'CJ' This will be a blog describing some of the chores that I'll be doing on a 1970 Jaguar E Type

Chuck B. has asked me to do a few chores on his very nice 1970 FHC (Fixed Head Coupe) that he has bought.  The car is one of the late Series 2 cars that was manufactured in August 1970,  an interesting characteristic of these later cars was the placement of a 'Leaping Cat' on the lower edge of the bonnet in a location that is reminiscent of the placement of the outside bonnet latches of the earliest E Types.  Chuck's car has been restored and has had Weber carburetors installed in place of the somewhat 'anemic' dual Zenith Strombergs.  Like many cars of this vintage it has gone through many hand both owners and mechanics so it will be interesting to see what kind of little things we'll find.

















I will chronicle the things I find and any repairs that I perform over the next week or two.  Today it was fun to look the car over and one of the first tasks that I under took was to check the door strap on the drivers side.  Chuck couldn't get the door to stay open and I was concerned that the door check strap was on the verge of failing, when this happens the door will often come forward and hit the cowling leaving a good sized dent just in front of the door.  I've had several crack with age and this was the first symptom

One of the first things I noticed was the incorrect screw in the door latch handle, the thread was correct but the head should fit into the recess in the lever.  I found a few little things as I took the door card off and I'll discuss them in the picture captions as I go along.
Screw with too big of a head, will try to find a replacement in my parts supply

The armrest don't fit quite as nice as I like but not sure I can do anything about it

Hopefully I can get the door card to fit better, we'll see....

Preparing to remove the  door card

This is the door strap, who ever played with it last rounded out the pozidrv screw, something that happens commonly when  folks think that they are a standard Philip head screw.  One of the first things I invested in when I started working on E Types was a set of Pozidrv screwdrivers.

Here's why CJ's door wouldn't stay open, the 'retainer' has had the edge worn off of it over the years and provided no resistance to closure.

How can you tell they are Posidriv?  The one on the right is stripped out but the one on the left gives you a pretty good idea, notice the 4 hash marks? That's the marking for a Posidrv screw

New door check strap with correct screws

The screw on the left was what I found holding the armrest on the door instead of the 10/32 machine screw, fortunately the threads in the door frame were undamaged and I was able to source some machine screws.

Well, that the start of the chores that Chuck has asked me to do. Stay tuned for further thrilling stories from Lynn's Garage ;-)


Cheers,
Lynn


1hr 10 min

Comments

  1. Drew ScherzMay 25, 2019 at 8:23 PM

    Aha. A new car getting the Lynn Gardner treatment. Such a lucky car and already some annoying items have been remedied and crossed off the list. Can't wait to see how CJ progresses. Has some Webers, wow! Pretty car, too.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One last post

Image
As regular readers will know I was patting myself on the back for having sorted out the electrics on the wipers a few weeks ago.  Yesterday while doing a final inspection the dang wipers would not park.  In desperation I got out my manual for the Series 3 only to find this terse comment.   So since taking the wiper motor entails taking half the car apart I decided that CJ could have manually parked wipers and pulled the Green/red lead off the wiper switch.  CJ now has OFF, SLOW and SLOWER positions on the switch.  Someday If I have the time perhaps we can pull it out and see if it's something that can be repaired. Next, I got to thinking that I couldn't send CJ home with a vibration at 60 mph!  So up in the air she went and all the tires needed a little help one as much as 2 oz.   Hopefully that will take care of the vibration! One of the better balanced wheels After moving the weights and adding a bit.  I've had really good results with using this Bubbl
Read more

Front Suspension, hubs and so forth

Image
It was nice to have a day that wasn't interrupted by a trip into town,  the front suspension is installed and ready to rock and roll. Well, roll at least. I spent a fair amount of time this afternoon trying to get the splash pans installed having to make a bracket along the way.  The pictures start with the fitment of the calipers to the uprights.  I've used lock washer, Loctite, and safety wire. Probably overkill but when your talking about stopping.... I touched up the rivets that I used to plug the holes in the frame rails with primer and then mixed up a little paint that is pretty close to the correct color. I used 50 lb safety wire, it should be set up so that loosening of one bolt will tighten the other, I think it was used extensively in the aircraft industry.  Just showing the now complete front suspension, no splash pans though Same thing on the passenger side, the bearings were set to 1-2/1000" free-play. Split pins in place and suspens
Read more

Wrapping it up, part II

Image
Evening folks, Have  few little thing yet to do, the battery tray and hold down didn't fit the battery in the car so will have to wait on that.  Got the exhaust mounting plate installed that allows one to raise the car safely from under the IRS when work needs to be done on the back end. Then adjusted the clutch slave rod to get the correct setting of 1/16" and then added the return spring that reduces wear on the throwout bearing by keeping the clutch fork back a preset distance. The correct bridge piece for the resonators  Now able to fit a block in place for jacking up the car Setting the correct 1/16" play in the clutch rod.  using a 1/16" drill bit to set a space between the lock nut and yoke with the yoke snug against it's stop then turn the rod in to meet the lock nut, tighten and then install the return spring. Took your car out for a test drive this afternoon and it did well, tracks straight and the steering wheel is centered, s
Read more