Summer is finally over. Its still unseasonably warm out, but in a comfortable way. It was definitely time to open up the garage and get back to working on the Cobra.
I should probably mention that it, in fact, has not been two months since I’ve done anything on the car, but its been two months since I’ve done anything noteworthy of a new posting. A half hour here and there I’ve been working on the sheetmetal, and I finally picked up some of the parts I’ve needed. Stainless flex lines, mounting brackets for them and the ABS bottom panel to go under the gas tank all showed up a couple weeks ago. I also got wheels ordered last week, which hopefully I’ll have in a week or two. Once I have them (and tires on them) I can button up the suspension and start looking towards ordering the engine.
Today I decided it was time to start the brake lines. The reason for the delay has been simple — I’ve been spending a lot of time debating how and where I was going to run them, including things like maybe running flex lines for all the lines. It was time to bite the bullet and just get it done.
The front brake lines weren’t much of a problem, after some repeated visits to various stores to try to get extra pre-flared lines, rivets and a failed attempt to find the banjo bolts I need for the calipers. I’m not sure if Fortes dropped the ball in not including them with my brakes — I’m assuming so, since they dropped the ball on the flex lines. It would’ve been worth $20 to avoid dealing with it, if I could’ve found them locally.
I’m not going to post any pictures of the two 60″ lines I screwed up. Actually I probably should, but I didn’t take any. The first attempt went well enough but I ended up with far too much line on one end. I bent another to match it, had it positioned just right and then wondered where the brass fitting was on the drivers side end of it… well, it was right next to the one on the other end! D’oh! Strike-2!
The brake line routing is somewhat tricky because I’m running the Wilwood pedal setup, which has the master cylinders inside the footbox, not in the engine bay. I’m not sure yet if I like the routing of the line from the MC to the T-fitting, but it’ll do temporarily.
So, to the photos.
First up, the passenger side line…
I’m not entirely sure if the routing here is right — it seems like a loop upwards would trap air, but it seems to be the typical way people do it.
Once the line runs under the edge of the front crossmember, it follows the X down and up to the drivers side.
The line then runs under and around to the 3/4″ tube going up towards the footbox.
A T-fitting is used here to branch off the line to the drivers side brake flex line. I’m not 100% sure this hard line is positioned right, but once the other bits are installed, I can replace it if need be.
The point where the line runs into the footbox is the biggest questionmark in my mind. I ran it through the hole where the Mustang MC would’ve been bolted. I need to fabricate a panel to cover this space and my thinking is to just drill a hole in the middle of it and use a grommet to pass it in. I need to fabricate the panel first, so this line is not riveted in yet. I also can’t hard affix it to the car until the footbox is riveted up.
Once the line runs into the footbox, it snakes between the clutch and brake pedal, and loops around a couple times before it entered the front master cylinder.
I’m pretty happy with this routing. I’m undecided how the rear will run, but right now I’m thinking it’ll go out the same opening, down the front of the footbox to the 4″ tube and run along that to the back, with a T on the drivers side and another line running to the passenger side from there. Thats next weekend, though.
I also got a good bit of fitting of the footbox sheetmetal done. This I really need to finish, though. Its lousy having sheetmetal hanging over my head like this.
Passenger Footbox
Driver’s Footbox and steering rack
The pedals