During a recent visit to the Central Valley in California I made side
trip to San Andreas to check out Dave Bean Engineering. I'd heard (on
this list) that they sold 2-element halogen tail-light bulbs and Talbot
mirror lens replacements. They did have the bulbs but only complete
mirror assemblies; and none with convex mirrors. I did buy three bulbs
at $8.30 each (ouch!) and picked up some catalogs. Naturally the first
thing I did was open one of the bulb boxes to see what $8.30 + tax got
ya these days. The bulb looked like one of those miniature vacuum tubes
that once populated radios and TVs before everything went solid state
about 20 years ago. As I was examining the bulb the clerk ask me if I
was aware that the glass part should not be touched with bare fingers.
Ooops, yup, said that right on the box; even had an easy to interpret
illustration for dolts like myself. The reason for this is that the
bulbs get so hot that the oil film left by fingers can cause them to
burst. The clerk suggested wiping the bulb thoroughly with rubbing
alcohol before installing it. I think this is a good idea even for
bulbs you haven't handled. At that price, why take the chance.
At home I pulled the old rear bulbs, donned rubber gloves and installed
the new halogen. When I bought them the clerk had asked me if I had
glass or plastic lenses. "Glass", I had answered confidently. But it
seems my middle-aged memory had failed me again. The lenses are plastic
after all. Sigh. Oh well, only the lenses are plastic, everything else
is metal and the bulbs are completely open at the sides and back. There
are no reflectors to confine the heat. I decided to give the bulbs a
trial run anyway. I turned the lights on for a few minutes to see how
hot they got. I even turned on a turn signal. After five minutes or so
I held my had behind a bulb about the same distance the lens was in
front of it. No noticeable heat. I'm going to go with this for now but
keep a close watch. The bulbs are noticeably brighter but I couldn't
tell if there was enough improvement to make them easily visible in
direct sunlight. I never had that much trouble seeing them myself but
apparently other people have.
The catalogs I picked up are mostly for Lotus and English Ford so I
don't know how much use they will be but I'm hoping there will be enough
Ford stuff to make them worth hanging on to. I did see quite a few
Motorport parts boxes on the shelves while I was walking through the
warehouse.
In the parking lot there were a few Brit cars, the most interesting of
which (IMO) was a Morris Minor panel truck. It was pretty ratty but
derivable; sorta like my "beer can".
On Cooling:
The first Cobras had quite a bit of problems with overheating. Shelby
used his own team cars as well as customer racers as laboratories to
solve this and several other problems with the prototype design.
Louvers and hood scopes were tried but neither helped that much. Of
course oil coolers were used from day one, but the mod that seemed to
help the most was the side vents. Aces and early Cobras didn't have
them but all later Cobras, including 427s, did. Early Cobras had the
same aluminum radiators found in Corvettes of that era but later cars
had brass cross-flow units of Ford design which worked better and were
more reliable. 289 Cobras did not have engine fans. They were removed
after engine break-in. Thermostatically controlled Lucas electric fans
were mounted in front of the radiators. Except for an overly exuberant
rebuild in the late '60s I've never had overheating problems. And my
Lucas fan has worked faithfully for 30 years; though the non Lucas
thermo switch died long ago and was replaced with a manual switch. This
fan only seems to provide cooling in traffic. Once moving, I can
generally turn the fan off without a noticeable change in coolant
temperature.
Roland
cobra@cdc.hp.com
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