October 2011

Sunday, 30 October 2011

I knew I had children for a reason

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All those years of paying to feed, clothe and educate my 3 children paid off today. After nearly poking my eye out with the heater control cable while trying to remove the brake servo I had pushed it back through the firewall. Out of the way and easy to retrieve, I thought. How wrong you can be.

Small hands make light work. I am convinced that Jaguar maintained a staff of double jointed arachnodactylic pygmies solely for E Type assembly. My theory is that a tragic epidemic killed them off in the late 60's, leading to the demise of the British sports car as we knew it.

alex01

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All of the bits I needed to complete the heater rebiuld arrived this week. Included was a plastic bag of bits of foam to make seals inside the box, but it wasn't immediately apparent which bits went where.

Inspiration struck; I'd ring Rob as I knew he'd done the job on his car.

Yes, said Rob, he'd rebuilt the heaters on both his E Type and his Mk2. No, he said, he still had no idea which bits went where.

So I glued them in where it looked like they might go. Hell, no one will ever see them.

Heater complete

Front suspension finished for now

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Bouyed by the kind thoughts of my friend, I have finished off the front suspension by replacing the front shocks.

I chose the Koni Classics. These are a good quality double acting adjustable shock. Their one drawback is that they are not adjustable on the car which is irritating but does keep the price down. In the past I have used Spax shocks but SNG Barratt didn't stock them, so Koni's it is.

I have put on a different set of tie rod ends. These are supposed to be the ones for Series 3 cars, but do match what I took off.

The only major job left is the dash conversion. I have been avoiding this as my previous experiences with old car electronics have been universally negative (ho ho, a joke).

front suspension

Support from your friends

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I have been a way on holidays for a week, hence the lack of progress.

When I get home and check my emails I see this from an anonymous friend:

"dear andrew .Love seeing pictures of beautifully restored bits and pieces but when reality bites will they ever work.regards"

The brakes are done

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At the risk of offending fate, I think the brakes are finished.

All the hydraulic lines are in and connected. All the vacuum pipes as well. Reservoirs are mounted. All in all, it looks good.

brakes finished

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World's Worst Welder.

Stripped of paint, the floor of the heater box was a filligree of rust holes. Spurred on by my success with the clutch bracket I decided to patch it. Trying to TIG weld 40 year old rust was next to impossible. The result is ugly but servicable.

welede heather

Lots of fiddly little jobs

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Lots of little fettling jobs with the hydraulics.

Got the hand made vaccuum pipe installed across the firewall, and made a bracket for the brake servo reservoir bottle and welded it to the firewall blanking plate.

This is the first time I've used the TIG in anger and while it would be mendacious to say that it went without incident, I am quite happy with the result.

bracket