Windscreen, Wipers, Fuel Filler and Wireing

A little while since my last update but plenty has been going on with the build.
Lots of tasks look pretty straightforward - right up until you start and realise you have a fight on your hands.

I bought my Windscreen and Fuel Filler cap from Brasscraft and arranged to pick these items up from Chris whilst on a trip to London. Interesting workshop Chris has at his home - proper cottage industry. The items themselves are top quality - but they should be at the price. There's some choice in the market for filler caps but not for screens as far as I know. Not sure what Cobra builders will do when Chris retires!

I also purchased Chris's Screen vents which he reckons are better than the standard slot type that S&J Motors do. These are polished aluminium pressings and direct the air towards the base of the screen rather than just blowing upwards.

I did a temporary fit of the screen to check the position for the vents then cut the slots and fitted the vents before fitting the screen. I fitted the plastic trumpets bought from S&J Motors at the same time.

Screen Fit

With the legs attached, its a simple case of dropping the legs into the pre-cut slots then using a 36" piece of wood between the top of screen and the rear cockpit lip to achieve the correct angle.
The manual suggests fitting the screen with the seal angled backwards initially, then refitting with the seal forwards ( Its final position). So that's what I did,
Drilling through the screen legs and then through the chassis hoop proved a right pain ( for me anyhow) as I found it quite awkward to get the drill into the space. The manual suggests drilling and tapping the chassis hoop, however I decided to drill right through and use bolts.
So all bolted up  - I undid everything and refitted the screen with the Seal forwards - and guess what -  - the screen was too high for the seal to contact the body across its full width.....I guess I should have worked this out beforehand, so remove it all again and slotted the screen legs to allow the screen to be lowered to correct level. I then realised I hadn't fitted the escutcheons that finish the screen legs where they pass through the body so off with the screen again!

So a right PITA but the result looks great and its really looking the part now.

Wipers

I bough the standard 3 blade wiper kit from AK and once again expected the fitting to be straightforward.  The body comes marked with suggested drilling points for the wiper gear, and to be fair they were pretty close for me. i used the AK dimensions as suggested in the manual, however I found it easier to position the wiper blades on the screen and check that there was clearance between them throughout their arcs  - this helped confirm the hole positions.

I drilled the holes at an angle and mounted the wheelboxes. Fitted the motor and gearbox then  worked on fitting the bundy tubing between the wheelboxes. The cut ends need to be flared to lock them into the wheelboxes - managed to do this with a big screwdriver and thin nosed pliers but hands were aching afterwards!
The section of tube between the motor and the first wheelbox needs a fair bit of bend on it to get it to fit and its awkward to get too under the valence so took a lot longer than thought.

The standard wiper blades and arms look very flimsy and reminded me of the old Mini's - they were usually rubbish so not expecting much from this system!
The wiper motor presents quite a sharp object under the dash so I'll be fitting some form of protection when the dash is fitted.

Fuel Filler

The easy bit was fitting the flange and cap. I decided to drill and countersink the flange so this can be bolted down. An option is to glue it on - but other builders have reported issues with that method.

The filler cap itself has to be angled to ensure that it doesn't touch the bodywork when opened. I used one of the supplied gaskets and screwed the cap down as far as possible to work out the best angle, this way you can mark out the bolt holes for the flange given you cant fit the flange with the cap on.

Fuel flange showing unleaded restrictor

M5 flush fitting allen screws.

I bought a 50cm budget flexible hose from CBS - they only seem to sell it in 50cm lengths, and would you guess you actually need about 52-53cm....So I tracked down a 51mm dia alloy extension tube 10cm long  from Ebay and decided to fit the extension in the middle of the hose, this being the section that passes through the boot wall. So cut the hose in half and would you believe it - its a smaller diameter in the middle and the extension tube wouldn't fit!!! So back to CBS for a different hose - this time a super flexible one. So finally all fitted. Dread to think how many hours went into this simple task!

The hole through the boot wall I trimmed with the same stuff used on the bonnet flange.
As the hose isn't a tight fit through the hole, I'll have to think of a method of sealing this to prevent water ingress in future.
The breather pipe runs through the same hole and will be tapped into the filler flange one the fitting arrives from Ebay.

Steering

Big mistake I made was in not fitting the firewall bearing with the body off - that would have made it so  much easier to drill the holes and line things up. The bearing itself I got from Bearing Boys. Its a thermal plastic resin body designed so that the bearing adjusts to cater for a shaft that's not perfectly perpendicular. The body was a little too wide to fit next to the clutch master cylinder, so a bit of filing was required.

Steering bearing

Fitting the column itself was fairly easy. I had to make a small bracket to fix to the lower mounting which didn't line up correctly.
Fitting the jointed steering coupling took a while - the pinch bolts have to be in exactly the right place before they will do up.
I sourced an OMP collapsible boss kit and purchased two 14mm set screws - the 1mm pitch version was the one required - but i bought a standard 1.5mm pitch first....
Its probably not going to be the final wheel, however I bought a Mountney one from CBS to get me going. looks like this is suitable for IVA as well and doesn't look too bad. Its a bit bendy though!

steering linkage

Wiring

Currently in progress and could be for a while.
I waited for the wife to be out then laid the AK supplied loom out on the kitchen floor to check all the labels and to tape up all the loose wires to make it easier to handle and pass though the body holes.
The first task is to fit the fuse/relay clusters to the chassis rail above the passenger foot well.
I used a section of aluminium sheet to create a backing plate and remembered my old metalworking classes and formed a rolled edge on the lower end to avoid sharp edges.
The loom itself is divided into legs that run to different parts of the car and its just a task of following the (so far) clear instructions provided to pull the various sections through.
Thus far, the hardest bit is getting grommets to fit the thick sections under the front wheel arches - where the cable passes through fibreglass and Stainless Steel. A tip I'm using at the moment is to trim the lip on two grommets and superglue then together - we will see!