IRS, more of the same, details of removing control arm bushings

Evening Folks and Happy V.D.,

Pretty much more of the same, another short day for a variety of reasons, our youngest Son came over and dropped off a Valentines Day Bouquet for his Mom and we had coffee and cranberry bread.  Thanks Son!

Todays first task was to remove the old bushings from the control arms, not particularly difficult but a bit tedious as you have to make cuts in the sleeve from the old bushing and then split them.  They pretty much drop out once that's done but the cutting with a hack saw blade takes time and you do not want to cut into the control arm! 

Rubber out of the way and making the cut

After the cuts are made a chisel and hammer are used to peal the metal back 

Once that's done the piece drops out

All four of them are out of the way

Still some dis-assembly to go but will have it all apart tomorrow if I get the time.  I used the parking brake to hold the differential still so I could remove the drive shaft flange nut,  No impact hammer there, just a BF Socket wrench 1 1/8" socket on a 3/4" drive.  Thanks Dad!


Well that's it for today, hope you all had a great Valentines Day!
Cheers,
Lynn


5 hrs

IRS disassembly, one step at a time

Hi Everyone,

Today was a short day but got started on disassembly of the IRS (Independent Rear Suspension) on Jennifer's Jag.  The IRS on jaguar was revolutionary for the time, all wheel independent suspension was relatively rare when Jaguar introduced the E Type in 1961 and with inboard disc brakes-unheard of!  It was an interesting system that they used having every thing contained in a cage but probably facilitated quick changes on brakes and differentials on the race track?

At any rate this one hasn't been touched in fifty years except for the shocks I installed last year on it so it's pristine.  What a treat it has been to be the first one to really work on this car-Thanks Jennifer!

The effort to remove the hub on this side consisted of removing the split pin and nut, once those were off the hub just dropped off!  Unheard of and the passenger side backed that up cause it fought me the whole way!  I think that the one side had 'lock tight' applied to the splines and the other didn't?

Preparing for battle

Churchill tool for removing the hub

Fighting me all the way

Hub finally off, but whats this?  A small little ball of grease nestled down in there, the other side had the same thing-weird! 

The other 'ball' of grease, how does that happen?  The other thing of interest, look at how much grease has squished up through the vent hole, makes me wonder if any grease gets to the bearings or if it all goes up and out of this hole when you put the grease gun on the zerk on the other side from it.  I am considering plugging this hole-any thoughts?

Once the hubs were out of the way I could tackle removing the control arms.  one was easy but the other was a PITA, could get the nut off, no sweat but the bolt was stuck, and I do mean stuck.  I finally decided that the nut could be sacrificed so I used metal plates behind it and unscrewed the nut using it to push the head of the bolt out, boy was I pleased when I examined the bolt and the threads were fine.  The nut not so much.... 

Just a grimmy piece

The mess, struggling with that dang bolt!

Where I'm at this afternoon, tomorrow will continue the adventure.

Well that's today exciting adventure, stay tuned for further Jaguar misadventures.

Cheers,

Lynn

4 hrs

Dropping the IRS

Evening folks,

Dropping the IRS is a fairly simple thing, undo the brake line, drive shaft, stabilizer bar linkage, the hand brake linkage, release the front control arm bushing and remove the bolts holding the mounts to the IRS.  Pretty straight forward right up to the part that involves removing the front control arm bushing.  Those tend to get stuck and with over 50 years on it can be a bear to remove.  I haven't discovered a magic way to get them off so the way I do it is to get under there with a drill and start drilling all the rubber out so the arm can be dropped out of the way.  Then once the IRS is out of the way I'll come back and remove the cup (my friend Drew gave me a tip on how to pull the cup off and that is to use an impact hammer and just keep tapping till it's loose and then it drops off-sure! Well guess what, they did! :-) 

The IRS is supported with the ATV jack and the arms are being freed up from the body, this is the drilling part I was talking about.  Notice how the arm dropped down?  The rubber bush at the IRS end has as the Brits say-Perished.

The ATV jack does a pretty fair job of supporting the IRS but I've built a little tray to sit on the jack that allows the IRS to be supported evenly

About 1/2" clearance to pull it out

This where Drew's tip helped a lot, just kept tapping till they broke loose, I did use a bit of penetrating oil and that may have helped just a bit.

The cups on the car after cleaning up with a wire brush

Well that's it for today.

Cheers,

Lynn

5.5 hrs

Starting to remove the rear end-IRS

Hi There,

Didn't do much today, pretty much just got things ready to go and will probably get the rear end dropped out tomorrow.

The tires off and the ATV jack in place.

This is the front mount for the control arms and probably the hardest part of the job.  These can be a bear to get off the body so I've squirted them with penetrating oil and will go at them tomorrow.


Cheers,
Lynn


3 hrs

Start up

The weather was cold but sunny and the wind wasn't blowing so I thought this was as good a time to start her up.  

There's always a little trepidation at this point because there are a lot of things that could have gone wrong during the re-assembly.

Cheers,

LLynn

Some days your the windscreen and some days your the bug-today I was the bug-again!

Evening Folks,

Went out to the garage this morning thinking I'd start installing the interior while waiting for the crossover pipe gaskets.  Well,  I wasn't real surprised to find evidence of coolant on the floor having filled up the cooling system yesterday 'cause that's not uncommon and usually just have to tighten up a few hoes clamp.  Imagine my displeasure when I looked in the passenger compartment and saw that the drivers side floor mat had a 1/4 inch of coolant in a puddle!  

