Waking up the big cat
Having delivered the Stag to the trimmer it was time to catch up with some long overdue maintenance on my E-Type, but first some background on this car. It was purchased in Auckland, New Zealand in 1986 as an abandoned restoration when we were working and living there. The car was manufactured in January 1965 and was sold by Henleys in London. It originally came with the registration number CDP 505C, but I have no other history of the car’s time in England apart from information that it had completed 76,000 miles in eight years.
The car was shipped to NZ and registered in 1973 where it had five owners prior to my purchase – the first four in a two-year period. When I acquired the car the mileage was 87,055, but this reading is suspect as I later discovered a stripped gear in the drive to the odometer. The Jaguar was basically as it left the factory, had matching numbers and was in the same original dark blue colour with grey trim. The engine had been removed and ‘rebuilt’, but the body had major rust in all the lower panels and was in dire need of major surgery.
I completely stripped the car; sand blasted the shell and set about a rebuild. The floors and inner sills were repaired but the boot floor and the two lower sections of rear wings required replacement. The bonnet was in a terrible state but I managed to purchase a brand new one at a very reasonable cost. In the early ’90s my job specification changed resulting in spending on average two weeks a month in Brisbane and it became obvious that we needed to relocate and so become Brisbane based. The restoration plan required changing to make E-Type relocatable, so the shell was sent to a specialist who replaced both outer sills and painted the inside, bulkhead and original frames in Dark Blue. Meanwhile the gearbox and diff were sent out for overhaul whilst I worked on the suspension components, which were either cleaned and painted or plated.
Following the body’s return, the suspension was fitted followed by engine/gearbox and driveline so that car was mobile. The new bonnet was fitted but not aligned and in 1997 the E-Type was transported to Australia together with my XJ6C.
Time was somewhat limited in Australia, so completion was contracted to a Brisbane based specialist. The Jaguar was re-registered in 2003 and used for a number of years, but low oil pressure, numerous oil leaks and some strange engine noises made me uneasy, as did potential internal corrosion in the front frames. After I retired in 2010, and having completing my brother in law’s E-Type, the engine was removed for an internal inspection. This gave me a chance to fit the new front frames I had earlier purchased from E-Type Fabs. The frame fit was excellent and I didn’t even have to adjust the spacers when replacing the bonnet.
The engine inspection was much less successful. The head and sump were removed and when I started to unbolt the big end caps for a bearing inspection, I was alarmed to find the numbers on rods and caps did not match, so a major rebuild was called for. The block was fitted with a set of flanged liners, new pistons and later XJ6 rods, as I was advised these are stronger than the originals. I had earlier acquired a reground crank modified to accept a rear lip seal so this was used along with new bearings. The head was cleaned and the engine reassembled with a new oil and water pump.
The speedometer was overhauled by an Auckland company but the needle never gave a steady reading, which I had put down to reusing the old cable, so a replacement was fitted during engine installation. This steadied up the speedo operation but did not last as the needle soon started to stick in the zero position. Initially a tap would restore the reading but this was short-lived and I diagnosed a problem in the speedo itself. Having the Stag away for two or three weeks allowed time to remove the Jaguar’s speedo for repair and a general service. The E-Type’s dash top is relatively easy to remove. It’s only held on by four nuts, one at each end and the remaining two are accessed through the centre instrument drop-down panel.
The speedo was removed and using an old cable and drill to operate it, resulted in needle movement and some alarming noises, indicating there was a problem in the speedo and probably elsewhere. It was not a surprise to find that forward movement of the car did not result in any cable rotation, so the inner cable was withdrawn and as it was unbroken the issue had to be at the gearbox end. The centre console and armrest were removed, slightly more complicated in my case as I have an additional pair of VDO instruments located in the centre glovebox to confirm correct readings for water temperature and oil pressure.
Removal of the gearbox cover allowed access to withdraw the small right-angled speedo drive, although the initial test confirmed correct operation as any resistance on the output shaft halted rotation. The drive was stripped and the gears were found to be in excellent condition, the failure resulting from the input shaft slipping inside the bore of the gear. It is designed as an interference fit but in this case slippage had caused excess wear on the input shaft. I spoke to John at Lionel Otto Instruments and he confirmed this was a known problem and that he had a fix, so Dan was kind enough to take speedo and drive for overhaul. The overhauled speedo and repaired drive were refitted and running the car on the lift proved all was working OK so the interior was refitted.
The time waiting for the speedo to return allowed time to catch with some other jobs on the car. I have for years been contemplating fitting door mirrors to the Jaguar to make the car easier to drive in traffic. At a recent show I had looked at E-Types with door mirrors and decided to fit a pair of Tex similar to the design fitted to the MGB from about 1970, which were duly purchased from Rimmer. The doors were protected with masking tape and an assistant held the passenger door in position so I could check correct location, the hole positions were marked and dot punched with a spring punch. After the holes were drilled, the edges were painted and the mirrors fitted and aligned.
The Jaguar’s ignition leads are over 20 years old and are of the carbon core type. A resistance check indicated there all was not well: a typical lead will have a resistance of 16000 ohms per metre, but two were considerably higher. I ordered a new set of low-resistance leads with a spiral wire core and resistance of 6000 ohms per metre. The car now has improved starting and seems to run better – or is it just wishful thinking?
I was not sure how far the car had travelled since the last service, so decided a complete service was in order. The engine was warmed up, drained and refilled with Penrite oil specially blended for classic cars and as the Jaguar takes 8.5 litres, it required two cans. I change the filter at every oil change and have a spin-on one, which makes it slightly easier. However, filter access is somewhat restricted and almost as messy as the old canister type. Whilst the car was on the lift I took the opportunity of greasing all the nipples on the transmission and suspension. Now the car has an operational speedo, I’ve restarted my electronic service log where I record date, speedo reading, maintenance and oil change data.