Off to GD

Off to GD tomorrow - still seems to be a bit of confusion as to what will be ready? The main thing I'm going to need is the gearbox mounting bracket - this will enable me to get the engine and box in. I'll need to go back anyway as I'll have to drop my gearbox yoke off to them to get the propshaft made up.

Whilst I was on the phone to Andy I talked about the Bump Steer measurements I had taken. He confirmed that that the residual bump steer effects I had measured would not be noticeable on the road, plus the slight increase over the last 1/2 inch of droop was nothing to be concerned about - If the car is that unweighted you'd be more worried about which hedge you were just about to go through - were Andy's words. Seems fine to me!

The other reason for going down is to order the body. According to my programme I'm not going to need this for quite a few months. This is mainly down to finances.... I don't want to borrow to fund this project so that means saving up - this is what takes the time!! The body represents a significant investment as I've opted not to do everything myself.....

I have decided to get GD to cut the body holes, remove the flash lines, fill seams, hang doors, fit bonnet and boot and finally finish and polish the gel coat. I have a number of reasons for this.

1. I have never worked with fibreglass and would prefer to start on something less critical than the body!
2. I'm going for a gelcoat finish and GD will be able to finish this to a much higher standard than I will be able to achieve - I'm not doubting my abilities just being realistic!
3. Whilst they are at all this they may as well fit the doors, boot and bonnet and get them fitting properly - It is important that the finished car doesn't look cack handed!
4. A couple of people that I have talked to and some others on the cobraclub forum have recommended this route after their own experiences.

All this work incurs a fair bit of additional (unbudgeted!) expense - however it is more than justified in my mind in terms of the end result. The additional expense is about 5% of the original build cost, this seems worth it considering the end result - which if GD do it will be guaranteed - but would involve some degree of chance / luck if I was responsible for it all!

The downside obviously is the time delay in order to save up. However Andy estimated that this approach would save around 90 hours of my time. I seem to have been averaging around 12 hours a week in the garage - so this would equate to roughly 8 weeks saved. Now this is more or less the additional delay. So in reality there's no big difference in the overall programme. The only difference will be that I'll have nothing to do for 8 weeks instead of filling the house with fibreglass dust!

So I may have time to knock together a temporary dash and electrics and annoy the neighbours by running the engine?.............

When I get back on Friday I'm straight away again for a long weekend so there'll be no photo's of bits 'till next week.