HM1085 Build Thread

[Jerry Koepke]

A few updates I've made since getting the car all assembled again a few weeks ago. 

First image is new LED lights for the guages.  The GPS speedometer I have has a blue LED backlight which cannot be change (to my knowledge), so I didn't have any choice but make the rest match that as close as I could.  Prior to changing out the bulbs, I had three separate colors among all the guages and that was bugging me.  I initially wasn't wild about the blue, but now that I've driven it a few times at night, it's actually really nice to drive with.

The last thing I did, which I'm still finishing up is installed an oil cooler.  I really like how it turned out.  I suspect I didn't do much like others have since I didn't have the sheetmetal that came with the car for the bottom plate in the nose area.  I welded up a bracket to hold everything and then bolted that to the cross piece that supports the radiator.  Seems very secure and I'm happy that I didn't actually have to drill any holes in the body to mount any of it.

[Redstang69]

Did you notice any difference in oil temp after you installed the cooler?
Also, I may have asked before but what is the lift you're using and do you like it?

[Jerry Koepke]

I don't know about the oil temp yet, still waiting on the last of the fitting to be delivered to actually hook it up on the engine side.  Should be here tomorrow, then I have a club ride on Saturday, should be able to report back after that.

As for the lift, it's a 6000lb Bendpak sissor lift.  I love the lift.  Only issue with it is I can only back over it because the nose of the car is too low to clear it, but that's not much of an issue.  I think it's the perfect lift for doing the body work/ painting because you can raise and lower the car and there are absolutely zero obstructions all the way around the car.

[Jerry Koepke]

Forgot to include the picture of a cruise night I went to a couple weeks ago.  Took a friend of mine who is a really talented artist and he took this picture of a beautiful sunset, the 50s themed drive-in the cruise night was at and my car.  Thinking about asking him to paint this picture he took at some point.

[Bob Worley]

Forgot to include the picture of a cruise night I went to a couple weeks ago.  Took a friend of mine who is a really talented artist and he took this picture of a beautiful sunset, the 50s themed drive-in the cruise night was at and my car.  Thinking about asking him to paint this picture he took at some point.

WOW nice! Is that paint or gelcoat?

[Jerry Koepke]

That's paint.  I did a paint kit from Eastwood called Ruby Red Metallic which is a mixing of their Fireball Red Pearl and Molten Red Metallic.  It's a single stage paint, but I did get clear to put on as well, though I haven't done it yet.  I'm not 100% sure I'm going to do the clear at this point, but we'll see.  This is actually the first time I've painted a car and while I'm happy with how it turned out, it's certainly far from perfect.  It looks really nice, but it's a long way from what a pro would have laid down.  I was able to sand and buff it and make it look good, but I still have some corrections to make over this coming winter.  Once those are done, I have matte black vinyl strips I'm putting on.

Overall I love the paint color, it's very dark and when it's not in the sun it almost looks a totally different color than when the sun shines on it. As you can see from the photo, it almost looks black or just a really dark maroon if there is enough indirect light on it.  When the sun shines on it it absoluetly bursts with metallic shine, so it's really interesting and a little different than I expected.

[Jerry Koepke]

Oil cooler is all installed and had a local Cobra club ride this last weekend.  My oil temp prior to putting the cooler in was right about 230 all the time.  It was rather cool (about 45 degrees outside) on Saturday morning when I left for my group ride anhour and a half away and my oil temp on that ride barely got above 150.  I was a little worried that may be a bit low, but once I got running around on our ride including some in town driving my temp sat right around 190 which I felt was a good temp.  Overall I'm really happy with the cooler, both in how it performs and how it looks.  My only issue right now is I went cheap on the AN fittings and I'm now regretting it since I appear to have some very small leaks in a couple spots.  Luckily not on the cooler itself, but under the hood on the remote oil unit and down by the engine.  Not a big issue, but something to take care of over the winter.

[Redstang69]

Pretty cool that it worked that well and dropped the temp that much. Got any pics of the tie in at the engine?

[Jerry Koepke]

Here are a couple pictures of the engine side tie in.  My remote oil filter is right there, so that was fairly simple.  Not sure if I had pictures of it or not, but the hoses are clamped in place on the front of the radiator side so they can't move, thn they are clamped in th engine side, so they are more secure than they may look in the picture.  They are fairly rigid and there is no place for them to go.  I was debating runing them through the aluminum on the side in the wheel well, then back in, but then I saw a someone's picture on here they they just went up and over the radiator and that worked really well for me.  I purposely put some extra bend in the hoses when they were tied together so they sit closer to the radiator so I have more room to change out the oil filter when needed.

[Redstang69]

Thanks for sharing the pics. Nice clean install.

[Jerry Koepke]

Just finished putting the stiped on my car!  Went with matte black vinyl and I'm really happy with how they turned out.  I wouldn't say anything on this car is absoultely perfect, but I'm really please with how it looks and take a lot of satisfaction in knowing I did it all myself...well, and my dad with the parts he did before I got the car.  Now the long wait to drive it till next spring.  Maybe there will be some warm winter days I can get out a bit.

[s_reynolds]

Very nice!! There will be some semi warm days, but even if it is cold and not snowing...go for a drive!!

[Redstang69]

The stripes look really nice on the car, it finished it out perfectly.
I would imagine being in Wisconsin you get hindered by the salt on the roads moreso than the cold. That's how it is for me at least.
Would help if I looked closer to what color they were   

[Jerry Koepke]

I realized today I haven't posted on here in a while, so I came on and wow, it's actually been years!  My car is mostly done at this point, but thought I'd share a few things I did on it since my last post. 

One thing I changed was how I did the side rear view mirrors.  I decided a long time ago I didn't really want the original way of mounting the side mirror on body, didn't seem like I would be able to see it well and I really didn't want to put more holes in my car.  My first solution was to mount the mirror that came with the kit to the side of the winshield frame.  That worked alright, but it wasn't great.  I ended up adding the visors and wind wings eventually and that side mirror wasn't going to work with those, so I need a new solution.  I ended up picking up some mirrors at a swap meet and wanted to use those instead.  I've seen people use these ones that sort of clamp to the winshield frame, but I didn't like the way it would look and it wasn't fitting well for me, so I decided to make my own mounts.  I basically replaced one of the blocks for the wind wings with a chunk of 1/2" aluminum square stock I had laying around.  I cut an angle on it, drilled and tapped a hole in the end for the mirror stem to screw into and drilled the appropriate holes for the wind wing mount.  After I was done with that, I took the piece and polished it with the same polishing compound and polisher I used to buff the whole car!  It turned out really well!  The mirrors work really well too, they are very stable and don't shake or vibrate hardly at all.  Here are some pictures of the mirrors.

[Jerry Koepke]

Another thing I did, and this was back in 2022 apparently, was make some door pockets.  I can't remember who's post I saw that inspired me for these, can't even remember if it was on this forum.  Made a pattern with some poster board, then I bought some 1/8" lauan plywood and made the main backing for the pockets.  Got some padding and marine grade vinyl, and sewed up some pockets.  Used some tiny cheap bungie cords from a local home improvement store in the vinyl to make them elastic.  They worked out really nice and I really like how they turned out!