HM1085 Build Thread

[Jerry Koepke]

Oh my gosh!  Got my car back from the shop today after getting the first alignment done and having the carb tuned.  Even though my car is technically 14 years old at this point, it's still a new build and only just recently on the road for the first time.  After getting it back I think I'm in trouble.  I intended to go for a 15 minute ride to see how the suspension felt and the carb tune was.  85 MILES LATER... I came home to a wife that was a little confused why I was gone so long!  This thing is amazing to drive.  Still some tweaks to do, but I can't believe how fun and awesome this car is!

I have a long way to go, but I'm so pumped to have been able to get out on the highway and stretch her legs a little.  The on ramp to the highway that only took seconds to hit 90mph was fun and this thing just loves to eat up the miles.  Can't wait to get out in her again...probably tomorrow.  I was expecting the suspension to be a lot rougher, but I have to say, it's probably smoother than my Jeep Wrangler and way more fun to drive, obviously. 

After driving most of the afternoon with a few stops at friends houses, I got the car home and put it up on my lift to make sure everything was still tight and everything looked great.  Couldn't be happier with this beast.  I tried to take some video of my first real drive in this thing, but my cheap GoPro knock off didn't handle vibrations well and was nauseating to watch, so I'm going to have to figure out another mount before I can share any videos.

[Jerry Koepke]

Well, it's been almost two years since I last shared any build progress, sorry about that.  I've been working on my car a lot and have got a long way in my build.  Last summer I finished my first round of body work setting all my gaps and leveling everything out, then primed it and put it all together.  Since I knew I was going to be driving the car a bit before I took it apart again, I went over the primer with 1000 grit sand paper and sanded the entire thing in one direction from front to back and it left the surface looking like brushed metal finish.  I managed to get the interior in before entering in my first car show at a local swap meet last fall.  Had a lot of fun there and the car, even though it was only in primer, still attracted a lot of attention.

I'm now in the final stages of my body work and am getting ready to paint everything.  My final coat of primer is going on in a couple days, and depending on how that goes, the paint will be going on in the next few days/weeks after.  I have another car show I'm hoping to be in at the end of April, so that's pushing me to get the paint finished up.  I'll be going with a deep red metallic for the paint and I'm planning on doing matte black vinyl stripes and planning to black out most of the other chrome on the car.

I'm currently at about 1,700 miles on the car and I'm loving driving it, so much fun!

I'll make a few posts with pictures of what I've done over the last couple years.

These images take off from my last post with pictures a while back.  These are from when I did my last coat of high build 2K primer.

[Jerry Koepke]

Here is the next dump of photos of my progress, mostly enjoying the car, then onto the next round of body work starting with the interior installation.

I did take inspiration from someone's post on here for making interior door panels and I really like how they turned out!

[Jerry Koepke]

Here is my final dump of photos for now, this is the recent work on getting ready to paint and my exhaust finally being ceramic coated.  That exhaust had to be redone three times for one reason or another, but they look good now.  Hopefully the finish on the exhaust holds up.

[Bob Worley]

I like that scissor lift -- what is it? 

[Greg K]

Looks like a Bendpak https://www.bendpak.com/car-lifts/mid-rise-scissor-lifts/md-6xp/

[Jerry Koepke]

Bob,

The lift is a BendPak like Greg said.  It's been amazing for working on the car and I occasionally put other vehicles on it when the need arises.  Only issue is the center isn't open, so if you needed to drop the trans or something like that, it would be in the way.

[Redstang69]

Cool progress and pretty nice that you've been able to enjoy the car some and drive it. Interior turned out really nice. Pretty cool way of making the primer look good while you were waiting to get into the final body work.

[dawger]

Awesome, bet your pretty stoked getting closer to the final stretch. Tried looking through your build log for information on the seats your using. Where those included from your late dad's purchase of the original kit or did you get them separately? Just wondering due to the amount of room between the front edge of the seat and the dropped foot box and the steering wheel.

Michael
(Dawger-HM2013)

[Jerry Koepke]

Michael, 

These are the original seats that came with the kit when my dad originally purchased it back in 2007.  Possibly what you're seeing is one of the differences between the gen1 cars and the gen2, but I don't know since I haven't seen a gen2 in person.   The seats are surprisingly comfortable considering how simple they really are, but maybe I'm just too happy driving the car to notice.  Haven't been on any long trips with it yet, so I don't have a great feel for comfort on long trips.  The longest straight I've had was a couple hours when I went on a run with a bunch of other Cobra owners in Wisconsin. 

[Jerry Koepke]

Well, once again it's been a while since my last update.  At least this time it hasn't been years, just a little over half a year!

Anyway, I'm going to dump a bunch of photos again of the work I've done over the last months.  I did manage to finally get my car primed again and painted, assembled and driving!  That's quite the milestone and I'm so happy with how it's turned out so far.  I'm not done yet, but here are the pictures of what I've been working one...

First dump contains the priming of the doors, hood and trunk.  After doing those, I decided I need more of a real paint booth and decided to completely take up my entire garage with a DIY paint booth.  The booth is a cross-flow that has a series of filters on the top of one end for air to come into the booth and a large drum fan on the other end of the booth at the flow in an attempt to be able to get rid of overspray while spraying.  The booth worked well and has now been disassembled and I'm glad to have my garage back!

[Jerry Koepke]

Not sure why some of those images in my last post got flipped on their sides since the pictures were not like that, oh well.

Next dump or two or however many is the painting of the car...

[Jerry Koepke]

Imediately after painting and starting the first of many rounds of wet sanding and buffing...

[Jerry Koepke]

Reassembly...

[Jerry Koepke]

Why would it this site completely flip an image upside down?  Anyway, here are some more pictures now that the car is all assembled and I'm able to drive and enjoy it.  Been to a couple car shows/cruise nights since painting and my car is always one of the favorites like I'm sure you guys with completed cars are used to.

Also, a shot of the garage now the the paint booth is all out and the garage is usable again.