Interior Trim and Etc.

Here is another rather long post covering five months of work.  Progress has been slow this year due to interruptions and the very difficult nature of interior trim work.  The interior is not complete yet, but I think an update post is overdue so here goes!

 • Underside of bonnet finished and set aside

After completing the rock-chip coating and painting and finished assembly of the underside of the bonnet I set it aside in a corner of the garage to await the completion of the rest of the car.  It is sitting on an inch of soft blankets and covered completely with soft moving blankets to try and protect it from damage for the next six or eight months.

Here is the finished bonnet waiting for the rest of the car to be completed.  It will be the last thing to go on, even after the rest of the car is finished and running.

 

• Wire loom installed to left and right rear lights

Before starting the installation of any of the interior trim, starting at the rear of the car, the new rear wiring harnesses needed to be installed, as the upholstery covers and hides the wires and the openings that permit access to the wires.  In this case the rear wire looms supply electricity to the dome light, the tail lights, the fuel pump, and the fuel level gauge.  There are two harnesses, one going down each side of the car through the body above the rear wheel arches.  These wire looms were pulled through and connected to their destinations with new connectors and anchored by metal tabs that are welded to the body along the wire route and covered with plastic protectors to prevent the wire insulation from being damaged against the sharp edges of the steel tabs.  The original plastic protectors had become shrunken and stiffened so could not be reused.  I used electrical heat-shrink tubing to cover the tabs; it works great.

Right-side wire loom leading to right tail lights.

Wire loom pulled through the body cavity with string that was put in place when the original wire was pulled out.

Left-side wire loom connecting to left tail light and fuel tank pump and level sensor.

 

• A month delay while painting a KIA Rio.

Not that I need excuses for being slow in my work on the Jaguar, after all, it was undertaken as a project to entertain me for a few years and there is no real hurry to get it finished, but I did have to postpose work on the car while I repaired and painted a little KIA Rio5 for one of my daughters.  The car had been hit in the rear and needed a new bumper cover and hatch door along with paint to the left fender and the hood of the car.  My son Josh helped me spray the paint in the BYU paint booth.  The job came out well.  

 

KIA repair:  Rear hatch and bumper and front fender and hood were all repaired and repainted.

  

• Painted the new fuel tank

Back to the Jaguar, the new fuel tank is galvanized inside and out to protect it from corrosion, but it is painted with a dull black coating that is thick and tough but not pretty.  Since half of the tank is visible as installed in the boot of the car, I wanted it to look as nice as the rest of the painted surfaces of the car so I repainted the top side of the tank with plain gloss black two-stage urethane.  It looks much better and will make a better impression when the boot is opened.

New fuel tank repainted with two-stage gloss black.

 

• Rear bumpers installed

Paying attention to sequence of operations, the rear bumpers have to be installed before the fuel tank can be, as the tank hides the screws that fasten the bumpers in place.  Fitting these newly chromed bumpers was a very difficult task.  They did not fit well.  The curvature of the bumpers did not match that of the fenders where the bumpers mount.  I had to grind away a significant amount of metal from the edges of the bumpers to get them to fit, even with the thick rubber seals that go all around the bumpers between the edges of the bumpers and the body. 

Holding that rubber seal in place while mounting the bumper is a challenge.  I did it by gluing the rubber seal to the edge of the bumper with the same rubber cement that I used on the headliner.  That seemed to work.

Because the curvatures did not match it was very difficult to get the fastening screws through the body and into the threaded nuts welded in the bumpers.  For the two forward-most holes I had to use longer screws than the originals and when pulled tight the longer screw on one side actually did some damage to the chrome surface from the inside of the bumper.  This was discouraging but there was nothing I could do once the damage was done.

After many hours of work I finally had both bumpers installed and looking more or less like they were supposed to.

Rubber seals and vertical over-riders are preassembled to the bumpers.  Custom spacers had to be made which is typical in fitting many Jaguar parts together.  In their factory condition they don't seem to fit very well!

Right side bumper ready to fit to the car.  Again custom spacers had to be made to fit the bumpers to the fenders.

Both rear bumpers are installed, along with tail lights.  All had been re-chromed over a year ago.

   

• Tail lights installed

After the bumpers, of course, come the tail lights.  These fit up better than the bumpers but still not great.  The curvature of the body where the tail lights mount is complex, and though the light bezels are curved similarly to try and match the curvature of the fender, the two curves do not match very well and again, the rubber seal does not completely hide the problem.  I see many photos of E-Type tail lights just like mine that appear to fit perfectly against the body.  I don’t know how they do that.  Maybe the fender shape is modified with Bondo to match the light bezels before the car is painted.  I may never know.

• Heater pipes installed in dashboard

Moving to the front of the car the first pieces that have to be installed in the firewall are the heater pipes.  My original pipes were made of carbon steel and the ends were completely rusted away, so I purchased a new set of stainless steel pipes.  These have to be installed first because all the other parts that go into the dash area go on top of or behind these pipes.  They would be impossible to install, for example, if the windshield wiper mechanism were installed first.

The pipes came perfectly shaped to go right into position behind the firewall.  I had had my original small mounting plates plated with black Chromate instead of painting so I used them instead of painting the new plates.  It was again a struggle to get all of the pop rivets to go into all of the holes, but with patience the job was done and the new tubes are ready to connect to the system.

  

Here you see four of the heater pipes sticking through the firewall.  They are held in place by the little "D"-shaped rings with pop rivets.

Here are the rest of the heater-pipe ends.  These are now stainless steel so should last a long time.

• Windshield wipers installed

With the heater pipes installed it was natural to then put in the windshield wiper mechanism.  This is a tricky assembly to install.  It has to be put into the small openings in the dash wall in three pieces and then screwed together in place inside the dash.  If it ever fails in service most of the dash would have to be disassembled to remove the mechanism.  I think if it does fail I will just leave it broken because it is too hard to service and I don’t plan to ever take the car out in the rain anyway!

