February Journal

1/30-2/1/01	Had to travel out of town on business. My trip called for two stops in Ohio over the course of a few days with a little free time in between. I figured I'd put the word out and see if anybody on cobraforum wanted a visitor!!! Luckily a few people took me up. On 1/30 I stopped and had dinner with Wade and Jill Linger in Fairmont, WV. It was a great visit and I got to check out Wade's awesome Red and Silver FFR. Wade held up well to my barrage of questions! And Jill is a great cook! Good folks. 2/1 was an eventful day. I stopped in London, OH to meet Double Venom (Ed Combs) and his crew. Ed is the fellow that builds the awesome V10 Viper-motored Cobras. I got to see DV#2. Unbelievable! Ed was gracious enough to spend a few hours showing me around, talking Cobras, and answering questions. Awesome guy! After I left Ed's place, I drove to Richmond, IN to spend the rest of the day with Dan and Sue Semko. Dan owns a beautiful red Superformance Cobra. If the weather was a little nicer I would have surely pestered him for a ride! We went out for a nice dinner and spent the rest of the evening talking about Cobras, the forums, people, etc. Dan and Sue are two of the nicest people I've met through the Cobra hobby! Sue makes some good cookies too!!
2/3-2/4/01	Not much new to report this weekend. I spent most of Saturday recovering from the 9 hour drive home from Cincinnati the night before. While I was away, my approval from Haggerty Classic Insurance showed up, so I went to the DMV and got my title and registration. I also ordered personalized plates. The plates describe in one word how I've felt for the last year and a half that I've been obsessed with Cobras. Of course the correct spelling was taken so I had to get a little creative, but I still like it. BITTTEN Sunday I got in another coat of epoxy on the body seams. I also filed and sanded the louver openings. I radiused the fiberglass so it looks like a nice rolled edge. I'm pleased with the way they came out. Should look real nice with my Finish Line louvers.
2/10-2/11/01	SANDING, SANDING, SANDING! Please, somebody make it stop! A couple more coats of epoxy this weekend. Now that the seams are starting to build in thickness, I'm using a long block to try to avoid high and low spots. Man, this epoxy is tough to sand! Much harder than good old bondo! In between sanding and laying down epoxy, I dis-assembled my dash so I could add the covering. Man, it sure did turn out nice. I used 3M #90 contact adhesive to glue the dash pad to the aluminum dash, then cut "pie" cuts for the gauge holes. I used a rat-tail file in the switch holes to nicely cut the material to the exact diameter of the holes. Finished pictures are in the wiring section. I'm VERY pleased with the way the Autometer Ultralights look against the black dash pad.
2/11-2/28/01	Pretty boring couple of weeks. Not a lot of new stuff to report. I'm having trouble staying focused on the bodywork because I don't particularly enjoy it! I try to break it up by puttering with some of the small stuff that I need to get done before I remount the body. I finally got around to installing the arched trunk hoop that I got from Whitby Motorcars in NC. It replaces the factory straight trunk bar and opens up another several inches of trunk height on the upper level. Installation was as simple as cutting out the old bar with a cutoff wheel and welding in the new one. It had too much arch in it, so a few well placed blows w/ a heavy rubber mallet and it fit great! I struggled a long time trying to decide where to mount my remote battery terminals. I don't like the looks of them on the outside of the car and I wasn't crazy about mounting them inside the trunk for fear of something sliding against them and arcing. So, I formed a little aluminum panel to mount them in the engine compartment just in front of the master cylinder. Looks like it belongs there, is convenient, and no worries about arcing against something. I took my headers, sidepipes, rollbar, and quickjacks to Jet Hot in Bridgeport, PA for ceramic coating. I chose sterling silver which is a very bright, shiny coating. Looks absolutely awesome!!!! It only took Jet Hot about a week to do all of it.