Once the chassis was home, my main priority was to treat it and paint it. So I mounted it on axle stands and got to work. I coated the chassis with  Zinc Phosphate before painting it with POR 15, this is also available from Frost Engineering. I also painted the rest of the brackets and drive-shafts, etc, that I had picked up from Dax with the chassis. The body had to sit in the garden on the patio until I'd got a rolling chassis, ensuring that the back, middle and front were supported to keep it from being stressed or even warping.

Thumbnail

    Once I'd painted it I decided to put the engine in, as it was in the way in the garage, the manual says to fit the fuel lines and brake pipes first, but I didn't see what difference it would make. Don't make this mistake, it is a real s*d to drill the fixing holes for the brake pipe clips with the engine in the way. I had to lift the engine up again to gain access. So, without deviating from the manual, I assembled the diff and rear suspension, this was easy enough, just don't forget where those shims went!

    The front suspension was not quite as straight forward, according to the drawing in the manual, the top wishbone has several washers on the ends of the pivot shaft, but these are for the original bushes. The polyurethane bushes are a different shape on the ends and they only require the domed chrome plated washers that were originally in the rubber bushes. The next problem was with the anti-roll bar, it is mounted under pressure and therefore has to be stretched into place with the upright fixing bolts loose to allow the eye to move closer. Once the bar was connected I started tightened the mounting upright, as I did this its bushes began to pop out, I thought that this might be due to the fact that the chassis was not sitting on any wheels and therefore the bar would not be in its correct position, so I've left it loose for now. 

Thumbnail

Next I fitted the radiator bracket and trial mounted the radiator from the Rover. A handy thing about the Vitesse is that its radiator has a hole in it for an electric fan switch, because some were fitted with air con, this can save messing about with other types of switches. Most cobras I've seen have a pair stainless tubes to extend the water pipes to the radiator, as this looks good I decided to do the same. A mate had some stainless pipe exactly the right size that he had got from a chocolate factory when it shut down, so I popped down the local scrapyard to find an assortment of flexible pipes to fit. The pipes came from a Mondeo and an Astra, after cutting them to size and fitting the pipe it needed to be held from hitting the chassis. I turned a couple of 10mm thick rings from aluminum that the pipe would slide through, I then drilled and tapped a 6mm hole in it and fixed it to the chassis with a small piece of 6mm studding.

      I also needed to modify the alternator bracket as the alternator has to be above it to stop it fouling on the inner wing. So I cut a large slot out of it, rounded off the edges and sprayed it.  I then needed to make a new adjusting bracket, so I tried out several shapes from cardboard and once I'd got one I liked I made it from a sheet of aluminum. But when it was fitted it didn't look very good so I'll have a rethink later. 

      The propshaft had to be cut down to just under 18" and then balanced. This was done by a local engineering firm for £45. Once this was fitted I wanted to get it on some wheels, I had to let the wheels go that came on the Jag because the bloke that came to take it to the yard couldn't move it without them. This proved to be another mistake, because no one had any going cheap, all the scrapyards wanted £12 - 15 each. I eventually found a set for £25 a few miles away and decided it was worth a ride out to get them. Now its on wheels, a very tatty set, but at least its rolling.  

Fitting the Body