Along with the wipers go the windshield sprayers.  These I bought new with new tubing as the old was hardened and brittle and would break if bent while assembling, so all new fittings and tubing were used.

Wiper assembly assembled out of the car.  It had to be taken apart to install it into the dashboard of the car.

This is the complicated "Parking" mechanism that stops the wiper blades against the bottom of the windshield when the switch is turned off.  I had to totally restore this device with new plastic insulators.

 

Windshield wiper mechanism with parking device installed in the dashboard.

The left-hand crank that rotates the wiper blade.  There are three cranks and three wiper blades.

• Windshield washer bottle installed.  

The sprayer tubes connect through the firewall to the spray bottle, which I had restored previously so I proceeded to mount it on the front side of the firewall next to the wiper motor.  This bottle assembly had been totally frozen up with crud and corrosion but with a little effort it cleaned up OK, even the pump motor cleaned up and ran again when I put power to it.  I think the unit will operate fine although I have not put water in it to test it.  

The windshield washer bottle, restored to like-new condition and mounted on the firewall.

  

Restored washer bottle and holding bracket with new LUCAS decal.

• Boot lid latch and release installed

Back to the rear of the car, before any of the interior trim panels could be installed the boot-lid release mechanism and cable had to be installed, as it again is inaccessible once the upholstery is in place.  I had cleaned and re-plated the latch mechanism and the release lever and I bought a new control cable to go between the handle and the release mechanism.  The original cable was rusty beyond repair.  This cable and mechanism has to be reliable as it is difficult to get access to it if it should fail in service, and it is used very often to release the boot lid which happens almost as often as opening the passenger door.  The whole thing went together pretty well compared with the bumpers, and I believe it will be reliable.

The restored boot-lid latch, upside down but ready to be installed.

The restored release lever, also ready to be installed.

  

Installed release lever and latch mechanism, with new cable connecting them inside the fender.

• Fuel fill lid installed and drain tubes

Also, before the fuel tank is installed, the drain and overflow tubes from the fuel fill port to the tank and ground need to be installed.  I had bought new tubing for these and while hooking them up I mounted the fuel-port lid with its spring and bumpers.  It requires fitting to the opening in the fender which proved to go well.  I had previously fitted the lid while doing the body work and had adjusted the shape of the opening to fit the lid.  It had been a poor fit-up from the factory!

Hinged fuel-fill lid installed - new rubber bumpers

Fuel-fill lid with much better fitting opening in the fender.

  

• Rear wheel arch covers glued on

After 3 ½ years of work, this finally has been the most difficult task I have faced in restoring this car.  The rear wheel arches have an extreme curvature, and the Moquette wool material that covers them, as attractive and luxurious as it is, has almost no ability to conform to compound curvature.  I found it impossible to glue down this material without leaving wrinkles around the edges.  For me it was like trying to make corrugated cardboard conform smoothly over the surface of a basketball; basically impossible to accomplish without gross wrinkles.

 Trying to fit  stiff wool moquette to the rear wheel arch.

Quarter-inch foam stretched and glued over the right-side rear wheel arch

This is my attempt to stretch the moquette over the wheel arch using a turnbuckle - didn't really work very well.

The finished right-side wheel arch - Not perfect but the best I could do as an amateur.

I first glued down ¼ inch foam to the arches, as was done originally and the foam came with the kit that I purchased.  The foam did conform fairly easily to the contours.  I tried everything I could think of to make the wool conform.  It simply would not stretch.  I tried using steam on the areas that were wrinkling but that just damaged the wool surface leaving permanent discoloration.

Finally I set up a stretching system using a clamp on the material and a large turnbuckle to pull the clamp stretching the fabric over the arch.   With this device I was able to get rid of some of the wrinkles, but not all.  After weeks of trying different ideas and just procrastinating I finally decided that I could live with some wrinkles; I just had to move on and get to the next steps in the restoration.  I was wasting too much time on a problem that for me was unsolvable.  So I pulled the material with my turnbuckle and glued it down as best I could and will just have to ignore the wrinkles that I could not get out.  They will match the other wrinkles that I could not get out on the felt edges that go all around the headliner, and some vinyl wrinkles that I could not get out on the cover plate that goes above the license-plate area inside the boot.

With those wheel arches done I could now go on to other difficult aspects of the interior trim.

• Cubby floor prepped and Hardura put down

The area immediately behind the seats is called the “Cubby” area. It consists of a triangular shaped space covered by a hinged lid that extends the boot floor by 8 inches when it is in the down position and provides a buffer in the up position to prevent luggage from sliding into the back of the seats under hard braking. 

The bottom of the Cubby is a piece of hard-surface vinyl called Hardura.  It is flexible but thick and hard.  In the original car it laid over a thick kind of tarpaper underlay that bridged the stiffening grooves in the body.  I have the original underlay piece but it is so beat up and dirty I didn’t want to reuse it.  So I covered the steel body surface with Duramat to give it some noise and vibration damping similar to the original underlay.  I filled in the stiffening grooves with strips of Duramat to give a flat surface for the Hardura.

First I filled the stiffening pockets in the cubby floor with strips of Dynamat to level the floor.

Then I covered the entire cubby floor with a layer of Dynamat to absorb vibration, heat, and sound.

This vinyl material is called Hardura and is used on the several floor locations in the car.  It is stiff and hard and will only lay flat.

 The front wall of the “Cubby” is a vinyl-covered steel piece that I covered with new material from my kit.  This front wall is a little tricky to mount because it is held in place by four pop rivets at each end which go through holes in the rear wheel arches.  The holes in the arches had been covered by the Moquette but I was able to get access to them from under the wheel well and push through a sharp tool from the bottom.  I was able to get all of the new pop rivets into the original holes.  

