Messages

Peter,

Here's a pic of the mounting bracket.  The shop that did the work used a type of crimp on threaded insert in the back side of the bumper tubes. They initially had issues with the tubes wanting to twist when they tightened everything up...so they had to massage things a bit to get the tubes to align straight. It came out clean looking, but If I had it to do over again, I might have chose another option. The fit is really tight. We considered mounting the lights on a horizontal bar spanning between the bumper brackets, but that obscured the grill. Another option was to build individual brackets coming off of the bumper brackets from either end. The final option was to build a bracket that came off of the flat ledge of the aluminum bodywork below the grill. It appears that is where fog/driving lights are mounted on Ace's an Aceca's without bumpers...although, I wasn't sure if there is enough structural integrity on that ledge or if some strengthening beneath the bodywork would be required. Perhaps others may know about the latter mounting point and if it needs strengthening.

Yes John - That was my Aceca (AEX521) at the Classic Motorsports Magazine Monterey Kickoff show. The award it won was "Best British Other" (they had separate awards for Best MG, Triumph, Jaguar, Mini & Austin Healey). It made me happy...that makes it 3 for 3 for top awards in its class this year at car shows. The award I'm most honored to achieve was a "Best in Class" at the "Cobra Day Show" at The Cobra Experience Museum in June where it went up against 3 other nice Acecas. It's really just great to get it out and drive it after 16 years of restoration work! It's only been on the road for for a little over a year now and I've logged about 1,600 miles so far.

For those of you that don't know, my Aceca has been in my family since 1968 (55 years - 23 in my garage). A High Performance 289 was installed early in 63 as a brand new motor straight from Ford...with a little assistance from Shelby to source the motor and his guys in Venice supplying parts and advice (according to a period article on the conversion and a 19 page invoice of the work including phone records).

Best,
John Thompson
AEX521

Btw - The 1930's AC at the show was a 16/70 Drop Head Coupe (L594). The owner has only had it for 2 years. I shared info about the ACOC and Rinsey Mills book.  I believe he will be joining the club. :)

Glenn,

Welcome to the WORLD of AC owners. Lots of great folks on this forum from around the globe to help you with AC ownership... and as you've discovered, there are quite a few AC enthusiasts in your neighborhood too. I look forward to meeting you at the all British car show in Dixon this year. I plan to show my Aceca at the show and as you're probably aware, there will be another Aceca from Santa Rosa at the show too. Perhaps the organizers will have to create a separate class for AC's this year! :D

Best Regards,

John

Hi Nick,

I'm not sure if/when AC switched to the end caps shown in your pics (during or after production). Here's a pic of my front bumper showing the original style end caps on top and the replacement end caps on the bottom (that came with replacement bumpers, which I believe were ordered from the Works in the late 80's). Btw my new bumpers are stainless steel along with the end caps. My original bumpers were chrome plated. My car is a 55 Aceca. A local friend with a 59 Aceca has a similar mismatch of bumper end caps. Perhaps someone else on this forum knows about when the switch was made?

Let me know if you'd like some more detailed pictures and measurements of the early type end caps. I'd be interested in getting some of the early style end caps if you decide to have some made.

I hope this helps.

John

I just measured my stone guards (purchased from the Works in the 80's) and got the exact same measurements as Nick. It appears AC kept a consistent pattern for the stone guards over the years...or they had a large stockpile of them left over when the Ace & Aceca went out of production. I had to use a piece of string to measure the length as I haven't had a chance to get my car up on jack stands. FYI - the narrow end is mounted towards the aft of the car.

John

I live in the same town as Greg and have been at his house a few times to help sort out his steering woes. When I heard that rotating the peg 90 degrees (to the virgin side of the peg) eliminated most of the 5 inches of play at the steering wheel, I had to get my head around how this could be... Being an engineer, I drafted the attached exhibit in CAD to illustrate the relationship between 5 inches of play at the steering wheel vs. the travel of the worm drive at the peg. Pretty simple geometry here..."a picture is worth s thousand words". Based on the exhibit, you can see that the worm drive (groove that the peg rides in) only has to move 1/4 inch in each direction (1/2 inch total) to account for 5 inches of play at the wheel.  I guess that the wear on the peg accounts for most of this movement.

I hope this helps everyone visualize the situation better.

John
AEX521

Interesting reading about various jacks in the link. It now seems even more logical that the 12DL was the jack for the Ace /Aceca and possibly carried over to the early Cobras?

Btw - the guy who prepared the description of jacks in cobras is Dan Case (an ACOC member and VERY knowledgeable on all things regarding original Cobras)

Eddie,

I'm fairly certain that the original jack for the Ace / Aceca IS the Shelley 12DL per my post and pics from a year ago (see above). Pretty strong evidence with it being included in 2 Acecas and an Ace as original equipment between 55 and 62...and the curved support mates well with the the main tubes (which is the jacking point I've been using). Btw - there's a "Shelley" jack for sale in ACtion right now. Not sure which model.

