Projects DRAG SNAKE "Vintage Terror!"

Today was a fantastic day to watch filler dry. Beautiful Ozark Sunday.

 

Looking good Randall hope to see it run soon hot rod reunion at mokan is at the end of this month better get that thing done and come down and run it


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Have you thought about the rear roof window? I have the same Bruce Roof..

 

Brilliant!
Note to self:
Steal this idea!

 

Lexan

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Well Dad is working away putting a final sanding session and bit of glossy top on the car this week.





They are as smooth as a baby's backside!

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It'll all pay off. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad it's you instead of me! [emoji12]

 

Randall
Tell your dad "work fascinates me, I can sit and watch it for hours"!
I'm still on board.
Click attachment.

 

Well with the doors and trunk lid under control and shaping up nicely I decided to hit the hood. I have not been looking forward to it but it has to be done. AND before we can even consider its fitment and lines we have several issues to fix. The first of which was my home made hinges.


You might remember these things from way back. They work very well and everything clears etc. However the mounting bolts are very loose. To start with we needed to find a bushing for them. That didn't go very well. After giving up finding one off a shelf that would work we set about making our own. We found a very thin brass tube from a water hose repair kit. It was just a bit too large in diameter to fit the hole. We cut it down, slit it in half and took slivers out of the middle until it fit in the hole. They worked very well.

Then we turned our attention to the other end of the hood and the factory style latches. We drilled the holes for them quite a while back but have been putting off the job of making them functional.



They have some odd mounting requirements in that the base of the handle section as seen above does not actually connect to the activitor and locking slide that mounts on the underside of the hood. None of their holes line up. The square stock end of the handle simply goes through the activator it like an old school door knob. Make it even more ackward, their placement ran them right through and extruded area under the hood that simulates where the original hood would have just had round tubing forming its shape etc. This a difficult area to mount the latch section etc.



So to begin with I took some aluminum angle pieces left over from the failed aluminum foot box corners etc. I cut it the same length as the activator mechanism. We then drilled it appropriately on both sides. First off we mounted the activator and it to the bottom of the extruded underside of the hood. Then when in place we drilled the other side and mounted it as well. See below.


This gave it a more sturdy mounting and it looks fairly clean.


Now all we have to uptop is cut the square stock down etc. After closing the hood we turned the handle and felt the slide hit the lip of the body. We did a a couple of times pretty hard hoping it would leave a mark (and it did). It was just about 1/8" or less from the bottom of the lip. We marked the area and trimed it back a bit. We tested it again and they slides slid in place locking the hood down.


Next we cut a piece of aluminum stock scrap and trimed it to fit the latch area on both sides. This will ensure the metal latch is not simply wearing out the fiberglass lip etc.

 

Great progress!

 

Randall the car looks great and sounds good too videos are one thing but it sure sounds much better in person it was good to see you guys today and hurry up already get that thing done and bring it down make some passes in it


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Yep...Jackson got a little in person preview and a STEAK last night! LOL
Thanks for dropping by man and saving us from a frozen pizza Sunday night!

 

Well we are getting ready to go fast! ....and how can you tell you ask?
- Because the motor is tuned and sounding good? ...Nope
- Because the knockoff are actually beat in place with a lead hammer? ...Nope
- Because all four of the adjustable shocks have been tweaked? ...Nope
- Because the break in oil has been replaced with PenGrade 20/50? ...Nope
- Because the brakes have been tested? ...Nope
- Because we finally ordered hold down latches for the roof? ...YESSSSS!



I have been looking for a while for just the right style etc. These actually have a locking mechanism that holds the handle locked down etc. And they are rated for 2000 lbs each! That ought to do it....right?

 

COOL COOL COOL!!!

 

The locking mechanism is a definite plus!

 

Well they did not work exactly as planned (as is normal)...but we shall adapt them. The front cross bar of the cage is a bit lower than the front of roof area where the hook from the latches would mount.

So we mounted the latches a bit further back from the front.



Probably a good idea anyway to ensure if I needed I could reach them even if belted in. We are using 1" nylon straps mounted to the top. They have hooks on the other end for these latches. This is pretty cool because running them down and under the front cross section of the roll cage and then back to the latches puts the correct pulling down pressure on the roof.



I also finished welding up the front down tubes of the cage.



When the roof us in place the latches are all tucked up inside.

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Just remember that isn't the chute release lever.

 

Did I ever mention I LOVE THIS BUILD!!!! Go Randall GO! And thank goodness you got Dad around to do all the heavy lifting ! Larry

 

I took the day off from the Corona world today and spent some quality time in the shop. However by about 3 p.m. I was tired of body work...I needed to do something where I could actually see some real progress. So we snagged the roof and installed the vinyl.





It turned out pretty nice. If you look close you can see I put seams in it on both sides where a factory vinyl top would have them. Take a look up close at the pattern.



I like it.

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Randall, the roof really turned out nice. Looks great!

 

Wow, that turned out nice!

 

Do I remember you saying that was some kind of vinyl wrap? If so, how did you do the "seam"?

 

It is just the same vinyl on the outsides but ran up and over the center section on either side. I used cut tape to make sure it was all uniform. So doubling up the vinyl at the overlap makes it look like a seam.

 

So after a full Friday, Saturday and good bit of Sunday spent still doing bodywork, I was ready for a diversion. Now from the beginning I have been thinking of building an egg crate grill shell similar to what the original cars ran. I don't remember if I spoke of here on the thread but I even purchased some 1" aluminum stripes that are 1/8" thick. I have had this metal for a good year and half. So after lunch Sunday I told Dad to quick sanding (photos coming later) and let's do something fun.

