[mylesdw]

Thought I might actually contribute something to the forum since I've been a reader for years now.

Not exactly a rod but this is the Cobra replica I built nearly 30 years ago



That was taken around 2000 and since then it has been sitting rather neglected in a variety of sheds in two countries but now I'm starting to do a bit of a rebuild.

If anyone's interested I'll post up some stuff about the various repairs and upgrades I have planned.

 

[68roadrunner]

:tup: Engine and running gear?

 

[296moon]

Neat... love the roll bar, post some more

 

[mylesdw]

:tup: Engine and running gear?

It's an early Corvette engine (bored and stroked 327 giving 355 CID) and ZF five-speed box. The rest of the running gear mostly Jag. The kit was called a Ram and sold by a company called LR Roadsters in Newmarket. Chassis is a Reynard designed tubular backbone.

Sitting in the barn looking a bit unloved.

 

[mylesdw]

A few months ago I dragged the car out of the barn and started it. It sounded like a bucket of nails - one or more lifters stuck I think so I decided I would pull the engine, give it a little TLC, drop it back in and have some fun in the car this summer. Well...

To get the engine and gearbox out I needed to remove the gearstick...

To remove the gearstick I needed to remove the carpet...

To remove the carpet I needed to remove the rollbar and that was not budging at all



The rollbar locates in two tubes on the chassis and it was well and truly stuck. I tried heat, oil, hanging the whole car from the rollbar, jacking devices



but it was not moving. In the end I had to cut a great hole in the tub behind the seat



and then cut the thing off



Which of course left a whole lot of repair work and the body needed to come off to do it.

 

[legendlives]

Keep posting. Looks like fun!

 

[Duncan]

yep keep em coming looks like some fun coming up.

 

[mylesdw]

To get the chopped bits of roll-bar out and then repair the chassis needed the body to come off.

So soon all in pieces.

 

[Roger Shackleton]

The Ram is a nice bit of kit and very well thought of in the Cobra REP world, getting quite rare now. Well worth the time and effort getting it running again. Worth more than you think it is. or maybe you do know.Keep the pictures coming.

Rog

 

[mylesdw]

I bought it purely because of that tubular backbone chassis, so much nicer than the square ladder affairs under most of the cobra replicas at the time.

 

[mylesdw]

The roll bar mounting was way too tight what with corrosion and the spring in the tube. I had to split the sockets right down to get the remains out.

To improve matters for next time I turned a couple of sockets out of thick wall tubing



And welded to the original mountings


The fit is much looser and just uses a simple bolt to hold the roll-bar in place



Sorry about the mess, I've cleaned it up a bit since then.

 

[mylesdw]

The engine all cleaned up nicely enough inside. It's not got a huge mileage.



This is my engine building bible - really great book for the amateur like myself

 

[mylesdw]

Around about now, the "while you're about it" factor cut in and I fitted a pair of Sportsman heads and a Howard roller cam.

New roller lifters mean that the pushrods don't fit any more so you need these two tools:





A pushrod length checker and an adjustable pushrod.

Place the cam on its base circle and assemble thus:





Adjust the pushrod to fit, then measure it and buy a set that length



The blue plastic checker should ensures that the valve rocker geometry ends up right.

 

[blackpopracing]

Nice.

You probably know, but make sure to buy Moly pushrods when using guide plates.

 

[mylesdw]

This is what I love about forums - having experts to look over your shoulder. I went away and checked what I had bought and they ARE chrome-moly (luckily).

I think it is something I did know, but I certainly didn't think of it when I placed the order.

Thanks

 

[blackpopracing]

No worries, for those that may not know if you use std pushrods with guide plates the plates will wear the sides of the rods which can lead to the rods collapsing.
Moly rods are hard enough to not sustain wear.

 

[4potHemi]

Love this! This looks a well engineered car and if this isn't a rod it's darn well near it with the concept of a lightweight Brit sports car with a huge American engine shoe horned in.

One thing I've been musing on of recent, is that if you keep any vehicle long enough, you end up having to rebuild it on a cyclical basis, or at the very least end up doing the same job several times. Some would say a statement of the bleeding obvious!

 

[mylesdw]

Yes, very true and all the jobs that you skimped thinking 'that will do' come back to bite you!

Actually, it's rather fun re-engineering a car, what worked and what didn't. I put copper grease on all the fasteners as I went and the whole thing just came apart after 30 years like it was built yesterday.

 

[alan]

I bought it purely because of that tubular backbone chassis, so much nicer than the square ladder affairs under most of the cobra replicas at the time.

I know what you mean about the ugly box section chassis out there !! I built this from scratch in 1983 . It was exported to NZ in 1986

Ran a twin turbo 351 Cleveland :smoke:

 

[alan]