Cubby area with floor and newly covered front wall installed.  The little chrome brackets on the wheel arch above the cubby are retaining blocks to secure the cubby lid when it is in the up position. 

The hinged cover piece is plywood covered with green vinyl.  My original wood was in perfect condition so I recovered it with the sheet vinyl that came in the kit for that purpose.

There are a number of chrome parts that attach to this plywood lid and mine were all OK with the original plating, except the hinges which were a little rusty, so I had them replated.  When it was all together it looked fine so I mounted it back in its original position and it fit well.

Cubby lid being recovered.  All the chrome pieces are original except the hinges which have been re-chromed.  The rubber fill strips in the luggage rail extensions are original!

The cubby lid in its down position.

The cubby lid in its up position.

This Cubby is one of the unique and signature features of all original E-Types, so it was satisfying to me to have it restored and finished and looking like new.

• Bulkhead behind seats covered

The next difficult piece was the Moquette wool that glues over the bulkhead just behind the seats.  Here again the contour is difficult and the wool has to stretch to conform to the complex shape.  My approach with this piece was to glue down the upper edge first, which required no contouring.  With this glue dry I processed to apply adhesive to just about one inch of material down from the upper surface.  This upper inch required the most severe stretch and I was miraculously able to accomplish the stretch because there was no place where the material had to compress or squeeze together to prevent wrinkling.  It was all in tension.  

By applying glue just one inch at a time and pushing the wool into that inch I was able to get the material stretched in successfully.  But, unfortunately, after a half hour or so of being glued, the tightest areas pulled loose.  I think the paint pulled off of the metal as the bonding strength of the paint is probably not as great as the strength of the adhesive.  In any case it would be a major task to pull it all off again and that would probably ruin the wool so I opted to just leave it pulled loose in the corners.  In the end it is impossible to see the problem when the seats are installed as it will be hidden behind the seats.  Only I will know of the defect and it will annoy me along with all the other failures that I am experiencing with this difficult interior.

The bulkhead just behind the seats was another difficult stretch of the Moquette material.  I think the adhesive pulled the paint off of the metal.  Fortunately with the seats in place not much of this bulkhead can be seen.

• Pedal box and steering shaft installed

Here was some mechanical work that I turned to for relief from the discouraging upholstery tasks.  The pedal box had been previously restored over a year ago and was ready to install.  I had to re-order the box mounting gaskets because the ones that came with a kit I had ordered were for a different vehicle.  I sent a note to the vendor pointing out the error and they thanked me and gave me free shipping on my next order, which I appreciated.

The pedal box went in without any issues and next to it went the throttle-pedal bell crank and steering shaft guide box.  These also went in fine and I assembled the lower steering shaft with its new universal joints at both ends.  I do look forward to finishing all of the mechanical reassembly which entails far fewer problems than the trim installation.

Pedal box restored awaiting installation.  The rubber bellows is the device for providing vacuum assist when braking.  It is the original bellows!

The finished pedal box mounted on the firewall in the car.  The small aluminum box next to it is the throttle bell crank housing and guide for the lower steering shaft.

• Right side rear upper trim installed with latch cover

Back to the interior trim work.  I spent another full day making the vinyl-covered trim piece that goes above right-side rear wheel arch fit into place correctly.  It came in the interior kit a little off in dimension so I had to cut and re-glue the hard board panel and the vinyl that covers it.  It had been installed at the factory with three fewer clips than are called for in the hard board panel.  I could tell that the clips had not been included in the original assembly because there were no holes for them in the body.  I drilled the new holes and put in all the designated mounting clips, as well as a couple of finish screws that hold the piece in place.  

To locate the screw holes in the trim piece to match the existing holes in the body I made a small tool, a sort of transfer punch, that lets me transfer the location of the hole in the body to the hard board panel.  The tool worked pretty well on this piece but not perfectly.  The alternative to using it would be to just drill new holes through both the hard board panel and the steel body.  This I was hesitant to do as I wanted to use all the original holes as much as possible.

Tool for transferring the locations of existing body holes on to the new interior panels.

Vinyl-covered trim panel in place over right-side wheel arch.

 

• With the upper trim panel installed on the right side the right-side Cantrail could be installed.  The Cantrails were recovered as part of the interior kit that I purchased for the car.  The new covering was put over the original steel bases so they fit back together using all the original screw holes that were already present in the parts.  There is a little triangular piece of steel that is covered with black vinyl and fits at the corner of the A-pillar where that A-pillar meets the edge of the dashboard.  One of these little triangles I had lost somewhere along the disassembly path or else it had been missing when I got the car.  In any case I had to fabricate a new one from some scrap 18-gauge steel which was not difficult.  I recovered both triangles with thin black leather and refitted them to the existing holes in the cantrails and the body. 

I was surprised at how well the screw holes all lined up when I replaced all the screws that hold the cantrail in place.  I hope the left side goes together as well as the right.  The boot lid has to be finished before the left side can be started.

Right-side cantrail showing the little triangular leather-covered piece where the A pillar meets the dashboard.

Rear half of right-side cantrail installed.  This piece in screwed to the body using all the original screw holes and mostly original (re-plated) screws

The entire finished cantrail installed.

• Boot lid trim installed and lid fitted to car

There is a sequence of interior operations that needs to be followed throughout the restoration process.  I have erred in following the correct sequence once already and paid the price in quality of the work.  I am being more careful now and hope to avoid any more such problems.  One such situation is in the fitting of the left side upper trim panel above the left wheel arch and below the boot-lid hinges.  Before that piece can be fitted the boot-lid hinges have to be place and properly adjusted so the lid closes perfectly.  The trim panel then covers the hinges so once it is in place the hinges can no longer be adjusted.  Once the upper trim panel is in place then the cantrail can be fitted over the trim panel.  The lower trim panels that go just behind the side doors cannot be fitted until the vinyl trim over the door sills and rear door jams has been installed.  All of this sequence is critical to a successful interior restoration.

