Progress Thread The next "big" project for my Cobra - T-top conversion coming soon!

Been thinking of all of this over the weekend, even used @rusty428cj 's pics to help get a visual on layout ideas. I even tried to use AI but it was absolutely useless.



I believe I'll need to get myself another stick or 2 of 1x1x.12 tube. So far that would be 4 of those and 2 - 1x.188 flat stock sticks. I also went ahead and ordered grade 8 bolts, both 1" and 1-3/4", rivnuts and grade 8 nuts. I was thinking I'd go with rivnuts to begin with, but the more I thought about it the more through bolts make sense. I'm looking to clamp the pinch weld and I don't think rivnuts would let me torque the bolts down enough to really work as intended.

I remeasured the overall length tonight to confirm the 48" number and tried to hold one of the tubes up to the pinch weld and found that one of the seat mounts is in the way. It's spot welded to the floor pan and the pinch weld. So, my initial thoughts are that I'll need to trim the bracket enough to fit the tube, then I think I'll get myself a .12 plate to weld to the tube to support the floor and seat.

I also stopped at Harbor Freight and picked up the Hercules cut off saw. It's one of those tools that I've kind of always wanted but could never really justify buying. I figure it'll definitely come in handy when I start working on my Chevy, so I took advantage of their parking lot sale with my $10 Harbor Freight cash and pulled the trigger.

And I still haven't heard back from Bryant about the tune. It's been almost a month since I heard back that he was working his way through his list. He told me he'd jump me up to the top of his queue when I got the car straightened out, I guess he forgot. I'll give it one more week since I'm road tripping to get the T top car next weekend, then I'll bug him again to see if I can get it taken care of before I start tearing the car apart. I'd really like to have it squared away before I do any of the T top stuff.

Noobz347 said:

Click to expand...

Much better drawing than I could do on my phone over the weekend.

Noobz347 said:

My logic behind the diagram:

Small square stock along the inside of your pinch rail. Welded in sections along the length and welded to your existing brace at the tail. - Tied in here, the brace and the new rail have to keep their relationship.

Extend your existing brace along the subframe so that you have something to weld to.

I put in 5 braces but you probably only really need three. Since relationship is fixed at the foot. The braces only need to resist being compressed.

This is what will tie your frame and subframe together at the pinch rail.

I would [still] jack the car at the subframe but that might just be a 'me thing'.

Click to expand...

I'm thinking triangulation to resist torsional forces along with lateral bracing. The connector already provides triangulation behind the subframe, so I don't think those would hurt to be 90 degrees to the rocker. Thinking I'd run that front angle as close as I can to the torque box that will be added to my car and already comes added in T top cars. The second one is basically just evening out the spacing, but if it ends up there I think it probably needs tied perpendicular as well. Maybe they both need it? Maybe not? Maybe it could just use a gusset? Maybe they all could use a gusset?

A quick measurement as close as I could figure last night from the front of the channel of the connector to the approximate location of the torque box at roughly 45 degrees comes to about 12 inches. Perpendicular is about 8.

I am using 1 inch square tubing at the rocker, but I'll have to section it to account for an offset about halfway from the front to the rear. And I'm also looking to weld it to the rear most part of the connector, so we're on the same page there.

Since this project is blowing out of proportion (as they all seem to do), I'm thinking floor pan and rocker replacement while I'm at it. May as well, right?!

Just got back from a road trip to the Duluth Minnesota/Superior Wisconsin area and this thing followed me home.



I just got parked in the driveway and will try to get the trailer unloaded tomorrow, then get the car unloaded to start an inventory. I didn't really look it over too closely, mainly because I have absolutely no intention of building or restoring it, but the areas that I did look at are pretty far gone. On a positive note, most of the stuff that I'm after seem to be in decent enough shape - I'll find out more as I get into it.



On another note, James (the seller) let me know the night before that he found out that the engine wasn't stuck, it was the smog pump. And he told me that he had it running. He said that the reason it was parked was that it blew a brake line ~20 years ago and he just had no interest in fixing it at the time. So it sounds like it may run and drive if the brakes were fixed. I'm not too interested in it in that respect, but it would be nice to be able to drive it between my garages if that were the case, so we'll see if it'll start in the coming days. If that's the case, I may end up fixing the brake lines enough to be able to stop it just so I can shuttle it between buildings while I'm in the process of everything.