Exhaust, lamps and decals
It’s been another busy month! In fact, you could even say that it’s been ‘exhausting’. You know where this is going, don’t you? On a trip between my university digs and my parents’ house in the Lake District, the Jag’s exhaust suddenly started blowing. Thoughts of ‘Oh, I’ll get home fine and patch it up there’ passed through my head and the noise was forgotten about. Ten miles later, the exhaust blow became a roar. I dived onto the hard shoulder to discover that the pipe leading to the middle section silencer had cracked, and there was no silencing on the car at all! My trip to the Lakes was an important one, so I couldn’t turn back. What was worse was that I’d have to make the trip back to Manchester later that night, having had no chance to address the issue.
With it being a Sunday, of course, there was nowhere to drop in to try to patch a repair. I bit the bullet and ordered a new exhaust centre section, which would be delivered to my Manchester address on the following Tuesday. The late night journey home was noisy, to say the least, but at least there was no chance of falling asleep.
The replacement part was easily fitted – a simple case of undoing a large clamp at the front, and two smaller clamps that attached the twin rear silencers. Not the easiest thing to
replace on a car of this size, on ramps or a trolley jack – so I cheated and took the car to a friend’s garage with a four post lift. The car is now eerily quiet once more.
I’ve managed to make some more headway with the Hawk’s refit, too. The pop-up headlamps are powered by Fiat X1/9 motor units. The offside one had become progressively lazy in its operation, until eventually the car had become somewhat one-eyed. As I was soon to discover, the headlight wiring is quite complex. The power to the motor is fed through relays switched by two separate circuits to control the upward and downward actions of the headlight. It was difficult enough to fathom how it all worked without a wiring diagram, but the mystery became even more complicated when I tested all the accessible connections and found them to be satisfactory. I had no choice but to remove the motor assembly and wiring, to allow me to investigate the hidden parts. With a degree of relief, I discovered an absence of 12 volts within the motor, rather then burnt out windings. Half an hour later a break in the power lead was identified and a new length of cable was soldered in place and tested; an hour more and the motor and linkage were reinstated and carefully adjusted, meaning the headlight flapped up and down like new. The only frustration now is that its operation is faster than the nearside one. So there’s another job for another day – to upgrade the power lead to its twin so that they lift and blink in unison.
Another small thing I’ve done, is replacing some of the slightly tired looking decals. The car had some makeshift door squares, so I drew a template, which resembled the door squares fitted to the original works cars. I have a friend who makes vinyl stickers and decals for a living, so he made them up for me and helped me fit them. The only things to note for fitting any sort of sticker – make sure the surface is clean and degreased, and sometimes it’s helpful to have a very light spray of slightly soapy water. This helps to remove all of the bubbles once it’s been applied. The car really is looking great once more, and I’m looking forward to having it back on the road in the very near future.
The middle section had cracked, and there was no silencing at all!