Building our AC Cobra 289 LeMan

We decided at this point to get the throttle linkage mechanism finished and fully fitted. We did the first fit back on 28th January, but now we have all the necessary bits to finish off.

This involved connecting the springs to the throttle lever on the carb and Mark’s newly made bracket as well as make all the connections tight and fully lined up. We carefully worked out the leverage of the throttle going from idle to full to make sure there was always some tension in the springs at all times. We then marked up the position for the spring holes before drilling and connecting them up.

Next we added smaller springs either side of the connections on the transverse rod. This is to keep everything inline as well as to allow some movement when the engine is running. We secured these all in place with collars either side.

When we originally fitted the throttle linkage on the 28th Jan we made a temporary bracket to secure the transverse rod connection to the inlet manifold. The intension was to design and make a better solution and since then that is what we have done. We marked up 2 pieces of the stainless steel for the new bracket and asked our uncle Dave if he could wield it together for us along with a threaded boss on the top that the rose joint screws directly into.

To finish the 2 brackets off we rounded off the corners then shortened where necessary before polishing them both up.

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The next 2 little jobs were to fit the battery tray to the nearside and the reservoir bracket on the offside of the engine bay. Gerry had made up the battery tray and it arrived last week. These were quick and easy to fit, marking up the 4 bolt holes either side, drill through using a 90 degree chuck and secure with nuts and bolts provided. We will fit the battery and connect up the master cylinder later.

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We planned to get some more time on the car this weekend. We have planned to get most of the little job under the bonnet out of the way today. First job was to fit the new braided fuel pipe that Mark got made a few weeks ago to replace the rubber one we originally had. We fitted the connecter to the fuel regulator and ran the pipe through to connect to the carb. Mark had made a new bracket that bolts to the top of the inlet manifold which will eventually serve as the attachment for the springs onto the throttle linkage, but is also perfect to attach a stainless steel P clip to hold the fuel pipe in the correct position and to prevent it rubbing on the plug leads.

The last job will be to polish up the bracket nice and shiny, which we’ll do later on. Onto the next job…


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Once the throttle peddle and pivot where fitted, we moved onto fitting the throttle linkage to the carburettor. This is something we have been thinking about for a few weeks. We had the option to get the bits from Gerry but Mark wanted to design and make our own system. We had pictures of Andy Gordon’s Cobra at Silverstone, once again we used his car as the inspiration as we thought the solution he found was quite a neat one.

Mark spoke to his engineering department at work, asking them if they could manufacture the blades for the rod linkage and also some stainless steel strips, cut to size, that we plan to make a bracket from and mount to the inlet manifold. We have made a temporary bracket for now, that we will replace with a better one later. We have marked up for the new bracket that we hope to get our uncle Dave to wield for us.

We fitted the rose joint on the top of the footwell first. we then slid the 10mm rod into it. We then put another rose joint on the other end which we lined up and marked the hole to be drilled on our temporary bracket fitted to the manifold. Then drilled the hole and fitted the rose joint onto the bracket. We then fitted a blades to each end of the transverse rod.

We linked the blade to the carb using 2 female rose joints and 8mm rod. we had to tap a thread to both ends. We connected the other end to the peddle in exactly the same way using a shorter 8mm rod.
It took a little time adjusting the lengths of the rods to get the travel of the pedal correct but it works really well. We have just got the final bracket to make and fit now to finish this off.

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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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Happy New Year to everyone. Just a quick update as the last post was a while ago now. The cobra build was put on hold over christmas as I was away in NYC and Mark had his Uni work to crack on with. Even so, we have ordered more bits, fuel tank, radiator, throttle linkage, that we are waiting to arrive. We’re hoping to get some stuff done this weekend so more posts coming soon.

Mark has spent a little time fitting the fuel pressure regulator to the nearside inner wing, see pic below. He then cut a piece of fuel pipe to length to fit from the carb to the fuel filter/regulator. Now that we have a piece of pipe to length, we have sent it to BGC Motor sport components to make a braided pipe with the banjo connectors to go from the carb.



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Once we had got the body back on it was really late into the evening, but these are some pictures taken the next morning in proper daylight. We are delighted to finally have the body back on the chassis ready for further work over the winter months. We think the complete set of heat shields now fitted and polished up just look amazing! Thank you again to Dale and Phil and Slipstream design for the CAD work and production.





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Since writing our post on 3rd December about getting the body back on, we have had a few people email us asking where the 20 bolts for securing the body to the chassis are located. So this is a little extra post with some pics showing the locations. 20 bolts in total. 2 each side at the rear of the boot, there is 1 each side of the rear wheel arch in the boot, 1 each side next to the sill in the cabin, 4 each side in the foot welld holding the dash frame and door hinges and finally 2 each side at the front. In the picture below, the front bolts are not in yet as we haven’t got around to drilling the holes through the heatshield panels. These 2 are alan key bolts going through to the front wheel arches.

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After the final bits of painting and polishing, finally it was time to get the body back on the chassis. By this point we had been working on the body all day and was getting quite dark so had to work quickly. We thought the best way to do it was to wheel the rolling chassis out onto the street and get the body on where it was flat and where we had more room.

We acquired some help from a couple of the neighbours to lift it, one person on each corner, and very quickly on it went. It wasn’t quiet that straight forward getting it in the correct position though, as we quickly realised we had to cut away some of the floor to allow the prop shaft and safety loop to fit through the hole in the floor. We did this very quickly and we will go back and tidy the holes up at a later stage.

Once back in the garage we fix the body down with the 20 bolts we took out back in July 2010 when we detached the body. Seems a while and much work ago now. 4 bolts at the front in the engine bay, 10 in the cabin and 6 in the boot. They fitted very easily giving us confidence we had got the body on correctly. It actually looks like a car now, which is another real milestone. Still lots to do though.

We will probably be looking at doing the wiring and electrics next and getting the master cylinder fitted and connected up. Check out further posts coming soon.


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We fitted the remaining side panels heatshield next, which would also neatly fit over the top of the new well section panels. As we had with the other panels we used a metal folder to create a really neat edge on the bend where the panel would wrap around the corner of the wheel arches. We then fitted by drilling the holes through the fibre glass and riveting into place. As they were pre-made these panels fitted very quickly and easily.

Once all the panels were fitted we gave them a really good polish up to really bring out the shine. We are really happy with the results and completely glad we spent the extra time getting the CAD design done.

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