Following that sequence the boot lid is the next item to be fitted.  I started to fit it with help from my son, Josh, but it did not go well.  The door is too flexible to hold its shape when closing against the stiff latch spring.  We decided that the glass needs to be installed first to stiffen the door then then the alignment should be more easily achieved.

Before the glass can be installed in the door all of the vinyl trim must be glued in and wrapped around the window opening, then the window glass locks in the vinyl.  So I spent the next couple of weeks fitting the trim to the inside of the door.  As of this writing we have not yet installed the glass or tried to finish the alignment of the door.  That will have to come in the next post.

The new hardboard panel that came with my interior kit did not fit the door well.  I had to peel off the vinyl and trim 3/8  inch off of the side of the board to make it match the door curvature.

With the lower panel attached to the door the vinyl is glued and trimmed to the pinch weld where the window will hold it in place. Notice the upper piece of vinyl waiting on the table to be installed (glued on) next.

The lower trim panel is being glued around its edges to the pinch weld where the window will be fitted.

• I decided that while waiting for help to fit the boot-lid glass I would begin the installation of the “Dynamat” insulation on the floor and transmission tunnel of the cockpit.  This Dynamat is a rubber-backed aluminum foil that is cut and stuck to the floor and firewall and sometimes roof and doors of cars in restoration to reduce vibration noise inside the car and to reduce the amount of heat coming through the firewall and transmission tunnel.  I applied this mat to the floors of the Volkswagen when I restored that interior and I think it does help give the car a more solid feel and quiets down vibration noise.  It especially helps the doors close more quietly.  It took me an entire week to cover the floors of the Jag but I believe it is worth the time and the cost to give a more solid feeling to the car when on the road.

This polymer-based (looks and behaves like sticky tar backed by Aluminum foil) is called Dynamat and can be cut and stuck to floor, firewall, transmission tunnel and inside of door skins to reduce vibration noise and insulate from heat.  It is an excellent product and will make the car quieter and more comfortable to drive.

As I am still waiting for help with the rear window glass, I have tackled the large job of installing the rest of the wiring harnesses in the front of the car, not yet doing the bonnet as it is in temporary storage.

The three main wiring harnesses are in place here but not in their final positions.  It will be a significant challenge to get all the harnessed in their correct places, but this project is full of many challenges!

  The first part of the next post will give some details of the wiring installation.  I might be able to get this car together by the end of December if there are no more difficult delays.

Paint, Upholstery, and Power

 

This is a rather long post which covers three months of work, starting with bringing the car home from the BYU paint booth, to the initial engine assembly work, to the initial interior trim work, to polishing the paint.  The progress seems slow for so long a time, but remember I am working entirely alone, my only help coming from my own sons when I call on them.  Also, I don’t work fast.  This is one of those projects where it is the journey that is the most interesting and satisfying, more than the destination.

•          Brought the car home in enclosed trailer Dec 2020

As reported in the last post, Josh and I painted the car in the BYU paint booth on Friday, 11 December, 2020.  After masking and final wipe down Josh sprayed three good coats of base coat followed by three heavy coats of Valspar clear coat.  The job was beautiful, with not a flaw anywhere except for a few specks of dust that somehow got into the booth.  We hung the two side doors on one of my new racks and the boot lid on the other, and fit them all in the booth with the car.  It was crowded but by being careful with the hose and our clothing we managed to spray all the paint with no issues.  We cleaned up and went home about 10:00 pm.  I was so excited at having the car painted I couldn’t go to sleep.

Loading the finished body into the enclosed trailer, a rainy Monday, 14 Dec 2020

Side doors hung for painting in paint booth.  The boot lid was hung on a second rack.

We left it over Saturday & Sunday with the heat on in the booth to help cure the paint, then on Monday we went back and got the car ready to take home.  I had decided not to try to move the painted car on the open flat-bed trailer, because it was so difficult to load the car onto the trailer and there was risk of rocks or dirt being bounced up onto the new paint.  Instead, I unloaded my 20 ft enclosed trailer putting all the boxes and the ’27 Model T into the garage.  This was a good plan because I wanted to use the trailer soon to move my daughter Syd and her husband Owen up to Nibley, Utah, into their new house that they were just now buying.

With the help of a couple students who happened to be on campus on Monday and my friend Clint Bybee, we easily pushed the car on its rolling cart up into the enclosed trailer and strapped it down.  The three doors were loaded in the big diesel truck wrapped in moving blankets.  It was a simple matter to move it home in that safe trailer.  I parked it in the driveway on Monday the 14^th of December and let it sit there until I needed the trailer to move my daughter.

•          Left car in trailer for a few weeks while restoring Model T coils

While the car was sitting in the trailer, and the longer it sat the better as the paint could cure even in the cold weather and thereby be less susceptible to scratching when I moved it into the garage, I felt impressed to work on the old ignition coils that I had collected for the Model T.  The impression undoubtedly came from having the Model T sitting in my garage instead of hidden in the trailer.   I had seen two adds in the Model T Times magazine from two old guys who restored coils. I thought I had better take advantage of their services while they were still in business because when they retire, or die, there may be no one left who can rebuild coils.  So I worked for a couple weeks restoring the outer wooden coil cases, then sent them to the older of the two rebuilders.  They came back nicely restored so now when I am ready to start the Model T, I won’t have to deal with a bunch of non-functioning coils, a perpetual problem in Model T restoration.

The foregoing has nothing to do with the Jag restoration except to show that I am easily distracted to other projects in the middle of work on the Jag.

Rebuilt Model T ignition coils.  It takes four, one for each cylinder.

•          Moved car to garage and used trailer to move Syd to Nibley 1 Jan 2021

On December 30^th  I moved the Jag back into the garage and put the Model T out in the driveway under a tarp.  This would only be for a couple days while I moved my daughter up to her new home in Nibley.  When we returned from that trip I reloaded the trailer with all the Model T parts and Jag parts and the Model T itself.  I could now focus on the Jag back in the garage.

