Posts by rr64_old

  • Cobra axle hub

    Marv,

    If you have specific dates I will pass the information to our group of long time owner / enthusiasts. There a group on the east cost that love to get together for a road trip in original cars.


    Dan

  • Cobra axle hub

    So far I have not personally seen, heard of, or handled any commercial "replacement" suspension parts for original leaf spring Cobras that were dimensionally just like an original, even from AC Cars in the 1990s. Buyer beware. Make sure you have a money back guarantee. Lots of people have had the unpleasant surprise that to use replacement part A they must also replace or modify original to the car mating part B, and maybe parts C, D, etc. until the whole suspension is replaced or modified. Our group has run into holes drilled in the wrong place, holes drilled at odd angles, different sizes, different threads, poor heat treating, parts too big, too thick, too thin, too rough, brake rotors with non-stock “hat” offsets, and threads poorly cut (in my case 0.750 maximum X 16 was actually 0.756 X 15½ and absolutely would not work).

    I have run across several cars where the owner needed one part and ended up replacing the complete suspension and brakes on one end of the car or another.

    I did find one source for 99% correct brake rotors for coil spring cars. Most differences could not easily be seen mounted and in use but they were almost a quarter inch larger in diameter; too much for some cars without correcting.

    Remember the 99.99% rule of marketing. 99.99% of all private sector goods and services have only one true purpose and that is to separate customers from their money.

    Dan

  • Cobra axle hub

    Lynn Park, Drew Serb, or Bill Murray maybe if it must be an original.


    I can find an e-mail address for Drew but the others would require asking around.


    Dan


    PS Several companies make some sort of replacement (mostly for the current cars) but what I have seen was considerably different than any original.

  • Car wants to die when I stop?

    Decades ago my Boss 302 started quiting at traffic stops after the engine got up to full temperature. It was tough to restart and I had to keep the rpm up to keep it running. A mechanic told me my condensor in the distributor was breaking down. I installed a new condensor and the problem was gone.


    Good Luck!

  • K rebody??

    The Shelby American Automobile Club (SAAC) knows "the car". It is not appropriate for me, since I don’t own it, to post the chassis number.


    I wasn't trying to police the hobby then or now. In the 1970s and 1980s I bought, sold, and traded my way up from a 1966 Mustang two door hard top to a 1964 Cobra. Several cars were Shelby Mustangs. Whenever I came across a Shelby Mustang with something very undesirable about it, I wrote down all the details. I carried the notes with me constantly up into the mid 1990s. The title of my notes was “Cars To Avoid”. It was not uncommon for somebody to call me and ask about car such and such, especially if they knew that I had checked it out. At that point I would tell them what I wrote the day I looked the car over.


    I did forward these notes to SAAC. They have never published any of them.


    I can not speak for SAAC but the pattern seems to be

    • publishes what the legal owner of the chassis number reports

    • files away anything anybody but the owner reports.


    Owner claims are given some level of credibility and every body else just has hearsay. SAAC has more information on many cars than they publish and it can be obtained by the owner of the car. They have to ask. I don’t believe they will tell you what they have if you do not own the car. At worst they might say the car has some questions about it.


    The best thing anybody can do is research cars before they commit to buying them. Somebody always knows. Case in point. Just a couple of years ago, someone was trying to sell me a GT350 that was a “thoroughbred” every nut and bolt correct car. It won national awards at the highest levels. I thought their eagerness and price somewhat questionable. With questioning it came out a very complete but very rusty Shelby car morphed into a never been damaged one. The “restorers” even found a Mustang assembled in San Jose near the same date as the Shelby. They spent a fortune. The Mustang was rebuilt with the Shelby’s identity and was accepted as original by a lot of people. I did not take the car. In the 1970s when I was hunting 1965-66 GT350s maybe 20% were so beat I would not even consider them as salvageable without serious amounts of body and component replacement. I bet most of those are “never been damaged originals” now.


