[94cobra69ss396]

I've had some little issue with the Cobra that I have been wanting to fix but haven't taken the time because I was always driving it. They were minor, like a lifter that was tapping slightly at idle and an exhaust leak. Well after running the Roval back in January I had more problems like the clutch broke. So the Cobra had been sitting until last week when I put the new clutch in.

Tonight I decided I would start fixing the other things. I decided I would start with the header gasket figuring I could knock it out in a night and be able to drive the car tomorrow. Well it didn't turn out that easy. I had to remove the TB and elbo so I could get to the header. I then found that the valve cover gasket was leaking so I went to pull it off only to find that I had to remove the upper intake to remove the valve cover.

So I pulled the upper intake and then decided since I have it this far apart I might as well pull the lower intake and install the new lifters and adjust the valves which I did. But when I started to clean the lower intake I noticed that the intake port were quite a bit smaller than the intake ports on the AFR heads. So then I started porting the lower intake until Amy came out and said that dinner was ready. So I put everything away and will finish the porting tomorrow.

Am I the only one that ends up with half the engine torn down just trying to fix an exhaust leak?

[SeanPlunk]

LOL, I certainly have nowhere near the mechanical expertise to do something like that

[kdracer73]

It's like fixing a leaking faucet ! " Oh ' I'll just change the washer " But the seat is bad, the shut off leaks, the hose leaks and it takes 3 trips to Home Depot and 100 bucks. It goes that way for me too ! Start some little project, and since I got that off, might as well do this too. Next thing I know, it's 11 F-N thirty and half the car is on the garage floor!!

[mdpalmer]

Originally Posted by 94cobra69ss396

Am I the only one that ends up with half the engine torn down just trying to fix an exhaust leak?

Yep, been there, done that... too many times I reckon... and that's not even on my "fun" car, almost every car I worked on I have to take apart I realize a bunch of other stuff that needs to be fixed as I take more things off.

That's part of messing with a car I guess, I feel your pain man

[BRIAN]

Nope, not the only one.

[Vettezuki]

Originally Posted by kdracer73

It's like fixing a leaking faucet ! " Oh ' I'll just change the washer " But the seat is bad, the shut off leaks, the hose leaks and it takes 3 trips to Home Depot and 100 bucks. It goes that way for me too ! Start some little project, and since I got that off, might as well do this too. Next thing I know, it's 11 F-N thirty and half the car is on the garage floor!!

Three trips? Hell, I think I've made three trips inside of an hour before. As for cars, I've done pretty good with "constraining scope". My personal time multiplier is generally about 3x. If I haven't done something before, think hard about how long it will take, it's a bout three times longer. That's an improvement from when I first started. I don't want to think about how much time I spent rebuilding the calipers on the Vette.

[BADDASSC6]

Not since I stopped driving FORDs!

[BlacknBoostn]

^^^ lol.

[94cobra69ss396]

Originally Posted by BADDASSC6

Not since I stopped driving FORDs!

Wait, what happened to your engine again?

[enkeivette]

My passenger side seatbelt needed to come out. To take it out I had to remove the seat. I figured, while it was out I should dye it black, so I took out both seats and both belts.

While the belts were in FL getting fixed and I couldn't drive the car I decided to pull all of the headliner out, repair the cracked pieces and dye them all black too.

Then I decided to buy and install the Mustang e-brake to clear my T-56 that I had thought about doing for awhile. So I cut up the floor, bolted it down and mended the stock cable to the Mustang cable. Which has broken twice, but I think I've got the crimping process down better now.

Then I decided to remove the center console once the e-brake cover was off and lay out the one piece fiberglass console.

Then I decided to remove the door panels and the dash because everything else was getting changes from blue to black, so might aswell do it all now.

But first I decided to do some plastic welding and gluing on my cracked dash before dying it.

After removing the dash and all of the vent tubing I realized the steering column needed to be painted black to match the interior. So off came the steering wheel and horn assembly.

Then I realized that while my guage clusters were out with the dash I should remove the clock and install my boost guage behind the cluster.

Then I decided to make some fiberglass bezels to move my speakers from the dash down to the kick panels because the carpet dash cover kills all of the high frequencies. Which involved a bit of rewiring, not just the speaker wires, but moving the wires behind the kick panels elsewhere.

Then I decided to redye my seats because they looked more gray than black. Also I almost forgot, I needed to dye my seatbelt holsters and the e-brake handle black too.