February Update

Time for an update on the progress of the Jag restoration.  A considerable amount of progress has been made in the last month.  My wife, Lynn was out of town for a few weeks in January so I took advantage of the quieter house to do some needed home improvement and installed a tile back splash in the kitchen.  This was a project we had been procrastinating for 12 years so it was time to get it done.  Below is a photo of the finished job, on one side.

With a few other home repairs to do I did not make much progress on the Jag, but after finishing those things I went back to work in the garage. 

The large rubber bushings in the forward ends of the radius arms had to come out, what was left of them.  I set one up in my 20-ton press and tried to press it out, but it would not come!  I didn't press too hard as I was afraid of bending the arm, so I opted to cut out a segment of the steel outer ring of the bushing with a hack saw.  That released the bushing, and also showed me that there is a small lip around one edge of the sleeve that the bushing presses into, making it impossible to drive out the bushing in the direction of the lip!  It was impossible to see the lip with the bushing in place so I didn't know I was pushing against it.  Anyway, the hacksaw worked fine and the bushings are out and the arms are sandblasted and primed, ready for new bushings.

Here is one arm with the bushing that was cut out.

And here are the primed arms along with the cleaned up aluminum hub carriers that are ready to reassemble.  These hub carriers, along with the sub frame and the lower suspension arms were all cleaned at Clegg's Machine in Orem.  I could never get them this clean at home.

My next job was to remove the springs from the rear shocks.    You can see above the spring compressor I made from the two rear brake disks and two lengths of 3/8 all-thread.  This worked great.  Just need to sand blast and paint the springs and install them on the new GAZ shocks I am ordering. 

To prevent the rear subframe and other cleaned steel parts from rusting I went over them with Scotch Brite pads and sprayed them with primer.  They will be painted black later when the weather is warmer.  The fulcrum arms (lower suspension arms) need all new bearings as the old were worn and even rusty; water must have entered somehow over the last 50 years. 

Here are the primed rear end parts, ready for paint and re-assembly.

The differential had to come apart.  It felt smooth turning it by hand but it had been leaking oil for years before the car was parked and I wanted to replace all the seals and o-rings.

The bearings and gears looked good inside the diff.  It has a 3.54 ratio which was typical for US cars.  Some restorers like to change to a 3.07 ratio to slow the engine down on the highway, but I think I will put these gears back in since I have them and they have given adequate performance for
thousands of cars for many decades.  Besides, new gears are expensive.
There was only one failed part inside the diff which made it entirely worth taking apart.  The belleville-spring disk on one of the limited-slip clutches was broken in three pieces.  That would probably prevent the clutch on that side from grabbing so the limited-slip function was not working for one wheel.  Fortunately it is easy to replace and no other damage had been done. 

Here is the differential housing back from the cleaning tank at Clegg's.   There are some tiny pinholes visible in the cleaned casting which, if they go through the wall,  might have been part of the source of oil leak.  I will plug them with "JB Weld" before painting and re-assembly.  New seals will be used also, of course.  The bearing all look OK.

The brakes were my next project.  Cleaning the rear brakes, especially, was a huge ordeal.  They were totally encased in a hard, black tar consisting of brake dust, diff oil, fulcrum grease, road dirt and brake fluid.  It was a horrible mess, the worst I have ever cleaned up in my memory.  But the crud came off, the last of it in the bead-blaster.  Here are all the parts, front and rear, cleaned and going to the Zinc plating shop.

All 8 of the slave cylinders were pitted beyond honing, and I was going to buy new ones, but a Jag restorer I met up in SLC informed me of a shop that will bore out your worn cylinders and fit them with steel sleeves to bring them back to original tolerances.  The cost is about half the cost of new cylinders.  So after the Zinc plating is done I will send the cylinders and pistons to this shop and have them sleeved.  That is the cheapest option and also preserves the original brakes.  There are several after-market brakes available but I am trying for originality where it is possible and safe to do.

Speaking of Zinc plating, here is the last batch of finished parts received last week from the plater.  They are very nicely done but will have to sit and wait for quite a while until the car is painted and re-assembly can begin.

The above parts are from various areas on the car.  I hope I can remember where they all go!

These are the black-chromate parts that I had plated instead of painting them.  Paint will chip off too easily in these particular areas and look bad.  I really like the black Zinc plating.

These are the front upper and lower A-arms with mounts, which were all Zinc plated originally, and the torsion bars which are not plated, I just put them here as part of the assembly picture.

Last thing for today is the removal of the cylinder head.  I have been curious what the pistons and cylinders and valves looked like inside this engine so I tackled the head removal next.  These heads are notorious for being difficult to remove.  Some restorers take days and weeks to get the head off trying to force it up over the 14 studs that hold it down to the engine block.  My approach was to try removing the head studs one-at-a-time so the head would then be loose and easy to lift off.

I was able to get all 14 studs out using the double-nut method, that is jamming two nuts together on the thread so they will not turn and then wrenching on the lower nut to turn the stud out of its threaded hole in the block.  This was a little tedious but it worked.  I did run some penetrating oil down the sides of the studs and soaked them for a few hours before trying to turn them, and maybe that helped, but they all came out.

With the studs out I unbolted the sprockets from the ends of the cam shafts and removed the shafts.  The shaft bearing inserts looked OK but I will replace them.  With the sprockets loose I was able to raise the head with just my hands and lift it from the block; it was no problem at all.  This was good news to me as I had expected the worst from the stories of others on the Jag blog and all of the You-Tube videos I had watched.  I don't know why others have such a hard time, I found it quite easy.

 Here is the engine with head removed. The transmission, clutch and flywheel have also been removed so I could put the engine on a stand.  The pistons are frozen in the cylinders and the cylinder walls, what I can see of them, are mildly corroded and will probably have to be bored, which will mean new pistons which are expensive.  When I have driven the pistons out I will know for sure what has to be done.  That should be included in the next post.

This is a challenging project.  I am into it about as deeply as it gets at this point, and though there have been frustrating and difficult moments, I enjoy the challenge.  Things will soon start to go back together like brakes and rear suspension, but the body and interior and engine will take up the rest of this year and possibly part of the next.  So stay tuned.