    My only recommendation is to do lots of home work before buying any old car.


    On the other hand. If you want to know anything about any of the cars I personally owned, I will gladly tell you about what they were like during my stewardship. What happened to them after they left my garage, who knows. Of all the cars, trucks, and one motorcycle I have ever owned exactly one subsequent owner of any of them has ever inquired. The one that did (a 1967 GT500) got rewarded last year with some history he did not know and an envelope of pictures I took of the car in the 1970s.

  • K rebody??

    Interesting thread but just because the run down condition of a particular vehicle is obvious and known at any given point in time does not mean future buyers will be aware of its past. Case in point.


    A 1965 GT350 was advertised 30 years ago as needing a complete restoration. A nationally known dealer in such cars had it for sale. Several people associated with national organizations, i.e. members, of like the Mustang Club of America and the Shelby American Automobile Club (SAAC) went to examine the car with intent to purchase. I went in a group of three potential buyers myself. What we went to see was an extremely rusty chassis. It was so rusty there was no trunk floor, no metal brake lines but red flakes, and the front and rear glasses had fallen into what was left of the cockpit. The front left quarter (literally center of dash and console and under driver’s seat) of the car was from an original red Mustang and just slightly less rusty. The car had been sitting in the open stripped of most parts open for years up north (don’t remember where anymore). When we examined the car and its paper work it had these salvageable parts remaining (1) the aluminum Shelby American VIN plate and (2) an all fiberglass hood. The chassis was clearly once a proud GT350. The old papers with the car appeared to be legitimate. There was nothing else left repairable in the norms of the time. (It had a very poor condition engine block and the remains of the steering wheel for example. The few items remaining would be even in today’s world tough to justify trying to repair.) There wasn’t much left of the front chassis below the upper control arm mounting holes. A complete description of what we saw was sent to SAAC.


    Fast forward about ten years. I saw “the car” at a SAAC event in the concours. Well actually what I saw was the original VIN plate on a late (based on dates codes and features) 1966 Mustang fastback. I was asked to be a judge for the concours. I pointed out this car to the event organizers and they just shrugged “so what” style.


    Fast forward to last year. The original never been damaged just restored to the finest standards car sold at auction for over $300,000. One SAAC member testified how it was such a pristine original 1965 chassis that he saw during the restoration process. This “car” has been replaced with other Mustangs two and a quarter times. Talk about identity crisis.


    Quite a few people went and looked at that car three decades ago and it was pretty well known there was nothing left to salvage but the VIN plate and a hood. Today it is a high dollar never been damaged “original”.


    Think what you want but to me that car is a replica at best and somebody paid over $300,000 for a car that ended its existence around 30 years ago. And there are people that don’t believe in reincarnation.

  • Cobra Kit Fender Insignia

    Quote from Scott302

    It continues to stike me as strange that a part that was given a 1963 Ford part number would not be used until late 65 or 66.


    Scott, Ford’s parting number system has confused countless people for decades. This has muddied the water on what people call original parts for Fords since the 1950s. The decade and year codes (example C3) just designate the decade and year model it was intended for. You will find “C1” parts in Fords made years later and things like “D1” Boss 302 Mustang parts for a model that didn’t make it to production. A “C2” oil pump for 1962 engine was still a good (sales number wise) for decades.


    Ford got into Shelby’s operation not long after Cobra’s became hits. Everyone has heard that as Shelby’s fame and operation expanded Ford’s cost and efficiency people were sent in to find lower cost alternatives to everything they could at Shelby’s operations. This hits CSX2201-CSX2588 Cobra owners when they try to find parts for their cars and learn that very many of the parts are ones Ford sourced from its suppliers and not AC Cars anymore; and are often very different than what is on cars just a few serial numbers earlier.


