October Update: Time Is Making Fools of Us!

Welcome back Jag fans.

It looks like I’m getting into the pattern of posting an update to this blog about every six months (Well, four months since last June).  It amazes me how quickly four months pass!  The clock seems to have doubled its speed since I retired.  Time is my scarcest resource!  This summer I did spend two weeks in bed or confined to the house with a bad ear infection, and a couple of weeks helping one of my sons paint his 2003 Ford Mustang, and I spent a week in September visiting one of my daughters in Ohio.  I guess all of that cuts into the Jag restoration work.  As I have often said, I’ve got to get this car back together before they take away my driver’s license!

Here is John's Mustang in final prep. for painting.  We did it in gloss black at the BYU paint booth and it came out beautiful.  I don't happen to have a photo.  My son Josh did the spraying  I think he misses painting cars since he has become a Physical Therapist at the local regional hospital.

The last post mentioned my plans for a rotisserie to enable the car body to be rotated above the ground so I can work on the bottom.  I finished the mechanisms that will hold the car up and allow it to be raised and lowered and rotated all the way round.  The back end of each mechanism attaches to the arm of an engine hoist, and the front to the car body, one in front and one at the rear.  The car can then be lifted by jacking the two engine hoists, and if the mechanisms are lined up properly, the body can be rotated between the two hoists.  I built these mechanisms at the BYU machine shop where I used to teach.  Fortunately I still have contacts there who let me come in and work.
I have not yet built the adapting plates to connect the rotisserie mechanisms to the front and rear of the car.  These are still on my list for this year.

Rotisserie adapters, ready to be mounted on front and rear of car body then fitted to the arms of two engine hoists.  Next post will have photos of how this worked out.

My chrome-plating shop finished a batch of parts this summer including all four bumpers and several other smaller parts. One of the parts was the emergency, or parking brake lever and mounting bracket.  This mechanism has been re-assembled and is ready to go back in the car.  Several of the parts to the parking brake system were missing or damaged when I took the car apart, so the brake must not have been working at all when the car was parked in 1990.

This is not a very good photo of the chrome bumpers because the wallpaper is reflected in their surfaces!  They did come out nice; good enough for show.  The insides are painted with silver crackle enamel.

Here is the restored hand-brake lever and mechanism.  It is mounted here on the tunnel just to see how it fits.  It looks better than new!

A batch of zinc plated parts was also completed, which included the seat sliding rails and the windshield wiper mechanism.  The seat sliders are ready to go back in the car complete with new dipped-rubber tips on the release levers.  These seat sliders and nice with steel rollers that let the seats move smoothly forward and backwards.

The seat-slider runners are on the right in this photo, still disassembled.  On the left are the newly-plated parts of the wiper mechanism.

The windshield wiper assembly was a little more involved.  I disassembled the motor and gear drive and cleaned it up, assembling it with new grease and paint.  I will leave the original wires in place as they are in good condition and would be difficult to replace.  The parking mechanism that stops, or parks, the wiper arms at the correct location at the bottom of the windshield, was not working because the insulating fiber plates that insulate the rotating electrical contact from ground had deteriorated and were falling apart.  I was able to make new insulators from a strip of plastic and rivet them into the assembly just like the original fiber insulators had been.  This mechanism is now ready to go back in the car.  I also bought three new wiper arms as one of the originals was broken and I thought the three should match.

Wiper drive components cleaned and ready for assembly.

 

Re-assembled wiper drive, and it really works!

Restored wiper-parking mechanism (most of it)

Here is the completed wiper assembly, ready to go back in the car.

Next I turned attention to the interior of the car, all the upholstery and trimming.  I have not bought any upholstery but in preparation for new upholstery I have disassembled the seats, the center console, and all the trimmed pieces that can be removed from the car.  These metal parts were all corroded and covered with old paint, dirt and adhesive that mostly had to be scraped and blasted off.  The seats were too large for my bead-blasting cabinet so I had to take them to the BYU shop where there is a larger one.  Some of the parts, like the center console and the cantrails that go above the side windows, are too large even for the BYU cabinet so I did them with my open-air sandblaster out in the garden.  I put 100 pounds of sand into the dirt but that will only help soften up the hard soil when I rototill it next year.

This collection of cleaned and painted parts includes everything that needs recovering with new upholstery.  These parts will go down to the interior trim shop in So. Cal. for that work.  Some of these parts, like the seats and the center console, are complicated and need to look very good in the finished car, so they will be finished by professionals.  

My plan is to take the seats and some of the other parts that are difficult to cover to the BAS Interior shop in Palm Springs, CA.  They can supply complete kits for the E-Type cars and they also have experienced technicians who will do the installation of trim using their materials.  I would like to have them do these difficult pieces then sell me the remaining material to finish the car’s interior here at home.  I think I can do an acceptable job with the sides, floors and headliner.

