Building our AC Cobra 289 LeMan

We started today thinking it was about time we fitted the peddle box. As we had already cut the hole in the footwell ages ago, its a job we could now do as the body is back on. The bolts go through the floor and flat section of the chassis and it was just a case of lining it up, marking up and then drilling the holes through. As the end of these bolts are exposed under the car, Mark had bought some stainless steel M8 bolts for this job, so they won’t corrode when exposed to the weather. Due to its position it proved a bit awkward getting these in and getting them tight. Mark bumped his head on several occasions while he had his head stuck down the footwell trying to get the bolts in (Hopefully knocked some sense in). We had noticed before hand that the floor of the body wasn’t quite square so we had to use a small piece of fibreglass, that we saved from cutting the original hole, to pack the front edge, getting a good seal between the vertical edge and engine bay.

Next up was to negotiate the position of the throttle peddle. The throttle pedal is posted through a hole in the top of the peddle box with the throttle pedal housing mounted on top inside the engine bay. We read through the Hawk manual and it didn’t really give any hard and fast rules for the position, although when we had spoken to Gerry at the NEC he told us to aim to mount it about an inch from the front of the peddle box. So this is what we aimed for. We initially drilled a small hole posted the peddle through to get a rough position. We wanted the accelerator peddle slightly further forward than brake and clutch peddles but for all 3 peddle to be equally spaced apart. From there we marked up the holes, drilled and fitted. This was also a bit fiddly due to it being under the wing and had to use a 90degree drill bit for this job.

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Mark decided to add some extra fibre glass to the floor where I had made the cut out for the pedal box. He cut a piece of fibre glass matt to bridged from the inner wing to the pedal box floor. This is mainly to add some extra strength to the floor but also to level out the lip connecting the inner wing unit to the peddlebox. He added a bit more on the pedal box floor so the surface is now level with the outside. We will probably finish it off by painting it white to match the peddlebox.

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Due to the modification Mark had made to the peddlebox by wielding a new flange around the edge, we had to spent a couple of hours cutting and extending the hole. The modifications now allow the peddlebox to fit completely flush with the outside of the footwells and make the final job inside the engine bay really tidy. We made a cardboard template to get the shape and as before used a hacksaw to cut the hole then finished by filing the edges to get them straight and smooth.

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After seeing Andy Gordons FIA Cobra at the Silverstone show, Mark decided he’d like to modify the peddlebox and weld an extra flange around the edge for extra support as well as getting a really good seal and making it look really tidy inside the engine bay. He stepped the flange back the thickness of the fibre glass in the foot wells so when it is fitted, it will sit perfectly flush on the outside surface inside the engine bay. When we original cut out the hole we stepped it in 1cm to create a flange with the fibre glass. Now this isn’t required, we will extend the hole slightly to the exact size of the original peddle box.


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After cutting the side vetns, next was the peddle box hole. This was a little more fiddly due to its position at the end of the foot well. Again the position for the hole was marked into the glass fibre body, so using this as a guide, we got to work marking it up using masking tape.

TIP… Next, and importantly, use a second line of masking tape to mark the hole approximately 1cm inside the original line. This will allow a small lip behind the peddle box that can be sealed cleanly when you fit the peddle box and master cylinder.

Once all marked up we drilled the corners, then using a small saw, cut around the edges marked by the second line of masking tape.

Other extras we might consider.

Once again after inspecting some of the beautiful 289 Register members cars at the Silverstone show, we have decided what we might do is wield an extra metal flange around the peddle box unit for extra support. More on this later.

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