•          Took crankshaft and flywheel to Clegg's for balancing

One of the first things I did after getting the car back in the garage was to take the crankshaft and flywheel back to Clegg’s machine shop to have them each balanced independently.  This was necessary because at the factory the flywheel and clutch pressure plate were balanced together as a unit.  But I will install a new pressure plate which is independently balanced which would leave the flywheel out of balance, so the flywheel also needed to be done. 
I got these back after only about two weeks in the shop.  It turned out that the flywheel was pretty far out of balance while the crankshaft was close to perfect.  Both are now very closely balanced.  I have the final balance sheets in my restoration journal.

The balanced flywheel - considerable material had to be removed.

•          Built rod balancing apparatus and balanced rods

While the crank and flywheel were being balanced I proceeded to build an apparatus to balance the connecting rods.  The idea of balancing the rods is that the big end of the rod, which becomes part of the rotating assembly, must not cause the crankshaft to be out of balance or it will vibrate.   Also, the total weight of the rod exerts an inertia force on the crank journal at the top and bottom of each rotation, and if these forces are unequal additional vibration can be created. 

Homemade rod-balancing apparatus

I constructed my rod-balancing apparatus from simple wood parts but with ball-bearing hangers for each end of the rod.  I purchased a new gram scale to do the weighing, reading to 0.1 gram. 
You balance first the big ends of the rods, hanging the big end on the bearing which sits on the scale and the small end suspended by a chain enabling it to swing freely so the big end can self-center over the scale.  You first weigh all the rods and find the lightest one, then you remove metal from the remaining rods until they all match the weight of the lightest.  Metal can be removed using a bench grinder, a belt sander, or a Dremel tool.  I don’t have a belt sander so I used the other two tools and was able to get the six big ends of the rods balanced to 619.2 grams all within 0.1 gram.

With the big ends all matched the total weights of the rods are next matched by weighing the whole rod on the scale and removing metal from the small end of each rod until they all match the total weight of the lightest one.  Thus the large ends of the rods are not altered while the total weights of the rods are being matched.  My total weights are matched to within 0.4 gram with an average of 888 grams, which is quite heavy compared with modern lightweight rods.

•          Balanced pistons

Next the pistons were all matched in weight using the same gram scale.  The heavier pistons were matched to the lightest by removing material from the bottom of the skirt by stroking the bottom on a piece of sandpaper on a flat table.  They are all matched at 706.1 grams, which is also quite heavy compared to modern high-performance pistons which can weigh less than 500 grams.

Piston weights being matched – the purple sheet is 80-grit sand paper

•          Got crankshaft back and assembled lower end of engine.

With the crank, rods, and pistons all balanced I could now assemble the lower end of the engine.  The process begins with a final cleaning of the engine block, brushing and blowing out all the oil and water passages and wiping down the cylinder walls and main bearing bores.  The block had been thoroughly cleaned at the machine shop but that had been months ago and I like to go carefully over it inside and out before starting assembly.

The first picture is the block cleaned on the stand.  But you cannot assemble the rear main seal while the block is on the stand, so I had to move it to the workbench, as shown in the second picture.  The rear main bearing seal goes on the right-hand end in the photo.

Before starting I measured all the piston-skirt diameters and bore diameters to match the larger pistons with the larger bores.  This turned out to be a non-issue as all the pistons were within .0008 inch of each other and the bores were about the same.  Nevertheless, I ended up putting the two smallest pistons in the two smallest bores which resulted in about a .004 inch clearance on all six cylinders.  This is a little large for a 3.4 inch diameter cylinder.  The handbook spec for piston clearance is less than .002 inch.   But modern engines are typically set up with about .001 inch per inch of bore diameter.  My clearance may result in a somewhat noisy engine when cold but should be OK when fully warmed up. 

The proper way to measure cylinder diameters is with a bore gauge, but since I don’t have a bore gauge I used a telescoping gauge with a micrometer as shown in the first photo, which is not as precise.  The bores were so close to identical it didn’t make much difference.  The second photo shows my engine build sheets.

Before installing the pistons in the cylinders I checked all the piston-ring gaps and found them all to be at the minimum spec of .015 inch, so I made no adjustments of gaps.  Ring side clearances were an acceptable .002 inch on all rings.  That is the benefit of buying all new pistons and rings, usually they come within specs.

Measuring piston-ring gaps with a feeler gauge, all are at .015 inch.

Because of some stubborn streak in me I chose to fit the original rope-style seal at the rear main.  Everybody claims that these seals leak, they leaked from the factory, but the upgrade to a modern-style lip seal is about $350 for the seal kit plus another hundred or more to machine the oil slinger off of the crankshaft.  I didn’t want to take the crank back to Clegg's for this modification and felt like the original seal should be good enough if carefully installed. 

Unfortunately I was not careful enough on my first attempt and cut the seal halves too short, so I had to order more seal halves.  These came and I cut them more carefully and installed the crank with the new main bearings and the rope-style seal at the rear.  I expect that it will leak some, but that is the nature of Jaguar engines so I won’t be too unhappy about it.  It will be one more point for originality!

ARP high-strength rod bolts, with 12-point nuts.  Superior to the originals.

I assembled the connecting rods using new, high-strength ARP bolts and self-locking nuts instead of the original bolts which used castellated nuts and cotter pins to prevent loosening.  Since rod bolts are subject to high cyclic loads many builders recommend always using new ones.  I don’t always use new rod bolts but I did in this case since the cotter pins are so out dated and remind me of building a Model T Ford engine.  By the way, the main bearing caps are also held in place with large, 7/16 inch cap screws with bend-up tabs under the screw heads for locking.  This is also an obsolete method of locking screws and all new engines use simple flat washers or no washers at all under the main-bearing bolts.  But I bought new bend-up tab washers and used them for originality sake.