Now I read a HAMB thread once about egg crate grill shells and took good mental notes. Basically all we have to do is make the correct measurements and then cut notches in the aluminum horizontal stock where the vertical pieces go and then notch the vertical pieces to accept those areas etc. Easy right? Well before we could even think about the layout, we had decide how to cut very precise 1/8 notches in the stock.


What I did was dig out the old portable table saw and installed an 8 inch cut off blade. I was pretty excited when I got to the hardware store and not only found a cut off wheel with a 5/8" arbor hole but believe it or not it was 1/8" thick. I installed a push/pull bar across the rear, attached to the slider system on the saw to hold and push the aluminum pieces etc. I tested it on a couple of pieces and it worked perfectly. They slid right together and it was very tight fit as well which is good.

Now all we had to do was figure out the math. The first thing I did was cut a piece of poster board close to the size of opening up front. Then reaching through the headlight hole I held it in place while dad shot it around the edges with a black shaker can. When I removed it I had the exact shape of the grill opening on the poster board.


Now I looked at several original Cobra's to see how many bars etc. the original grills had. Of course the one above I know 100% is correct and perfect because we all know who restored it. Shout out there to @rooman! LOL

But from what I saw there are 4 horizontal bars and 16 vertical pieces with a bit of extra space on either side left over after the pattern simply ran out of room to duplicate one more time. After cutting out my grill hole pattern I measured it up vertically and it was basically 8" tall in the middle. After doing some math and looking at photos, I decided the horizontal bars were 1.5" apart with an extra .5" at the top. It made for easy math and made cense looking at the photos.


So I drew my four horizontal lines on the pattern measured each of them and cut a corresponding aluminum bar. Then I did the same for the vertical pieces. Believing the individual holes were probably symmetrical I measured out using 1.5" wide as well. This did not work because at that width I ran out of pattern before all 16 drops were in place. But in the photos they did not look totally rectangle or anything so I decided to try 1.25" wide. ON PAPER this worked and looked pretty good to me. I will discuss this issue more a bit later.

So as you can see above, I centered all four of the horizontal pieces on each other starting the widest etc. I marked them for 1.25" vertical drops, taped them together and headed for the saw.


It worked really well. But as you can see they did get hot. Really Hot! I simply placed the stack in front of the pull bar and gently pulled them to and through the cut off wheel that was set at .5" off the deck.


Then we removed the tape and pulled them apart. I made a quick pass or two over them with the grinder with 80 grit sanding wheel to knock off the slag. Then Dad took them and smoothed and cleaned them up with 220 paper on fibrating style hand sander.


They turned out really nice. Now for the vertical pieces. Looking at my pattern, it appeared the first 4 drops on either side of center would be the same length. To make sure we had a bit of clearance instead of 8" tall I cut 8 pieces 7.75".


We stacked and taped them together and then hit the saw again. Followed by the same grinding and sanding etc.


So with enough pieces to assemble 50% of the grill together I decided to go ahead and do it before we started the last 4 custom sized stock pieces on each end (ie. as the opening starts to curve down etc.).


Starting in the middle and working one at a time in both directions, I began to "Lincoln Log" the grill together. I was really excited about how tight the fit was. I actually had to tap them in place. Probably a bit of slag left inside the notches that we couldn't see etc. But regardless it made for a very nice tight fit.


After the first 8 vertical pieces were installed we did a quick test fit. It looked really good and fit perfectly. So we went back to the pattern, laid the grill down on top of it and measured for the last custom pieces on either side.


It was about here that I noticed something was a bit out of sorts. As you can see we have a great Cobra shaped grill but we are coming up a bit short on the outsides. So here is something to think about. How much difference do you suppose 1/16" of an inch would have made. Well by itself not much but multiply that by each hole and you basically have an inch. So if my width had been 1.375" instead of 1.25" it would have probably been perfect. I think I need a better calculator.


But for now I think it looks pretty cool. AND I AM NOT DOING IT AGAIN! I have a couple of fixes in mind for when it comes time to install it.


Option one might be some running lights. Lots of the old Cobras ran them and I think it would pretty cool at night on the strip to run them. They really cover the area well but of course would take a bit editing on the grill to make them fit perfectly.


Option two would be just bite the bullet and had two more vertical pieces one either side. Not too many people would even know. Basically just me and @rooman! LMAO! Either way though I am pretty happy with how it turned out. It was something it sort of needed to complete the original appearance we are going for...

 

Is it just me or does @rooman 's grille curve a bit horizontally? If that was something you were looking to achieve, you could probably push a bit of curve into what you have made.

 

Something I discovered a little while ago: Freud makes a table saw blade specifically for aluminum. I have cut some pretty thick stuff with a standard carbide blade and the stock gets REALLY HOT!
The special blade keeps the heat WAY DOWN and cuts like butter.

 

Yes, I have an aluminum cutting blade and it is killer, but it would have taken like two and half cuts to get to 1/8" wide and lots of room to screw it up larger or smaller etc. So I was excited to find something that was 1/8" to begin with and needed only one pass. Thanks though.

 

I'd add the extra bar on each side and call it good. I doubt there will be anybody counting your grill bars, after all, it ain't a Corvette!

 

I think I will let Roo answer the straight or curved question if he gets back around to this thread. I agree his looks like it is curved down a bit to the corners and I found several photos of original cars that also looked a bit on the curved side as well. However I found just as many that looked straight, like the one below (which is honestly the one I was looking at before I started and found the yellow snake).


I sort of think it is the opening itself that is doing that....sort of playing with the eyes or more over the camera lense that will distort things if photo is taken too close up (fisheye). But I could be wrong. The other thing I noticed after the fact is the center section (vertically) seems to be more narrow than the rest of the openings and I have seen that on several cars.

 

Nice.