Cobra 427 Build

[KugaWestie]

27 minutes ago, Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary said:

It’s really coming along, always looks so much better when you finish building up the suspension on an end.

Thanks

There are so many small components compared to a Westfield. A lot of time has been spent trying to understand how things go together.

I will be glad to get it to a rolling chassis which will mean the end of the Jag donor parts

[Thrustyjust]

1 minute ago, Gary (KugaWestie) - North Oxfordshire AO said:

Thanks

There are so many large heavy wishbones , diffs and components compared to a Westfield. A lot of time has been spent trying to understand how things go together.

I will be glad to get it to a rolling chassis which will mean the end of the Jag donor parts

Modified it for you Gary 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Just wait till you get to doors, bonnets and boot lids. Not the cheating Westfield type, but the sort that have hinges, locks, and shut lines!

[KugaWestie]

Just now, Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary said:

Just wait till you get to doors, bonnets and boot lids. Not the cheating Westfield type, but the sort that have hinges, locks, and shut lines!

Ah yes, but that is a different kind of challenge. 

I am sure it will test the patience though 

[KugaWestie]

5 minutes ago, Thrustyjust said:

Modified it for you Gary 

Very true, this Jag stuff weighs in heavy!

[KugaWestie]

I started to have a look at the rear discs and Caliper s this evening for a short while, it's too cold to stay in the garage for too long!

So in my box of bits I had six shims in total. These go between the disc and the diff. I cleaned them up and then decided to try three shims per side.

I then bolted on one of the rear freshly rebuilt/refurbished calipers (with the handbrake mechanism removed) to see how it looked

 

[CL290005]

Gary

are the shims you are referring to square, 4 hole shims, the discs should self centralise, I think you are referring to the camber shims which alter the driveshaft position which alters the hubs camber

the driveshaft acts as the top wishbone 

[corsechris]

Please ignore me if you know this already, but I think there are some spacer tubes missing on the assembly. They should sit on the long pin between the legs of the lower arm inner mounts. Effectively a crush tube. A good breakdown diagram here in case it helps. https://goo.gl/images/1azkAn

it was nagging at me when I saw the picture. It’s been a lot of years since I messed with the Jaguar IRS setup so if it turns out this tube is just a dirt shield or similar and you’ve chosen to delete it, please ignore me and forgive the intrusion

 

ETA. Concur on the camber adjustment shims. They go “outside” the disc so they are relatively easy to add or remove as needed to set camber. Again, a long time ago, but I think I set the static camber to about -0.25 degrees when I put the IRS in the Marcos. Only real way is to set and test tyre temps.

i also seem to recall that getting the handbrake to work was a bit of a PITA as well. Pig to adjust I think.

[KugaWestie]

Thanks Chris

Yes I realised I had left the spacer tubes off the other day, they are on there now

 

 

And the camber shims are in are in the correct position as well

[KugaWestie]

@corsechris

I also have some slightly different shaped shims which I am told go between the diff and the disc to centralise the disc in the caliper. Can you recall if that is correct?

These are the shims

[corsechris]

Spot on Gary.  

[KugaWestie]

I fitted the rear calipers properly this afternoon complete with pads, and lock wired the bolts 

 

I also lock wired the diff mounting bolts

 

The next job is to rebuild the handbrake calipers as these had been stripped. I need some replacements parts so have ordered these.

 

[KugaWestie]

Time for an update.

I was not happy with my lock wiring, so redone it correctly

 

Whilst waiting for a few bits to arrive, I emptied another box out to try and work out what the parts are

 

After some head scratching:-

Top left are bonnet hinges

Top middle and right are the door hinges

2 shaped plates in the centre - no idea!

Bottom left - pedals!

Bottom right - a plate to bolt go over the front of the tunnel to close part of the gap off once the engine and box are in

 

I am unconvinced the pedals are worth altering, might be easier to fabricate a new hanging rail/bar

 

The door hinge assembly

[KugaWestie]

I ran into a problem when the rear damper/lower wishbone pin

You can see the pin above running through the lower wishbone. The pin is 5/8" diameter which then reduces down to a 1/2" thread. There are two coil over dampers on each side at the rear, one either side of the wishbone.

Here is the damper bush

 

The problem was that the bush in the damper is only 1/2" diameter, so the pin would not pass through the damper!

After some consultation with Gaz, there is no bush available to suit the mounting tube on the damper. So the Gaz solution was either get the dampers altered (£220) or buy new ones (£300). I didn't fancy either of those options!

So I decided to turn the pins down to 1/2" diameter on each end just enough to allow it to pass through the damper bush. Once again WSCC to the rescue, as @bunje agreed to do me a favour on this, and has done a fine job 

 

My decision to turn the pins pins down is based on the fact the the car will be much lighter than the XJS was, the top mount is only 1/2" dia, I have two dampers per side so some safety if a pin breaks, and If a pin breaks it is only £20 to get two new ones, and if that happens I know I will need to address the dampers rather than the pins

 

[KugaWestie]

So tonight I started to assemble the rear suspension on one side. Everything is still loose and I need some longer bolts for the top damper mount