New bend-up tabs on main-bearing caps.  A very effective locking device though not adaptable to modern high-production methods.

As I assembled the main bearings as well as the connecting rod bearings I measured the journal-to-bearing clearance with Plastigage.  The clearances were all around .0015 inch which is fine, maybe a little tight.  The Plastigage is a small-diameter piece of crushable plastic which, when placed in the bearing clearance and squeezed between the journal and the bearing, crushes flat and wide.  The smaller the clearance the wider the Plastigage gets.  By measuring the final width you can know the size of the clearance.  It is a very simple solution to an otherwise difficult measurement.

Plastigage after squeezing in rod journal.  Width of squished plastic reveals bearing clearance.

I also measured the axial clearance on all of the rod journals and they were either .006 or .007 inches which is OK.  The crankshaft axial endplay is taken up by two half thrust washers set on the center main bearing.  These washers take all of the clutch pressure-plate force when the clutch pedal is depressed, and they do not seem very big to me to take that large force, especially on just half the diameter. 

The measured axial play with standard-size thrust washers was .010 inch, which is s little big.  The spec is .006 inch, so I ordered a pair of .004-inch oversized washers.  By putting one of these thicker washers in place of a standard washer that should bring the play down to .006, which it did.  So all of the crankshaft and rod clearances are within their handbook specification limits. 
If anyone is interested in all the specs for this engine I have my engine-build sheets which I keep for every engine that I build (except for lawnmowers).  These sheets give the make and model of all the parts that are in the engine and all the measurements that I make as I assemble it.  The engine sheets for the Jag are included in my restoration notebook which I have been keeping in addition to this blog, but when the engine is finished I will scan the sheets and add them to a blog post.

With the pistons all assembled to the crank I measured the stroke of the engine with a digital height gauge and found it to be 4.158 inches.  This together with the 3.445 inch bore results in a total displacement of 232.54 cubic inches or 3.8107 liters.  Just what Jaguar claims it to be.
With the cylinder head back I will measure the combustion chamber volume and calculate the compression ratio, which should come out to about 9:1.

This tool is a digital height gauge which I used to measure the stroke of the crankshaft to within a couple thousandths of an inch.

With the lower end of the engine all assembled I installed the new oil pump and all the related oil tubes that are used in this engine.  The oil pump is driven by a gear off the crankshaft, which is common in automotive engines for about the last 90 years.

Here is the new oil pump with the original suction and discharge tubes.

 

 I also assembled the new chains that drive the cam shafts, along with their new guides and tensioner.  I put on the front cover just to be sure I could find all the correct fasteners, and the oil filter mounting unit and the oil sump.  These are not finally assembled but just in place with loose fasteners to make sure everything fits and I have all the correct fasteners. 

Two new timing chains.  The lower chain turns a jack shaft which in turn drives the upper chain.  The upper chain wraps around both camshaft sprockets and an adjustment idler that tensions the upper chain.  The resultant overall ratio is 2 :1, the same as any 4-stroke-cycle engine.

 

The front cover and new water pump are loosely in place just to sort out all the correct fasteners and gaskets.  These will be permanently assembled after the cylinder head is checked for proper fit.

The oil sump, or pan in U.S. jargon, is a sand cast affair which, in this case, was cast using very worn out pattern equipment.  The parting lines did not match up well and the finish grinding was hastily and crudely done.  The bosses around the mounting flange were very bad, with sand inclusions and mold-crack lines running through them.  I couldn’t bring myself to put that pan back on the engine the way it was so I took it down to the university machine shop and found a long enough end mill to re-surface all of the bosses that could be reached.  They cleaned up OK and now the fastening screws will sit flat on their bosses and not be bent by clamping on such uneven surfaces.  It was an afternoon’s work but very much worth it.

 

The oil-pan bosses are machined with a long end mill to make them all flat and square with the flange.  The original casting was terrible by my standards, having taught metal casting at the university for 30 years!

•          Purchased new windshield on sale

At this point I put a bag over the engine and turned to other things.  Welsh Jaguar sends out a weekend special sale notice every week and this week they were selling new E-Type windshields at a reduced price.  I had debated whether to buy a new one or not as mine had some light scratches caused by bad blades or no wiper blades in the wipers.  I had thought of trying to polish out the scratches but the experts at a local windshield shop said that never works very well.  So I pulled the trigger on the new windshield and now there will be no scratches;  I think that is best.  The side and boot windows are fine and I will keep them original.

•          Restored windshield sprayer bottle

Inspired by the new windshield I turned my attention to the original windshield spraying bottle.  This unit looked pretty bad and had obviously not been used for 30 years, like everything else on the car.  I took it apart and it looked like with a little cleaning up it could run again.  I did clean it, bottle, pump, and motor, and on reassembly it worked OK.  I haven’t tried pumping water yet but the motor runs and the impeller spins so it should pump.  I was able to buy a new decal for the mounting frame so the whole thing looks like a new unit now. 

Windshield washer bottle with pump, motor, and mounting bracket; looking and running like new.

 

•          Painted Reservac brake-vacuum bottle.

The power-assisted brake pedal uses engine manifold vacuum to increase pedal pressure.  Vacuum is still used today for many power-brake systems but this one was fairly primitive with the vacuum bottle separated from the pedal box and connected by long hoses.  The system was evidently designed and supplied by Trico, a company that still makes windshield wiper blades, I believe.

Here is how the tank looked as it came out of the car.  There was enough original lettering left to allow me to make a stencil.

