AndyM's AK Cobra Build: In the beginning....

It all started on the 5th June 2014, with a second visit to the factory, an order placed and deposit paid. And now the pause, there's a 7 month waiting list so the kit does not arrive until 23rd Jan 2015.

I built a Westfield about 15 years ago so the garage is reasonably well set out & tooled up, but it needed a clear out and repaint, along with some new LED tubes for better lighting.

In the meantime I've been busy sourcing, stripping & refurbishing the donor parts. Starting with the front & rear of a Jaguar XJ40 that forms the majority of the suspension, brakes and drive train. I collected the axles, complete on sub-frames from Black Country Jaguar:

Somewhere under the rust & dirt are the bits I need

Front Hub, Disc, Caliper & Wishbone

Diff, Rear Wishbones & Half Shafts

Rear Hub

It takes some big spanners, lots of tea and a couple of gallons of penetrating oil to get this stuff apart (don't forget which one to drink and which one to soak the parts in).

Removing the front springs was "a worry" there's a lot of energy stored in here. The special tool from Jaguar is not readily available and too expensive for a one off job like this. So I had to make up a tool from a threaded bar and some steel plate.

The toughest nut to crack was the rear diff bracket (at the bottom centre of this photo). It sits on a pair of studs where it had seized completely and the bushes absorb most of the energy when you try to hammer it off. I ended up having to cut through the studs (having first sourced some replacements) and then driving the old studs out of the bushes.

The rear hubs were removed complete with the stub axle and half shaft, but removing the stub axle from the hub proved beyond the capability of my hub puller (now another piece of scrap metal on the pile). I had to use a hydraulic press to extract them, which came in handy for taking the UJ's apart.

With all the parts separated I set about cleaning, refurbishing and painting. I decided that some parts needed some specialist attention, such as the brake calipers and rear hubs, these went off to Ward Engineering for a professional job.