Race against time
like a deadline to concentrate the mind. The plan was to have my manual XJ 5.3 Coupé repainted, freshened-up and ready to show at the London Concours on 8 June. That seemed feasible back in January, when the car was about to be dropped off at the paint shop and I last reported on the planned restoration in Octane 214. At the time of writing, the concours is 15 days away and, as you can see here, the car is a world away from being finished.
There are always a few surprises when it comes to restoring old cars, particularly so if you’re dealing with a ’70s Jaguar, built in the bad old days of British Leyland. First, when the engine was removed, we discovered a terminally leaky main oil seal at the back of the crankshaft where the flywheel is bolted on, which meant the crank needed to be removed from the engine block. That led to a full (and unplanned) engine rebuild.
Next, the seemingly good body structure wasn’t as solid as hoped when the bodywork was stripped down to bare metal – or, perhaps more accurately, to bare ferrous oxide. Important stuff such as suspension mounts (front and rear), inner and outer sills, plus the jacking points all needed to be reconstructed, which is why I’m very grateful to the experience and skills of Keith Parrington at Painting Classic Cars (paintingclassiccars.co.uk) for not being fazed when yet another bodywork snag appeared out of the blue.
This was before any thoughts of replacing various areas of the elegant outer bodywork: we knew it had to be tackled and that it would need real expertise to sort, because many of the panels are no longer available from Jaguar and would have to be made by skilled hands. There’s something almost magical about watching a flat piece of steel sheet first being cut to size and then curved into shape using an English wheel and many years of experience.
Meanwhile, the engine was sent off to Tom Lenthall Ltd (tomlenthall.co.uk), who did an astonishing job with the all-aluminium engine, turning
my oily, leaky, tired V12 into the sparkling, concours-standard power source in these photos after just six weeks. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the cost of rebuilding a Jaguar V12, too, which turned out to be roughly a third of that required to rebuild a Lamborghini V12 of the same vintage. A basic full engine rebuild by Tom costs £10,000 plus VAT so, if you’re planning the same, bank on a total around £12,000-15,000 after a few extras are included.
But will my Jaguar be ready for its first public appearance on 8 June? I can’t see it, yet Keith Parrington is confident it will be. By the time you read this we will know who was right.