveted to the hood but rather the leading edge. We are going to address that before we install it...sort of beef it up. Right now it is about and 1/8" thick, I think we need at least 1/4" or so to make it look right.

 

The second one was the 40 on Nitro

 

Some small diameter copper tubing is easy to form and could be fiberglassed to that edge easy enough.

 

Actually the leading edge was too long anyway, as you might have noticed, sort of angled forward too from the hood up to the leading edge of the scoop.



So we marked it at a straight across point (much more Cobra like). Then before cutting the leading edge off we marked it about .75" forward from the final proposed line.

After carefully cutting both lines, I had a small toss away end piece, a .75" wide strip and the rest of the scoop that now looks correct. Then we took the strip and bonded it to the under side of the scoop right at the leading edge...





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Now we are just sitting around watching filler dry. Man I hate body work!



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Dad is one pin hole seeking son of a gun! The Cobra looks like it has a bad case of poison ivy...lmao! Off to get a steak while the calamine dries!



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Told you! Now I need a nap!



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Much better...

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Body is off...taking a break and cruising to steak n shake in Dad's coupe. Plan on burning the late night oil tonight welding after it cools off...

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So after we got back from the cruise-in, we hit the shop in the cool evening air with a brand new roll of blue painters tape. We began at the front and worked our way to the rear carefully marking every point that needed to be finish welded. After we were complete we did one more pass over to make sure we did not miss anything. Then came the daunting task of removing all 84 pieces one at a time and laying some solid welds in their place.

I don't have a photo of the finish work but I spent nearly two hours just on the Fatman Front end cross member and uprights etc. But she is super solid now (ready for nice wheels up launch) or at least that is what I kept telling myself to keep motivated. It pretty much kicked my backside.

Sunday there were still 70 or so little pieces of blue tape strewn about the rest of the chassis so I got an early start and knocked them out one at a time. By afternoon I was close but need something else to do to break up the monotony.

There are several extra pieces that need to be fabricated to complete the cage and space frame but I decided to focus on the final piece of suspension. Partly because it needs to be complete but mostly because I stumbled across a piece of rod and ends that would work perfect for the panhard bar.


I know, I know, we have been planning on the Watt's Link for quite a while and even have the spinning portion already in place but to be honest there are several things that are not working out. First off the center piece does not rotate very well. I always assumed it spun on a bearing (maybe a good high quality kit does). However my center piece does not. AND since I made the 180 a while back on the chassis uprights (putting them back in front of the rear axle) I sort of lost my mount points for the arms.


But to be honest, I really didn't need the whole Watt's thing (sorry Jackson I know you will be very dissapointed...LOL). A simple pan hard will work just fine. So as you can see in the first photo, I fabbed up a mount from some scrap 1x2 rectangular tubing for the chassis end and then above found some scrap plate for center section mount which is welded to the solid side of our torque arm bracket.

 

Randall always remember to K.I.S.S. it lol sometimes less is more Looking good my friend


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