105 Miles
What’s that you say, what’s 105 miles? Well it’s how many miles I have on the car already. I guess I should let you know what I’ve been up to over the last month or so since the last post. To start off I was still building but it’s not as exciting as it sounds, what I was building was paperwork. The paperwork that I need to get her registered.
I did take care of a few more things while I was working on the paper work and waiting on my appointment with the Colorado State Patrol for the certified VIN inspection. First up I finished the center console. Covered it with a piece of leather and padding, added the cup holders and then installed it. I also mounted the fire extinguisher. Cause you gotta have a fire extinguisher, cause it’s cool.
I also finished installing the windshield wipers but they turned out to be useless, I’ll explain in a bit, and I found out they’re not required in Colorado so they will be coming off when the car goes to paint and body.
With those items out of the way the next thing I really needed to do was an alignment. Now here’s the rub, I need to be able to drive it to a shop for an alignment but since it’s not registered I can’t do that. I could trailer it but I wasn’t really wanting to do that. Additionally, as I was going to get the temp pass the day before my VIN inspection appointment I wasn’t sure I could get it in and out of someones shop to do the alignment in time. So I decided the only course of action was to do the alignment myself. Now on the forums there are quite a few easy, basic alignment threads with lots of good advice, a good enough basic alignment to get you to the alignment shop. Problem for me was that my VIN inspection is in Golden, CO which is 40 miles from the house. I wasn’t really liking the idea of driving over 80 miles on the very first long drive on a basic alignment. So I bought my own alignment kit to do the alignment. In the pic below you can see it strapped to the front left wheel and the display is showing -3.0º of camber, it’s supposed to be -0.5º. If you’re wondering what the blue tape on the floor is for, that’s so I know how far to turn the wheel left and right when measuring caster.
Ok so now you’re wondering what’s caster, camber and toe-in, well maybe you’re not but I’m going to tell you anyways. Camber is the angle that the tops of the wheels lean in or out towards or away from the car. In the pic above the tire is leaned in towards the car 3.0º from plumb. Caster is the relationship of the lower ball joint to the upper ball joint. Think of the casters on a shopping cart and how they tend to follow the direction you point the cart, well in most cases they do. It’s also whats responsible for your steering wheel centering itself after you make a turn. And then toe-in or toe-out is the the amount the front of the tires either are closer or further apart than the rear of the tires. It’s measured level at the center line of the wheels front to back. The specs for this car are -0.5º Camber, -3.0º to -6.0º of Caster and 1/16 inch total of Toe-in.
I gotta tell you setting these turned out to be quite tiring as I had to measure both wheels, figure out how far off I was, then jack the car up, take the wheels off, adjust the upper A-arms, put the wheels back on, lower the car, turn the wheels a few times, bounce the car so it’s settled, re-measure, repeat until you get the numbers you’re looking for. The first few times I was figuring out how much each adjustment was affecting the settings and understanding how moving one thing affects both caster and camber. All in all it took me about 4 hours to get this worked out but in the end I got what I was looking for and actually got both sides exactly the same. I was really surprised I dialed them both in that close.
With that out of the way I was off to DMV to get the temp registration and after not to much confusion I now have a temp plate good for 30 days.
Time for some driving, unfortunately the weather on Wednesday wasn’t looking to good but Caroline and I chanced it and made a dash to the gas station for a fill up. I gotta say just that short trip was quite an experience, even in it’s red gel coat with the sanding marks all over it, it drew some attention. Caroline and I were both surprised by the number of people who waved and gave us the thumbs up and a few even commented on how beautiful it was. Right now I’m calling it a 50 foot car. As in it looks great past 50 feet away, get any closer and you see the body isn’t done, etc.
Thursday rolls around and Destinée and I are off to VIN inspection. Unfortunately, Destinée didn’t get to ride as I asked her to follow in our Land Rover in case anything went wrong. But she got some pics for me. I just felt a lot better knowing she was there following along. The drive to Golden turned out to be uneventful and everything went well, nothing fell off, nothing caught on fire and nothing blew up.
The pics below show her at the State Patrol Academy waiting for the trooper to verify all the serial numbers. 20 minutes later, all’s good, I got my VIN verification from the trooper and were headed back home. And that’s where we’re at at this point, well other than I took all the paperwork back to DMV to start the VIN creation process. They weren’t sure what the process was so they’re supposed to call me back. Yea, I’m waiting till Tuesday to see if that happens. I’ll let everyone know how that goes.
Oh yea so the part about the windshield wipers. On the way back from Golden I hit a little rain. Right around I-70 and C470. Fortunately I had treated the windshield with Rain-X and it handled most of the rain. When I turned on the wipers they were pretty much useless and if it had been raining any harder totally useless. I would have pulled over under an overpass or something. It wasn’t too bad and it cleared shortly and I dried out not to long after that. So they’re coming off when I get it painted.
That’s it for now. I’ll keep you updated on the whole VIN process and ultimately the registration.
Randy,
Really looking fantastic! Enjoy your next ride down the highway!
So excited for you! I was checking back every day or two waiting for an update! I was thrilled this morning to see one.
Nice job on the center console.
Looking fantastic Randy! I got my 68 on the road again, aligned and re-licensed. Just got to work out some bugs. Your Cobra is awesome.
Randy –
few comments this time:
– car looks awesome! Congrats on the progress and the paperwork!
– I can’t remember ever seeing a car with cupholders AND a fire extinguisher! I’ve seen plenty with one or the other, but having both is pretty rare. 🙂
– Great job rationalizing the purchase of the alignment kit! from someone who is a pro at rationalizing such purchases – you’ve done well –
– Great photos on the road! Can’t wait to see more, maybe some rolling broadside shots once it’s back from paint
The best of safety and comfort.
Looking good Randy!! Have you spun the tires or did any donuts yet? Get some videos if you do!! 🙂
Been enjoyable following along with your journey.. 🙂