79 Cobra build

[lilfarley]

Original turbo 4 speed car its getting a 306 and 5 speed already swapped rearend for one from an 87 gt. Started redoing interior new seats since originals don't recline, black carpet. I bought grey headliner material and cut a new peice of cardboard to make a new headliner. Pulled original engine and trans. Cleaned engine compartment with goofoff and painted with POR-15. Power steering leaked really bad so bought a parts store manual rack and pinion and new tie rod ends. And installed it with an adapter shaft from flaming river. Next up is finding a 5 speed, buying a distributor, oil pan, new clutch, clutch cable, and get her running. Has anyone seen where the clutch cable goes through the firewall actually tear before? Mine was torn when I bought the car. Don't know if this is common, or what the best way to go about correcting this is, any input would be appreciated. I'm on my phone so I will add pics to my gallery as I go. Just added new pics to my gallery.

[lilfarley]

Engine is in radiator and heater hoses are all hooked up. Bought a t5 for it a few weeks back. All new clutch kit as well as flywheels, and shifter. Went with a Hurst shifter, will see how I like it. Bought some used headers off of craigslist and heatwrapped them. Replaced the broken original taillights with later style ones off of craigslist. Still need clutch cable, distributor, coil, shorter driveshaft and she should be running. Also going to add new photos to galllery.

[eric5oh]

Glad to see progress. This is the one I tried to pick up.

[lilfarley]

Yeah, it has come a long way just since January.

[lilfarley]

Got the car on a rotisserie. Going to go all out on it. Finally got into a nice enough car cheap enough that i can make it a really nice car without an insane amount of patching or replacing. Everything is nice on this car so i am going to do my best to preserve it. Will be adding photos to my album.

[klekey]

sounds like a great project, good to see someone from the midwest into these cars as well

[TopGear85]

Cool Cobra, keep up the good work!

[lilfarley]

Just got the car down off of the rotisserie. Finally got around to uploading aome pics. Really made a lot of progress this past couple of weeks. Pics are in album ad usual, sorry if they arent very big they are off of my cell phone.

[lilfarley]

Got the k member cleaned up and painted last night. Put it and the manual rack back on the car tonight. Pics will be loaded to the gallery. I can't get them on here with my cell phone.

[lilfarley]

got the engine in and started hooking up wires and hiding everything inside the fenders. also uploading some other pics of progress from the winter.

[Hissing Cobra]

Lookin' good! I did the same combo in my '79 Cobra. I hope you keep it for a long time! I'll never get rid of mine unless something drastic happens.

[lilfarley]

Thanks. It helps a lot starting qith a nice clean car... if I ever build another car which I probably will I will be picky about the car I start with.

[lilfarley]

Well, just recently sold my truck to pay off some debt that I had. And as another plus I have decided to throw the rest of money from the sale of the truck all towards getting the Cobra in running order. On Tuesday I ordered about 2700 dollars worth of goodies and with that order I should have almost everything to get it done minus paint work. Among the parts are a brand new t5, new radiator with cooling fans, front control arms, and some other goodies. I look for the parts to be here tomorrow afternoon or Monday at the latest. Will post updates as I wrench away.

[TopGear85]

That's awesome! It's been awhile since your last update. Glad to hear the project is still underway. Good luck and take lots of pics.

[FUKAZ28]

Looks good man.

[1980Cobra]

look forward to the pics!

[lilfarley]

Thanks guys it's been a great car to start out with. Got all of my parts in this evening. Got a few sneak peeks.

Sorry for the crap cell phone pics I don't own a digital camera.

[FUKAZ28]

Looks good, who makes those caster/camber plates?

[lilfarley]

the plates are SVE through Late Model Restoration.

[lilfarley]

Little more of an update. Got as far as I can go right now. Picking up a coil spring compressor from a work buddy this afternoon as well as tools big enough to tighten down the arms. For now i'm just going to cut half a coil off of the stock coils to drop it a little. probably going to go 5 lug next year sometime and I will more than likely be buying lowering springs at that point. First goal is to get it as a roller again than I will get the Radiator in place and tight install the electric fans and wire them up with the thermastatic control. Than get the new trans up in place. Put a new master cylinder in it along with a few new brake hoses. All of this will hopefully happen before snow hits so I can take it for a spin to make sure the new trans is good before the 90 day warranty is up as it covers defective parts. Livng in Iowa I know it will probably be less than 90 days for snow to hit, and with how clean the bottom of the car is driving it in snow is the last thing I wanna do. Chances are it will be a roller again before the night is up though.

[lilfarley]

Finally back on all four wheels. Coil springs are a pain in the ass... end of story lol... this is sitting with to transmission and no fluid in the radiator. Half a coil cut off we'll see how it settles.

[1980Cobra]

yeah I'd like to lower my wife's '80 a little. Even at its age and mileage it has such a gap between the tires and fenders.

[lilfarley]

I will probably wanna go more but I'd rather do a little and go back for more over having to buy new springs right now. But I'll see how it looks when it's done for now. At least it's not riding like a 4x4 lol