    It is possible that Ford did the art work design some time in 1963 but didn’t release the tooling and or parts until 1965. I can just tell you I held the first J.C. Whitney sold counterfeit in my hands circa the summer of 1971 and by the summer of 1972 I held the S1CS part shown in my picture in my hand for the first time. I have been collecting everything I can find relative to Cobra emblems ever since and the Shelby published parts catalog for the 1966 model year is the earliest “factory” documentation part number or picture wise of the C3RA design.


    Part of the question is why Ford’s version got a “C3RA” prefix. I associate the letter “R” with the many dealer or owner added accessories that Ford offered in the period. I don’t recall all the code letters any more but “R” shows up on some accessories that are just that, something that could be used on any car the buyer wanted to use it on.


    If anybody has anything printed by Ford or Shelby before late 1965 with mention of the "C3RA" design I sure would like to have a photo copy.

  • Cobra Kit Fender Insignia

    Hi Scott,

    Your image didn't work. Most people can not see the difference in Mr. Brock's S1CS-C and Ford's C3RA parts because they haven't seen them side by side. The photos and sketches in all the Ford advertising I have shows the art of Mr. Brock’s S1CS-C part.


    [Blocked Image: http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r187/rr64/COBRAS.jpg]


    When side by side they are as different as 1966 and 1967 Mustangs might look to many people. I have been looking at these things since 1972 and trying to get one of everything since not long after that. Cobras came with the S1CS part. So far I have not found solid evidence of any 427 Cobras that did not come with the C3RA part. Cobras (leaf spring cars) were winding down in late 1964 and 427 Cobras (coil spring cars) were gearing up in early 1965.


    So far I have not found any documentation on a C3RA part before late 1965. (C3RA engineering prefix means designed for a 1963 product line not made in 1963.) The 1965 dated Shelby parts list contains production parts for both leaf spring and coil spring cars. It's last update was 05/31/65 and the C3RA-14225-A version FoMoCo commissioned is not in the parts list at that time. Although SAI still had cars in inventory after 05/31/65 the last car by chassis number (CSX2588) had been sent to dealers months before. I will say unless somebody can show evidence otherwise all Cobras CSX2132 through CSX2588 originally had the S1CS-C 2" emblem. I will go further to guess any 427 Cobra race car in progress by this time originally had S1CS-C emblems, if it had emblems at all.


    Dan

  • 1967 Shelby Trans AM cars

    Shelby did prepare racing coupes for themselves and customers in 1966 and 1967. I don't know a lot about them but 1966 cars were very much like a two door hard top versions of street (Group I) and race (Group II) 1965 GT350s. The 1967 versions started the evolution to racers that looked something like production cars. The detailed booklet Ford published for the Group II Mustang and GT40 engines in 1967 lists many unique race only parts available; engine block up. I have seen pictures of the four bolt main C6FE blocks (also used in GT40 MKIs), the Ford booklet shows the unique head gaskets for the version of heads with copper seal rings around the combustion chambers, I have never seen any of the connecting rods, Shelby use to sell the Deves® piston rings out of their parts department, Shelby sold the intake manifolds (several versions between 1966 and 1967 based on what appears to be three casting patterns in two plumbing designs) through catalog and magazine advertisement channels (with street carburetors, not the trick factory racer jobs made from BJ/BK 427 engine carburetors), and Shelby and Ford sold countless C7FE camshafts. I don’t think the C6FE cylinder heads in all the 1967 versions (three that I know of including two different casting patterns that use the same engineering number) were ever commonly available.


    I don’t have a car but I did recently purchased the works matched and serial numbered cylinder head assemblies with the mating matched ports smoothed passages (complete except for a piece of rubber fuel hose and three hose clamps) induction system from one of the cars that was wadded up racing. I have wanted to play with a set up like this since the 1960s and this is the first intact set up I have come across in all those years.

  • 1967 Group II Cars

    J_Speegle


    Thanks.


    By chance do you have any documentation of how the 2-4V systems were done? I have seen published period pictures showing two ways and a speaker at a SAAC convention told of a third. I have seen three different versions (small differences) of the 1967 style intake (with 1966 Ford engineering number).


    Dan