The vacuum bottle, which is mounted on the firewall beneath the carburetors, was fairly rusted on the outside and the Trico label, which was painted on with a stencil at the factory, was all but gone.  Enough of the lettering was left for me to make a tracing of it and from that cut out a stencil from tracing paper.  That stencil was only to be used once, and it worked well enough to make the restored vacuum bottle look like the original.
The restoration of the vacuum bottle involved first bead blasting the outside of the bottle.  I didn’t try to do anything to the inside except to test it for vacuum leaks, and I could not detect any leak.  The bottle was then primed and painted black, as it was originally, and the cut-out stencil was stuck on with repositionable adhesive (3M sticky-note stuff).  I then sprayed the stencil with white paint and let it dry before peeling off the stencil.  The result is shown in the photo below.  From the top side of the engine compartment you can barely see the bottle, but it will look good from the bottom of the car!

Trico Reservac bottle restored and ready to re-install on the car.

The reserve vacuum bottle mounted on the lower firewall where it is almost invisible when the rest of the engine compartment is completed.

 

•          Installed valence felt around headliner

The first thing I wanted to do with the newly-painted body was install the new headliner.  I have been afraid of this job since I first bought the interior kit because it looked like everything had to work perfectly, the correct contact adhesive, the exact positioning of the liner, pushing it up into place without any wrinkles, etc.  And the job had to be done while laying on your back in the car, which I knew I would not be good at. 
Then there was the felt valence piece that fits in the gap around the edges of the liner and has to be pulled in place and glued wrinkle-free.  This I did not know how to do at first but as I worked with it I discovered that it could be threaded into the gap around the edge of the roof before the headliner was put in.  I did that and was now ready for the headliner.

•          Installed headliner with Josh and Ned

I spent quite a while working out a plan to install the head liner.   I made a handling tool out of ½ inch PVC pipe that looked like an old-fashioned TY antenna.  This I would use like a giant spatula to serve the headliner up through the back opening above the two workers who would be lying on their backs on a big piece of 4-inch foam on the floor of the car.  I marked with thin striping tape the centers of all four edges of the liner and likewise the centers of the four edges of the car roof.  This would allow the liner to be positioned correctly fore and aft before pushing it up into place.  Using industrial-strength contact adhesive, specifically formulated for gluing in headliners and other auto upholstery tasks, once the adhesive-coated liner touches the adhesive-coated roof there is no turning back, the liner will not be movable.

My sons, Josh and Ned, lying on a piece of 4-inch foam pushing the glued headliner up into place

 The two installers lying on their backs were my two sons who both live nearby and are both talented with these kinds of tasks.  While they applied glue to the roof I applied glue to the back of the headliner. We waited about 10 minutes for the adhesive to get tacky then I passed the headliner on the PVC spatula in through the rear-lid opening to where the boys could line it up on the four centerline marks.  When they had it lined up they started in the center and pushed the headliner up against the roof and rolled it with soft rollers.  It went in smoothly with no wrinkles and really no issues at all.  It was about an inch too large on all four sides to allow trimming to final size.  We were all well pleased with the result.  If I had to do it again I would do it exactly the same way.

•          Trimmed headliner

The next step I did a couple days later by myself.  The edges of the headliner had to be trimmed with a razor blade to the right length then tucked into the gap all around the roof.  To do this I made another tool similar to one I used to use in laying linoleum.  The photo below shows the tool clearly.  It is a simple piece of folded steel with a hook on one end that will catch in the edge of the gap where the headliner needs to tuck in.  The other arm of the folded steel tool has holes in it for a pencil point to mark where to cut on the face of the headliner. 

Simple tool for marking where to trim the headliner.

·        

After marking the headliner with a pencil point in a series of dots I could cut along the dotted line with a razor knife and then tuck in the edge with a plastic tool.

By moving this tool carefully around the entire edge of the roof, ensuring that the hooked arm is tight against the groove while marking a cut line on the headliner with a pencil, I was able to mark and cut the excess off of the edges of the headliner and tuck it into its groove with a plastic pushing tool.  All of this I did while lying on my back on the 4-inch foam with a large roll of foam under my head to hold me up.  As we get old and feeble we need to create ways to allow our bodies to do things that once were no problem but are now almost impossible!

The headliner tucked in nicely, but the valence felt hung in wrinkles that I did not know how to smooth out.

•          Finished valence felt

With the headliner tucked in all around it was time to glue in the valence felt that had been installed previously.   I wanted to glue this with a layer of 1/8- inch foam under it to help reduce the wrinkles and give it a little softer look and feel.  Because it had to be stretched around compound curves I found it almost impossible to put it up without getting wrinkles.  I wonder how they ever did it at the factory?  I did the best I could using the same contact cement I had used on the headliner (I will use this adhesive for all of the upholstery work that needs gluing). 

The finished valence with map light installed.  If I ever do another coupe I might have this done professionally.

The photo shows the result which is not particularly impressive or professional.  My only hope is that the hard cantrail pieces that go over most of the valence felt will hide some of the wrinkles and maybe help smooth out others.  These cantrails are not installed yet because the wheel-well covers need to be put in first.

•          Trimmed and installed piece above windscreen

One piece of trim that I did want to finish is the upholstered steel piece that goes above the windshield. This piece is covered with the same green felt as the valence trim with a layer of 1/8 inch foam under the felt.  I cut the felt using the original piece as a pattern.  This didn’t really work too well as the original piece was so stretched and deformed it wouldn’t lay flat.  But it was a start and with some trimming I had a piece that would work.  This felt is wrapped around the steel piece then glued at the back and the finished unit is held in place by the screws that mount the rear-view mirror and the sun visors.   The mirror-mounting parts had been re-chromed and the sun visors were newly fabricated from the upholstery shop so they were all ready to go back together which they did without too much struggle.

Covered metal trim held in place above the windshield by the rear-view mirror screws and the sun-visor screws.

