Gas tank and Axle Removal

Today we had a record high in the Twin Cities for March 26Th of 81 degrees! This meant I had to get outside..

First I removed the gas tank, filter and filler neck. A little special tool to get the fuel lines off was required.



Then I realized we have an issue with getting the wheels off. There's locks on each wheel and they didn't leave the key socket in the car... Ill have to get a bolt cutter this weekend and cut them off.


But I still unhooked the shocks, trailing arms and brackets to the frame to drop the assembly down. Once I have a second set of hands we can actually pull it out from under the car.




Once we pull that out, all that's needed is the front spindles and suspension components and I'm finished with the Mach 1 donor.

Engine Removal

Pulled the motor today! Started by cutting out the radiator support so the motor and transmission could come out together with ease. After disconnected the exhaust, removing the driveshaft, shifter, and a few other miscellaneous things we unbolted the motor and trans mounts and pulled everything out.




The motor/trans are really clean and look to be in like-new shape.



Just enormous..


Some humor.. (Scott left, Brandon right)




Now all that's needed from the donor is the rear end, some suspension and brake components and the fuel tank. Hopefully I can accomplish most of that this weekend.

Wiring completed, motor removal beginning

Good news, today the wheels arrived!



The rears are 17x11! The car will have a lot of traction..


The nostalgic wheels look like the original cobra's, but they have a much larger diameter of 17 inches to clear the big brakes, and they'll look better too.


Not sure I've ever seen a wheel that wide on a street car.. Dodge Viper's are probably the same width.




Finally finished removing the engine wiring harness and labeling! No more wires to remove! I also removed any remaining coolant, a/c and power steering hoses to the motor. After disconnecting a few other misc. items like the cruise, accelerator and clutch linkage, we're about ready to pull the motor and trans. All that needs to be done is to loosen the motor and trans mounts and disconnect the exhaust and driveshaft!



I left what wires I could still connected to the motor to make things easier once in the cobra. We're about ready to pull the motor and trans now, so the build is very close I promise! By the end of this month we should be putting things in the cobra..

Mach 1 continued

Finally got all the wiring completely out of the cockpit, even the ecu harness to the engine.






After pulling and labeling more wires, I pulled the radiator & electric fan and disconnected a few other coolant lines like to the heater core.

The big DOHC motor looks awesome, can't wait to see it in the little Cobra. Now the engine/trans are almost ready to be pulled.

Harnesses Continued

Got the rest of the dash out today and the huge dash harness all unhooked and the last labels applied. We also removed the steering column, brake pedal assembly and a few other misc things.




After removing the fenders and fender liners we were able to get to a lot of the engine harness which we labeled a bit.

Now we're almost done with all this wiring, which was a pain. After we finish the engine bay wiring we can finally remove the drivetrain.