I ended up getting my jack bead blasted, painted and functioning again for display purposes. I also bought a scissor jack to carry in my car which I have already used on the road.

I hope this helps.

John

This link contains many early Factory Photos. It's been posted to the Forum before, but this seems like a good place to post it again for those who haven't seen these pics. Lots of good stuff here!

Tip - You can download larger jpg images by opening each pic and the saving a copy (3XX KB images vs. less than 100KB images if you download them straight from the main image screen).

https://www.johnrossmotorracingarchive.co.uk/index.php?twg_album=AC+Cars&twg_show=RB+341+-+AC+Aceca+-+chassis+-+October+1955.jpg


Best,

John
AEX521

FYI - Here's a pic of a pair of OEM stone guards that my father obtained from the AC Works back in the early 80's. To answer  your question about construction both the mesh and the frame appear to be aluminum.  Note that they also came with a bunch of aluminum fender washers to secure them in place. I'd get you some dimensions, but they have finally been installed in my car so they're a bit hard to measure. Hopefully Keith's source works out for you.

Best Regards, 

John

Chris,

WOW - Your Aceca looks great! I love the color and the patina on the seats is fabulous.

It sounds like you still have a few teething pains to sort out. I just got my Aceca (AEX521) back on the road in May after a 16 year long restoration adventure. Like you, I still have a few things to sort out. Regarding the heat in the footwells, I had a heat shield material installed under the carpet on my footwells. Despite that effort, I still had a lot of heat entering the cockpit via gaps around penetrations in my firewall where wires and cables passed. Even the smallest gap was pushing a lot of hot air in, so I carefully identify all the gaps and discreetly wedged pipe insulation foam in to seal the gaps. That greatly reduced the problem.  Fortunately, I have a separate cold air vent running from the grill area to the drivers LHD footwell (similar to the cold air supply for the heater) with a butterfly valve in the footwell to control flow. That works quite well to bring in cold air. I assume the cold air supply for your heater runs up the rt side of the car. With RHD you can likely place a wye in the duct and route a cold air vent to your footwell.

Just some thoughts to help you out. Hopefully you can sort your remaining issues soon.

Cheers,

John

Bob,

Rob probably doesn't monitor this Forum anymore. He sold his Aceca in 2015. I met him at some vintage race events in Norther California and can send you his contact info.

I'll PM you.

John
AEX521

I believe the original jack for the Aceca, Ace, 2.6 Ace and Cobra for that matter is the Shelley 12DL model. A group of us AC owner's from the other side of the pond (WCACOC) traded some e-mails on the subject of jacks a number of years ago. I've attached 4 pictures from those e-mails of Shelley jacks from 3 different owner's cars one of which can attest to the Shelley 12DL as being original jack as he is the original owner of a 62 2.6 Ace (chime in Paul if you see this post). The jack with the tape measure next to it is from a 59 Aceca (thanks Greg), and the rusty one (shall I say slightly melted) is from my car a 55 Aceca - AEX521. Btw - My jack went through one of the California Wildfires that took out my storage locker...I'll likely beadblast it and paint it as a memento. Notice that all the jacks have a number under the 12DL that closely corresponds to the year of car (54 for my car, 59 for the 59 Aceca, and 61 for the 62 2.6 Ace). I tried searching for a Shelley 12DL on line and gave up. I understand that when they come up for sale they can bring good money from the Cobra folks (over $500 US). My father said he used a scissors jack for all the years he drove my car (32 years), He said it was easier to use if one actually had to change a tire on the road.

FYI - The owner of the 62 2.6 Ace jack (Paul) is currently using a MGA Jack branded "6 INCH DL" (his original jack is missing some parts). I believe Paul said the MGA jack about ½" taller so it's a slightly tighter fit, but very similar in style. Paul – can you chime in about how well your MGA jack works? I hope this helps.

Best Regards,
John

Hi Luke,

Looks to be well made. Thanks for all the pics from different angles. The hex shape came out well formed. Should work nicely. I look forward to when you ship them out. Thanks for your efforts!

Regards,

John

Looks like your car in this episode of Hagerty's Barn Find Hunter in 2016. How many red AC Greyhounds could there be found in a barn in North Carolina? It looks like it was a REAL barn find! There's a bit of history in the clip. Perhaps you already have this info...if not, you could try to contact the show via the web to get more specific information from the host (Tom Cotter).

Good luck with the restoration!

Web link to show:
https://youtu.be/1M2DrK7fWPo