The wheels are back for the Morgan and look quite nice–I had them straightened and powder-coated by Factory Direct Tire in Edmonds. Of course, I now need to remove the powder coating from the hubcap “nubs” so they will actually go on. (This is typical of powder-coated parts due to the thickness of the finish, and one of the reasons I rarely have parts powder coated. But it was not much extra on top of the straightening, so why not?)
Category: Past Indiscretions (Page 2 of 25)
Valuable, if hard, lessons learned
Literally! My latest machine doesn’t have a working reverse gear, among some other “minor” glitches. I probably won’t keep this car, a 1994 Jaguar XJS–I bought it to help a friend who was losing their storage, and faced an expensive repair bill to get the car saleable, at an inopportune time.
As a reward for years of yeoman service, I took a set of spare heads for the F250 into the machine shop today in preparation for FINALLY fixing the cracked exhaust manifolds. The day was mostly spent running Morgan errands, though: Dropping the body panels at the media blaster, the exhaust manifold at the coating specialist, picking up the chrome to ponder what to do after the chromer’s quote came in at an eye-watering level, dropping the axle to be straightened at the differential specialist, handing the kingpins (new bushings), carbs (new throttle shafts), and inlet manifold (aluminum welding) to the machine shop (along with the truck heads), and most of all collecting the World’s Largest Box, seen above, from the trucking company.
The E-Type has found a new home, and I hope the new owner gets a lot of enjoyment out of it! It’s a bittersweet moment, but unfortunately the car had to go as the hole dug getting it finished really needs to be filled in.
Here, the hardtop is in place, but said hardtop needs to be completed–the new owner will be completing that part of the restoration themselves. Depending on how much is left in the “car kitty” once all of the smoke clears, hopefully a new “inmate” here at Rusty Keep will appear soon!
Drove the E-Type yesterday!
Aside from putting the window seals on the driver’s side and buying another front trim strip to replace the one I just ruined (because, surprise, surprise, it doesn’t fit quite right and kinked while I was adjusting it), the top is mostly done.
I guess I’m getting closer to being done. At this point, it’s waiting for the rear bumpers to get back from the chrome shop, refinishing the top frame (and installing the top), and finishing the dash top.
The dash, sigh–at this point, for expediency’s sake, I’m leaning strongly towards just using the normal replacements readily available, rather than trying to replicate the early car’s thinner dash, much as I’d like to. This car has pretty much soured me on using professionals for much of anything, and I don’t have a good plan for producing a good early dash replica with the means I have available here.
This car will be on the market soon(ish), and if you’re interested, drop me a line. It’s a good 1- to 2+ car using Hagerty’s value guide. It’s a lovely old thing, just wish I could afford to keep it.
What would take a pro a couple of afternoons has taken me a month of spare time, but I have most of the interior installed. I only have a few very minor visible mistakes–and I think they’ll be fairly invisible once the seats are in.
It took awhile to get it all back together, and had to wait for new exhaust manifolds, but the car is running again. And it even has third and fourth gear! The most amusing part is that the fix itself took about seven seconds…slip the 3rd/4th syncro hub off and rotate it about 30 degrees, and put it back on. And then reassemble the gearbox, and put the engine back in, etc., etc.
Alas, alack, etc.