Wishbones & Washers

The first job on the chassis was to install the front wishbones, so using new top and bottom ball joints I started to assemble the wishbones and  uprights.
Using the donor shafts assembly was easy enough, caster angle is built into the chassis and by locating washers between the wishbone and chassis camber angle can be measured, moving the washers between front and back of the wishbone and the top and bottom wishbone changes the camber angle.
The camber needs to be between 6 and 8 degrees and the same for both sides so after a couple of attempts and moving the washers around this was achieved (7 degrees )
One thing I did learn was the chassis needs to be level the upright needs to be at 90 degrees  to the chassis and you need to check these every time you take a new measurment

The big day arrives

Having got up at 3.30 am we set off for peterborough and collected the chassis and body from AK
12 hours later we were back home and full of excitment and anticipation.
The following morning we mustered up the troops and with Bacon butties Tea & Coffee on tap care of Jan & Alison we set about putting the body and chassis in their new homes.
The chassis went straight in to the garage and the body in to the back garden via the next doors driveway and garden.
Every thing went to plan and the six of us managed it easily.
Many thanks to David,Richard,Paul,Justin and John and of course Jan and Alison for keeping us all fed and watered.

Not much left of the Jag

Having registered the jag in my name I sent it to a breakers yard and this is what came back.
So we began the strip down AK need the front and rear wishbones,front hub carriers and the drive shafts these are returned with the kit on a exchange basis after they have been altered to fit the kit.
The bits I need are the front and rear hubs,front and rear discs and calipers and the diff these will all be refurbished and used on the build.
Luckily for me the strip down was quite easy I am not sure if this had anything to do with the fact that the car had not sat out in the weather for months in a scrap yard

Donor Car

The AK kit requires donor parts from various other vehicles the main one being a Jaguar XJ40 (1986-2003) so the hunt was on to find one the parts we needed from the Jag were the front and rear hubs,brakes and calipers and the rear diff and most of all a v5 to avoid the dreaded "Q" plate registration
The diff ratio needs to be 3.54/3.58 from a 3.6 auto this was proving difficult to find, you can get the parts from a breaker but having spoken to Jon I decided to buy a recon diff from a fellow builder of the right ratio he no longer required this then allowed me to buy any suitable donor as the other parts required are the same regardless of engine size and year.
So then we found a 1996 3.2 jag and it was even taxed and tested

AK open day

In July 2014 we went off to the AK factory for their open day the plan was to have a look around and a test drive in the demonstrator car.the weather had diffrent plans though and that weekend the UK was battered by the biggest storm of the year.So even though we did not get the test drive we ordered a Gen II kit and the long wait to April 2015 began

Why we chose the AK

Having decided to build a cobra, the first thing we did was take a trip to the Stoneleigh kit car show in May 2014 to see all the kits in one place,from previous research the AK Sportscars model was the favourite and after asking lots of questions of owners and Jon and Wendy this was the way we would go