Donor Parts Re-furb

All the donor parts will need a good refurb, their are many different finishes available, such as powder coat, hammerite, or Por-15 chassis paint. I have basically striped all my running gear down and given a good wire brush, then a quick coat of hammerite to stop any damage/rot. I intend prior to the chassis to strip all the hammerite off again and get the bits powder coated, however I’ll probably be waiting till I pick up the chassis, as the back wishbone's and drive shafts have to be shorted. Below is some of the front suspension set-up, stripped down to component form. It is important to remember the amount of shims removed from the upper ball joints, this is essential to set up the suspension correctly to eliminate bump steer.



The driveshafts (below) i'll just leave like i got them as they will be exchanged with AK for some shorter one's along with the rear wish bone's.

In order to strip the donor parts down to component form, you will need to remove the universal joints.... some of them are easy, some i found a total arse! the UJ's are held in place by circlips, i did have some circlip pliers however they were gash, so with the help of some little screwdrivers and my trusty hammer the UJ's were soon knocked out, ready for replacement.

Donor Parts

Donor parts are very easy to pick up, and are fairly cheap if looking in the correct places. The AK 427 uses mostly Jaguar XJS/6 running gear, however AK now also offer a generation 2 chassis using XJ40. I'm using the standerd chassis as i have XJS running gear.

Parts required to start building.

• Jaguar front axle
• Jaguar rear axle (compleat on subframe)
• Jaguar diff. (i have a 3.54 powerlock)
• Jaguar XJS handbrake assembly
• BMW E30 steering coloumn (including steering wheel and ignition key for IVA)
• Rover 25 brake servo and master cylinder
• VW Polo mk2 heater

Early Stages

When I first 100% decided that i would be building a Cobra rep, i needed to decide which kit to go with. Their are lots of kits on the market ranging from GD, AK, Pilgrim, Dax etc... all of which vary in terms of quality, and cost. Pilgrim are the only kit that offer a Ford running gear option, this put me off slightly as i wouldn’t feel happy putting so much power through a knackered old Granada/Sierra diff and i feel that a Jaguar based kit is going to be allot stronger. Also in this day and age everything is done on the internet, and i felt that Pilgrim's web site was poor, relatively no information, with zero information on cost's of kits etc..

Dax i felt were a good contender, however with me being in Newcastle and Dax in Essex that was one hell of a hike to see the factory and collect parts. So for me Dax were put on the backburner. I had narrowed my decision down to AK and GD. Both of these kits are outstanding quality and GD located in Newark which is fairly close and AK are found in Peterborough (this was handy as my parents live in the midlands, so is a good stopover point)

With still no firm decision made me and my dad took a trip to the national kit car show, this was a superb eye opener. All the manufacturers of the kits in one place, lots of enthusiasts on site with their cars for biased opinions, in a nutshell a superb day out (even my dad agreed it was a good show) So my main reasons for the show was to have a chat with AK and GD, firstly remember this is my opinion, but all GD wanted to do was sell me a factory car (pre-built) this i found a little irritating, we told the guys that i intended to build it and again kept pushing the factory car, rather than the kit.

So over to AK and spent a good while speaking to Ross, who talked me round their chassie they had on stand, also covered power plants, and running gear etc... I had decided not to place an order at the show, until i had slept on my opinions and drawn up a pro's and con's list (this is something i now wish i had done)

Couple of weeks after the show i took a trip down to AK to have a look round their factory. Before i was out the car i had a cup of coffee in my hand and Ken was showing me chassies, tub's, welding area's etc... I was in heaven. So before leaving i was happy to leave an order for my kit. If i had placed an order at the show in Stoneleigh my delivery would have been around Sep/Oct, now because of a flood of orders at the show AK's delivery had been pushed back to Feb.... yes Feb 2010. This was a little disappointing, as Dax quote 12 weeks from point of order as do GD. However it could be a blessing in disguise, as i only have a single garage, and I’m trying to buy my neighbours attached garage of him, so i can knock them into one.