Good day rr64
I have contacted Dave Actons business and had a positive response straight away via Bonni. Let’s see how this develops but they definitely appear to be up to it, thank you .
To aid my endeavour it would be great to have some quality shots of the cooling set up on an original early 289 car including expansion tank, radiator and hoses. Do you have a suggestion where I might be able to acquire these.
The Car has a 1963 aluminium Gearbox which appears to be a race box, would this have been a standard part for a road going car. I understand that aluminium boxes were introduced at some time in development but were these “race “ boxes ?
Originally 6005 was fitted with an Armstrong selectaride damper control system, the control being mounted on the transmission cover . I suspect that this was unreliable. Do you think this was purely an option offered by AC cars for European/British cars. I am not focused on originality, but it would be good to get information on this as well.
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Nick and Bonni Acton help customers with maintenance and repairs of original Cobras and 427 Cobras. I provide technical information, detailed pictures, and drawings to them as required for those activities.
I have about eighteen thousand digital pictures of unrestored American market cars covering back nearly six decades. As questions are asked, I can usually cut and paste images into a slide show for somebody covering most subjects. The exchange of large blocks of information is not something to do in little Internet forum text boxes. Some slide shows and commentary files are quite large. My slide show regarding the Otter® brand coolant temperature switches and housings is 17 pages in length for example. The file on mechanical fuel pumps used in Cobras is 50 pages in length and my commentary on engines used in Cobras is currently 124 pages in length. I have created more than 300 each specific subject information files so far not counting many reverse engineering CAD drawings.
Files are free for the asking and may be treated as open source by users, but file transfers must be accomplished via email. It takes just seconds to share in *.pdf file format anything but CAD drawings or single pictures. CAD drawings take more effort to transmit if they have to be back saved to a prior software version including some version of old *.dxf file format. Individual pictures can take more effort because I usually have to reduce their size first. Yes, I am aware of third party file storage services. If I created a file and never revised or added to it that might work other than in total as of this morning I have more than 40 GB of Cobra related file space in the machine I am using with more than 24,000 files in more than 1,400 folders. Most of the commentary, slide shows, and spreadsheets get revised and or expanded in content as better or addition details are confirmed. It is enough to keep and back up one file bank much less add an online cache to maintain (a slow cumbersome process at best). I also have access to the databases other researchers keep with more thousands of pictures that I care to think about right now.
With that as background, I can identify most materials and parts in American market (CSX2 prefix) cars. I have been studying them since circa 1971. CSX2144 was literally parked in sight of the home I grew up in. I have very little technical coverage on COB/COX60 prefix cars, especially electrical systems which we very different from the CSX2201-CSX2589 cars made concurrently. The engines and transmissions subjects are the same for the two markets I believe based on my association with somebody in the UK that has answered my questions. We will get into unknown to me territory looking into radiator hoses that A.C. might have used, especially the lower one for COB60 prefix cars. I can provide information on what American market cars were finished with late 1963-65.
I have a big digital commentary file regarding manual transmissions used in Cobras and an associated slide show covering the yoke and plug assembly for transmission outputs. Aluminum transmission main and tail shaft housings were adopted from big Ford sedan race cars. The design pattern is that of a 1963 Ford Galaxie with 260/289 engines and are the same dimensionally all over inside and out. Aluminum cased units were introduced into new street and race Cobras circa August 1963 and were used thereafter. Several different gear sets were used in street and race Cobras; yes units created for racing were installed in street Cobras. The most desired sets of gears with produced with higher nickel content in their gear alloy. Our black car came with a ‘racing’ unit with the General Motors input and gear which requires the use of a General Motors design of clutch disc.
The driver adjustable Armstrong® Selectaride™ suspension dampeners and electrical control system was available in COB/COX60 prefix production cars but not American market cars to the best of my knowledge. The anomaly was CS 2030, a car retained by A.C. and it had that system installed in it. I cannot speak to how they worked.
Parts related to cooling systems and heater-demister coolant circuit you may want to study include:
• a formed aluminum pipe with a branch for the heater-demister coolant circuit. Short sections of rubber hose and clamps accomplish a connection between the water pump and McCord expansion tank. (Cars with McCord design tanks used a different tube assembly than earlier cars using Harrison 1962 Corvette design tanks.) More than one company has produced parts between perfect copies of originals down to similar parts that work. Nick and Bonni can supply a very nice one if required.
• housing adapter for a thermal fan switch and a switch. A.C. produced three different versions, two in fabricated steel and one in sand cast aluminum for American market cars. I have no idea what a COB60 prefix car would use. There were two Cobra specific switches made under the Otter® brand for Cobras. The 70°C trip point switches have been obsolete for decades and the near identical MGC (carburetor air temperature switch) and the 1969 Lamborghini P400 Miura (radiator fan switch) switches have also been obsolete a long time. Nick Acton offers a modern 12VDC switch and custom mounting plate to get the job done.
• Everhot® provided Cobra specific manual shutoff valves for the heater-demister coolant circuit in American market cars. They have been obsolete since the 1960s. I have no idea if A.C. used them in COB/COX60 prefix cars.
• If required, spacers to move an original type expansion tank mount away from the left side rocker arm cover. They are simple to make and I have a drawing set I did for them. (Yes, some people use stacks of flat washers, which works.)
I suggest that further questions be handled via email. I am not sure how much I can help with your car I will help if I can. My email address is posted in this site’s profile page for me.
Dan
CSX2310
CSX2551