•          Installed trim rubber around boot door

One more piece of trim that I wanted to install before polishing the paint was the rubber strip that goes around the opening for the boot lid.  This piece came with the interior trim kit and was an excellent match with the green paint and the green upholstery.  It fits snuggly over the lip of the door opening and glues to the inside of the body all around the door opening.  I discovered that this piece should have been the first piece of trim installed because it went under the same steel-toothed clamps that hold the valence felt in place at the rear of the headliner.  It was never meant that you should have to tuck this rubber strip in under the clamps after the valence felt was in place.  The rubber should have gone in first, and it easily could have.  I managed to get it in but partially spoiled the grip on the valence felt and could not get either piece really tight.  It won’t be too noticeable but I will always know that it is not quite right!

•          Ordered new seat belts

About this time I started more carefully going through all the old upholstery parts to make sure I didn’t make another sequencing mistake.  I got out all the old upholstery pieces and fitted them into place to see what had to go in first.  I determined that the wheel-well covers had to go in before anything else, then of course the sound-deadening sheets which will replace the original sheet material that had been installed at the factory. 

I also found the old seat belts and, upon inspection, realized that they were not going to be usable again.  I did a little shopping on line and found a company that builds restoration seat belts for classic cars and I ordered a sample of the webbing to check the color match.  Their Military Green was a perfect match for my Suede Green seats, so I ordered a pair.  They won’t have the Jaguar logo or any other British identifying markings but they will be new and safe and will look great in the car.  They just arrived the other day so I am including a photo below.  I cleaned up and repainted the old belt buckles but they were not from the factory either, but were added by the dealer in New York when the car was first sold. I will keep them.

This new seat belt webbing is called Military Green and is a perfect match for the Suede Green interior.  I am pleased with them. 

•          Sanded and Polished car and doors

It was now time to quit procrastinating the difficult job of cutting and polishing the new paint.  It was not new anymore, but was three months old so fully cured and ready to be sanded.  I chose to do the job the old way by hand sanding the entire car with water and 1500 grit paper, including the three doors.  This grit removed the orange peel texture that inevitably follows newly-sprayed clear coat.  In some places I used a hard wood stick with the sandpaper to remove particularly stubborn orange peel or stray dust specks that land in the paint even in a good spray booth.  But for most of the job I used the palm of my hand as so much of the surface is made up of compound curves.  After sanding with 1500 paper I switched to 2000 grit and went over the entire car again.  This removes most of the 1500 grit scratches and makes the surface easier to polish.  In a few places where the scratches were persistent I used 2500 grit paper.

After sanding with 2000 paper I polished the entire surface with an 8-inch wool polishing pad and coarse polishing compound.  All of this takes several days of work at my pace, and for much of the surface I had to polish twice and even three times with the coarse compound to get the sanding scratches out.  Following the coarse polishing with the wool pad I repeated the whole process with a fine compound on a foam pad.  This compound brings out a mirror-like surface, but also reveals where there are still 1500-grit sanding scratches, so in some spots I went back with 2500 paper and repeated the sanding step then repeated the two polishing steps.  This repetition resulted in an improved surface, but there are still areas where I can see sanding scratches so I will return later and repeat the polishing steps.

Two views of the roof after polishing

Bonnet polished, and scuttle partially polished – it needed a little more work.

Boot door polished, with new Jaguar feature.

•          Painting the fasteners inside the bonnet

At this point I wanted to remove the bonnet and set it upside down on my foam-covered table and finish the underside.  All 550 of the fasteners, nuts, bolts, screws, and washers, that hold the bonnet together were installed zinc-plated, and all the visible ones needed to be painted green.  I enlisted the help of two of my sons again and we lifted the bonnet off of the car and put it on the foam table.  This gave me access to all the fasteners that needed painting on the inside.

I debated how to paint all of these fasteners and finally decided to use an air brush.  The air brush produces almost zero overspray so it is not necessary to mask off all around the fasteners.  Using the airbrush, in fact, is just like using a bristle brush but the result is better coverage and a smoother surface. 

 I managed to get all the visible fasteners sprayed with the green basecoat but then when I was ready to spray the clear coat the airbrush stopped working.  I couldn’t get the thing to start working again so I ordered a new one.  The new one wasn’t going to come for a week so I decided to spray the clearcoat with my small spray gun set to its lowest flow and pressure.  This worked pretty well but did leave overspray around all of the fasteners.  I dealt with this by sanding out the overspray with 1500, then 2000, then 2500 grit paper followed by polishing with 3-inch pads around all the fasteners.

Underside of bonnet with fasteners all painted green.

In my first sanding I realized that I had not sprayed a very heavy layer of paint on some of the panels that make up the wheel wells.  This concerned me because these panels are going to take the brunt of the abrasive sand, rocks, and dirt that the front wheels will throw up inside the wheel well.  In the rear wheel wells I had sprayed a rock-chip coating that is tough and resists chipping, a kind of an undercoat.  I had chosen to not spray the front wheel wells because the stuff is kind of messy and is not as pleasing to the eye when you open the bonnet.  But now it seemed like a good idea to give a little more abrasion resistance to the front and thereby increase the life of the front wheel well surfaces.

With that decided I went out and bought a couple more cans of the spray-on undercoat and masked off the entire bottom of the bonnet except for the wheel well areas.  The photo below shows the preparation.

Wheel well masked and ready for undercoat.

 

 The undercoated surfaces are not a nice, shiny green after spraying but a kind of milky, faded green, so I repainted over the undercoat with more green base and clearcoat.  The new finish will last longer than the non-undercoated finish, assuming I ever actually get to drive the car on the road!

 

Left-hand wheel well undercoated and repainted green.

With the under-bonnet painting finished I reassembled the heater-inlet elbow and the rock-guard screen and set the bonnet aside while I work on the car and the engine and transmission.  I will not deal with the bonnet again until the rest of the car is completely assembled and even drivable, then I will mount the bonnet and finish its detail assembly; lights, horns, wiring, bumpers and trim.  My April deadline does not appear feasible anymore.  My next goal will be July.