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.
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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.
I figured it was time to try the E-Type on the road: I’d sit on a cushion, wear sunglasses in lieu of a windshield, and use some trailer lights as temporary brake lights–what could go wrong? The machine has run successfully in the shop, and the addition of a NOS voltage regulator has it charging as expected. Should be a piece of cake, right?
This project was long, involved, and expensive–but in the end the car runs better and is a lot more responsive, and while I haven’t actually measured it yet, the fuel economy seems better. You can see that the Strombergs are gone, and in their place are a couple of HD8s–in this case partially from a Rover 2000 (bodies, choke linkage) and partially from a Mk. X Jaguar (dashpots and pistons, throttle plates). The inlet manifold is an English-spec SU manifold (in this case from a 2.8) and the air cleaner is a very early XJ6 cleaner which has been modified to allow the engine breather to feed into it.
I am now down to finding a replacement front exhaust manifold. It’s a long story, but suffice to say that late S1 XJ6’s use a different exhaust than earlier cars, and frankly the earlier one is a superior design. I have three front manifolds, none are right for the early system. Sigh.
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Reg the MGB and the BSA just hanging out. I have not yet been out on the beezer this year, I should definitely do something about that. Reg has been getting regular use, but it’s about time to shake off another year of “benign neglect” and change fluids and what-not. At some point soon I really do need to see about the bodywork, he’s an old guy and it’s time, I expect.
While I was going to wait until later in the year to do needed work on the XJ6 rear suspension, my hand has been forced: the bodged exhaust system wouldn’t allow the rear brakes to be bled, and had to be sawz-alled off. And with the exhaust off, taking care of the numerous issues in the back makes sense now.
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Just a few quick snaps to show some in-progress of the XJ6 front suspension rebuild…after 41 years, it was probably time. I’m taking the opportunity to reseal the rack, replace everything rubber, and generally make things ship-shape.
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My poor MGB, victim of my lack of grease-gun attentiveness. The latest protest came from the parking brake cable; it siezed due to 51 years of use– with about 41 years of regular greasing. I was able to free it up off the car, and now, freshly greased and relatively clean it’s ready to go back in.