Well this was pretty discouraging and I couldn't see any source for the leak,  I checked the heater box to see if the core was leaking, it wasn't.  Then I decided that it might be the heater valve connection and I took that off and cleaned it hoping that this was the source, perhaps leaking around the 'O' ring and back along the pipe into the cabin.  At this point it appears to have stopped but the system isn't under pressure, sure hope it isn't a defect in the new SS lines I installed last year.  That would be a pain in the butt!

The heater valve where I think the leak may have been coming from. Removed, disassembled, and cleaned it up where it mounts to the firewall.

Installing the center console, first the foam.

Then the cover, sealed with 'gorilla duct tape' to keep hot air out, they originally used a putty like material called believe it or not Dum Dum ;-)

Here I've installed the console, the gear shift lever has to be in 3rd gear and the parking brake handle up as high as possible then you can come in at an angle and get it to fit. You'll notice my technique to prevent the radio console from scraping the lower console.

What the correct 'bolts' look like, Jennifer's seem to have disappeared  at some point in the past.

Well that's it for this week, I  did get the gaskets and installed then today but will wait for a nicer day when I can open the garage without freezing my you know what off to start the engine.

Cheers,
Lynn

4 hrs

Short day, waiting for parts. Header pipes and front mufflers.

Chilly day here this morning, waiting for the UPS man to drop off the Crossover pipe gaskets that I've been waiting for so stopped early. Hope they come tomorrow.  Today I finished the ignition harness, installed the header pipes and front mufflers and filled the cooling system back up with 50/50 antifreeze.

Looks pretty with the morning sun catching it

Pretty much the same as yesterday but reworked the loops just a bit

New Bell SS mufflers and header pipes.  Will leave the rear off since I'll need them out of the way when I drop the IRS.

Just another shot of the loom as it dives into the distributor cap.

Well, that's it for today.  Hope that I get the gaskets tomorrow so I can see if it runs.

Cheers,

Lynn

5 hrs

Ignition harness installation

Today was a short day but I was able to get the ignition harness installed.  The harness comes as a bag of pieces and a roll of wire, so I used the old loom as a pattern and away we went.

Feeding the wires through the 'conduit' guide, start at the back and work forward.  The conduit needed the openings enlarged just a tiny bit so a drill bit the diameter of the wire was used to open the 'ports' for each wire.

The wires installed and the distributor cap attached and installed.  I double checked to make sure that the distributor was synched with the correct firing sequence.  Hopefully ;-)



I've decided that I am not going to crack the engine again, at least at this point, but rather hook up the front part of the exhaust system and start the engine then recheck the compression with the engine warm and my fingers crossed!

That's it for today,

Cheers,
Lynn


2.5 hrs

Steady progress, sometimes one step forward and 2 steps back

Evening Folks,

Continued on with reassembly,  today I had a bit of a set back after checking the compression numbers and I have discussed that down below.

The cam covers are installed, the front breather cover is installed, and the crossover pipe is ready to install.

Ready to put the cam covers back on, we used Cometic cam cover gaskets and they had to be cut to fit at the back.

I thought this was interesting, what appears to be the original coil with it's label. the label was pretty dirty and coming undone.

Label removed and cleaned

Coil cleaned up and the label glued back on 

Adding oil.

Almost ready to start but I need to get the gaskets for the crossover pipe seen towards the back of the engine.

At this point I decided to turn the engine over and after a false start where I discovered I had removed the lead to the starter we were finally able to check the compression. With the engine cold and WOT I went down the line with Jan giving me a hand on the starter switch and throttle.  The compression figures were all in the 130-135 range except #4 which came back at 120. Dang!  Rechecked it a couple of times, added oil and no change, going through my notes revealed that #4 intake valve was a challenge to set so I'm going to take the cam cover off when I get some more shims and see iif that's the problem.  A bit of a PITA!
Tomorrow I'll work to get the ignition harness put back together.

Cheers,
Lynn


7 hrs

Uh Oh! Installing the intake manifold, Distributor etc

Hi There,

Today I was waiting for the gaskets to arrive for the intake manifold, I decided that this was a spot that a higher quality Cometic gasket was worth the wait and they came today.  First I installed the distributor, then cleaned the hardware for the intake manifold,  for the anorak's in the crowd I thought that I'd show the OEM nut on the intake.  The nuts are cad plated and have a pattern on the outside face of the nut that can be seen in the first picture. 

The lower grouping of the nuts show the pattern that face out 

Studs and nuts for the intake manifold

Installing the studs for the intake manifold

Having installed the intake manifold I realized that this linkage that lives underneath the manifold should have been installed with the manifold.  After a fair mount of head scratching I realized that if I removed the lower throttle linkage mount I could probably get the linkage in. Now how to get the mount out?  I looked at pulling out the wiper motor but that was going to be a PITA, then I decided that I might be able to get a small socket on the 'impossible' bolt, but how to get it back in?  I finally got the linkage in place and the mount lined back up and the fates were with me as the mounting bracket slipped back in and the bolts lined up!

The mounting bracket, a plus was that someone had replaced the bushing with a piece of hose that was worn out, I was able to find piece that fit perfectly.

Where that dang piece lives with the shaft in place

Another view from the shaft looking back at the mount

Done for the day with the dizzy in place the water line under the manifold and manifold installed.

Well Folks, that's it for the day.

Cheers,
Lynn


6.5 hrs