This is the final episode of the great snake gas tank saga; I HOPE!
Saturday morning while I still had the seats out and good access to the
area between the trunk and the cockpit I did some final cleanup before
installing the tank. I still hadn't decided what to do about the
Lift-The-Dot studs; whether to kludge up some sort of permanently
attached threaded insert or to use large washers and nyloc nuts. I had
tentatively installed them with nuts and washers. For the heck of it I
shoved the tank in to see how difficult it would be to remove the stud
nuts. As it turned out it wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be.
A bit of squeeze to get a wrench in but do-able. I decided to go with
the nuts and washers.
Getting the tank back in was a piece of cake. It was in place and tied
down in less than an hour. Even the very short piece of neoprene hose
between the filler neck and filler cap assembly was easy to install. I
did have a minor problem screwing the electrical terminal stud into the
fuel sensor with the tank in place. The sensor unit had to be installed
with the tank out of the car but the sensor terminal stuck up too high
to clear the frame during tank installation. Between my fat fingers and
the limited room above the tank, getting the stud in was tricky.
Originally I had planned to put Teflon tape on all of the tank outlet
fitting threads but at the last minute decided not to. I didn't want to
risk getting bits of tape the line. Instead I used pipe thread compound
recommended by a local auto parts store. I re-installed the cut-off
valve in the line I'd installed last time the tank was out. This valve
had been handy in the past when I've had to do gas line and fuel pump
work. It also made draining the tank a easier.
The real pain was getting the seats in, especially the driver's side.
One of the bolts holding the seats to the sliding rails must be
installed before the others or it can't be maneuvered in without special
tools. I discovered this after I had all of the others bolts in. This
meant removing the seats and starting over. Even so, I still had to get
some help getting the first bolt in on the driver's side. Also I manage
to get a couple of good head gashes from the pointy corner of the
driver's side door. This is a regular occurrence for when I have to
work in the floor area or under the dash.
By the afternoon I was ready to put gas in the tank. Fortunately a can
of gas I kept on hand for the lawn mower was nearly full. I poured it
into the tank and checked for leaks. No leaks so I started the car and
drove to a service station. I decided put in half a tank to start; an
amount I could siphon off easily and transfer to one or more of my other
cars. And of course, a little test drive was in order. Everything
worked fine with no obvious problems. My only complaint was the amount
of heat in the cockpit after the car warmed up. But that's normal for a
snake on a hot day.
Sunday morning I checked for leaks again. None, so off to the service
station again for a complete fill up and the next leak test phase. It
seemed kind of odd to have a full tank of gas in this car. Just to be
safe I opted to park on the street for the rest of the day instead of in
the garage. By late afternoon everything still looked A-OK.
To celebrate I decided to install the new side-view mirror I had
purchased just before the tank problem occurred. This is the chrome
racing mirror in the Moss Motors catalog. I got this particular mirror
because it's larger than most of the similar mirrors advertised. I
ordered it through O'Connor Classics for convenience and because Mike
told me I could return it if I didn't like it.
The first problem I encountered was the difference in the mounting hole
patterns between this mirror and the original Talbot. This meant the
old holes had to be elongated somewhat. No biggie but I thought the
mounting for the new mirror would be designed around the original holes.
Not so. Then came the "big" problem. The way the Moss mirror mounted
to the bracket that came with it didn't make sense to me. No matter how
I tried to attach the mirror to this bracket (now mounted on the car
body) it just slid off. In fact, I can't see how this setup could
possibly work. The bracket consisted of a thickish piece of sheet metal
about 1/2" wide and bent up on both ends. One end was bent about 90
degrees and had a tapped hole for a machine screw that passed through
the front of the mirror base. The other end was bent more than 90
degrees and I assumed was suppose to jam against something inside the
mirror when the screw was tightened. But tightening the screw only
pulled the mirror loose. I spent quite a bit of time looking at the
bracket and the inside to the mirror and concluded that that was the
only possible result. I tried bending the bracket ends but that didn't
help. In fact, there was no way to make this arrangement work that I
could see. Either my mirror came with the wrong mounting bracket or
something was missing, either from the bracket or from the inside the
mirror. Eventually, I gave up and decided to return the mirror to
O'Connor's.
Thence commenced a half hour search for the mirror's receipt. I found
at least a half dozen other O'Connor receipts but not the one for the
mirror. Pretty soon it occurred to me that I'd better come up with an
alternative plan if I couldn't find it. I was pretty sure Mike would
remember me buying the mirror since he didn't have any other customers
with a Cobra that I was aware of, but whether he would take it back
without a receipt was another matter. So, I took another look at the
mirror. With a little filing here and there, maybe I could use the old
Talbot mount. The Talbot mount was a U-shape rod, the bottom of which
fit inside the car body with its ends sticking up into the mirror base
then into the mirror body. Nuts screwed onto the threaded ends of the U
held the mirror in place. While the Talbot mirror had a separate cast
base and a stamped sheet metal body, the Moss mirror base and body where
cast as one piece. By cutting through the metal between the body and
base inside the the Moss mirror I was able to get the Talbot mounting U
to slide in with enough end clearance for the nuts and washers to just
fit. The mirror is now mounted but there is one minor problem
remaining: the empty hole at the front of the mirror base where the
machine screw for the Moss supplied mount screws in. I'll live with
with this for now. At least its solidly in place and works.
Roland Dudley
cobra@hpcdcsn.cdc.hp.com
CSX2282
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