I had planned this trip to California for the 27th of September with my son, Enoch, accompanying me.  We were going to take the seats to Palm Springs then drive north to the Bay Area to visit family members there.  But Enoch was involved in a serious bicycle/car accident the week before our departure date so I had to cancel.  My new plan is to take the seats and other parts down over the last weekend of October so the work can be started and hopefully I can pick up the finished work before Christmas.

With the interior pieces cleaned, painted and ready for new upholstery it was time to work on the engine.  The head had been removed earlier and I had even taken it to the engine shop to be cleaned.  Now I removed the front cover and timing chains, all the gears and chain tensioners.

Front of the engine with the timing-chain cover removed.  The chain guides and tensioner were pretty worn so chains and guides have been purchased new.  The sprockets are fine.

Close-up view of the rear three main bearing journals (3 out of 7) and the No. 1 and 2 big-end rod journals.  All are in good condition and the bearings can be replaced with standard-size inserts.

The oil pan came off pretty easy but was a mess inside.  The main and rod bearings came apart easily and I was surprised to find all the journal bearings in almost new condition; well, one rod bearing had some scratches in it from an imbedded bit of metal that must have gotten past the filter.  But all the rest of the inserts were good.  I was able to lift the crankshaft out of the engine and removed the plugs from the cross-drilled oil holes with my high-torque impact wrench.

The complete lower end of the engine  with all bearing caps removed.  A robust design for long, trouble-free life!

The pistons remained immovably frozen in the cylinders.  They could not be moved up even with a large hammer.  But I could hammer them down deeper into the cylinders just enough to let me get a three-stone cylinder hone into the cylinders above the pistons.  With the hone and an electric drill I managed to clean the cylinder walls above the pistons enough that I could then hammer the pistons back up and out the top of the block.  It was still a job and took a lot of pounding with a large hammer and a long aluminum bar that I made to hammer on the wrist-pin bosses.  With the pistons out I could see that the cylinder walls were actually not damaged by the frozen rings, and most looked like they could be cleaned up with a good hone or perhaps a .010 inch oversize re-bore.  But the front cylinder liner/sleeve (the engine uses steel liners pressed into a cast iron block) was cracked, and would have to be replaced, so I ordered a new liner and left the block and crank at the machine shop to be worked on. 

The head I took back home with me so I could fit after-market clamps to hold down the tappet guides on the exhaust side.  Many builders report that the guides tend to come loose and, over time, work their way up out of the head. These after-market clamps will prevent the guides from working their way out of the head and getting tangled up in the camshaft. 
 I took the head down to school (BYU) to use a milling machine to drill and tap holes for fixing the clamps.  I also wanted to re-surface the exhaust manifold flange to be sure it is nice and flat and will seal well against the manifolds.

The head is on a vertical milling machine where I am drilling and tapping holes to fix the exhaust tappet guide clamps which prevent the guides from working loose.

Here the exhaust-manifold flange is being milled flat to ensure a leak-proof fit with the manifolds, which have also been newly milled flat.

Front of the cylinder head sanded smooth, ready for final polishing to mirror finish after all machine work is done.

While I had the head at home I sanded smooth the front portion where the timing chains rotate in preparation for final polishing of this area after all the machine work is done and the head assembled.  The XK engine is one of the key appearance features of the car and it must be carefully polished and painted to reflect faithfully the beauty originally designed into this engine by the Jaguar engineers.

All of my machining went well and I returned the head to Clegg’s shop to have new valve seats and guides installed.  They will also grind the seats and valves and assemble the head setting the tappet clearances to specification.

The camshaft covers here have been chemically cleaned and bead blasted in preparation for sanding and polishing.  These, too, must be  polished to a mirror finish.  If I cannot get a satisfactory finish myself I will send them to professional metal polishers.

The oil pan (sump) has also been chemically cleaned and bead blasted and is ready for some final detailing and reassembly. 

For the last three weeks, in addition to spending part of every day at the hospital visiting Enoch, I have installed a new forced-air-type furnace in my garage to enable me to work there during the cold winter months.  The heater does a good job of warming the garage to comfortable working temperature in just a few minutes.  With this heater I should get more done this winter than I did last winter!

New forced-air heater in the garage.  This has been wanting in my garage for the last three decades.  Finally felt the motivation to do it!  (Note the photo on the wall of the FIA Record-holding BYU Electric Streamliner.  The project of the first decade of the 21st century.  204 mph record will not soon be broken.)

My next focus, after getting the seats delivered to the trim shop, will be to get the body up on the two engine hoists with the rotisserie mounts.  More on that to come.