Tips for the care and feeding of your 'Kitty'.

First things first, your Kitty likes to be clean but she's pretty particular about bathing. I'm not going to go into detail about washing and products to use as you've been washing her for years but I will talk about a few thing you may not have considered.  When you wash her you need to protect the components under the bonnet, since  she has vents on the top of the bonnet you need to keep water off the brake and clutch reservoirs and I use a  plastic bag of some sort to keep water out of them.

I also place towels in strategic locations to keep water off the engine-obviously you don't want to have a hot engine when you do this. 

You have to keep moisture out of the brake system as it will reduce the effectiveness of your brakes and damage them eventually.  

A couple of large towels placed under the bonnet vents 

Towel in the recess under the fuel filter and on the other side to collect the water that get's down here.   Alway wipe the engine off after washing too.

 When I wash my car I also place towels in the interior to catch any water that comes in around the weather stripping,  a towel laid on the sill usually catches most of it as I have learned never to spray near the hood (top) with high pressure.

Towel on opposite side recess.

      Driving your car, I feel like I'm 'preaching to the choir' on this one since Jennifer has had her E Type 40+ years but I will comment that downshifting to slow down causes wear on the clutch and brakes are a lot cheaper to replace, cornering I always try to anticipate what gear I'll be using coming out of the corner and shift to it but I never use my clutch just for braking to a stop.  One other thing is that keeping the clutch pedal down at stop lights wears out the throwout bearing and thrust bearings and avoid prolonged depressing of the clutch by shifting to neutral and using the brake instead with the clutch out.  One more thing, the engine turns over faster when starting it when the clutch is out and it reduces wear on the starter and throwout bearing.
      Get into the habit of looking under the bonnet before you take a drive, since you will be re-connecting the battery the you disconnected after your previous drive this will be a good opportunity to look at your brake fluid reservoirs, check your oil level and make sure the coolant is halfway up in the reservoir.  Remember 'starting is optional, stopping isn't'.

Throwout bearing that is worn down into the metal

Service intervals (this assumes limited driving-if you drive it more then service intervals will be more frequent):

Engine oil: change every 3000 miles or yearly
Transmission/differential: check at least yearly
Brake fluid: Check before each drive, change every 2-3 years
Clutch fluid: same as brakes
Grease chassis yearly
Clutch free play: check and adjust yearly

Everything else is pretty much standard and if in doubt check your manual.

Cheers,
Lynn

Summary

As I near 'completion' of Jennifer's Jaguar I thought it might be helpful to have a summary* of the tasks that have been completed on the car over the past year.

*Fixed the bonnet safety latch
*Fixed the boot boards
*Fixed the squirter nozzles-one missing
*Replaced the hoses to the squirter nozzles
*Repaired and painted the splash pans-jacking damage
*Replaced all weather stripping on car including bonnet, boot, doors and hood
*Replaced damaged fuse panel on right side, fixed console so it would open
*Replaced the battery cables and added a battery disconnect
*Repaired the seat rails to make them operable
*Trimmed the unfinished edge of the hood by installing welting
*Replaced the asbestos heat shield
*Replaced the boot springs
*Aligned the bonnet and installed rubber bumpers
*Disassembled and rebuilt the seats with new covers and foam-old covers not repairable but saved
*Refreshed the interior trim and replaced the 'cubby' lid-original saved
*Made and replaced the gear shift gator
*Rebuilt the heater box on firewall
*Installed door switch with correct replacement
*Repaired jacking damage to floor pans
*Cleaned and repainted the battery tray and hold down
*Cleaned and repainted the overflow tank for the radiator
*Made and installed new insulation/padding under the mats,
*Repainted the fan shroud and radiator mounts
*Replaced the Radiator fans with higher efficiency Cool Cat Fans
*Repaired and coated the steering wheel-10 coats of spar urethane varnish
*Replaced the rubber bushings in the front suspension
*Replaced the front wheel bearings R&L
*Installed SS bulkhead pipes for heater
*Installed thermostat
*Had radiator tested/cleaned/painted
*replaced the radiator hoses
*replaced the otter switch (fan switch)
*rebuilt the steering rack and replaced the rubber mounts
*Installed a direct reading oil pressure gauge under the bonnet
*Repaired the clock-sent to Mike Eck, note that the battery needs to be replaced annually
*Replaced the brake/clutch reservoir hoses
*Replaced the master cylinder and slave master cylinders-brakes
*Replaced the clutch master cylinder and slave cylinder
*Replaced the head gasket, resurfaced head and installed tappet locking plates
*Replaced the clutch, throw out bearing, pilot bearing,pressure plate and had the flywheel resurfaced
*Replaced the front and back seals in the transmission
*Replaced the drive shaft U joints and had the driveshaft balanced
*Replaced the motor mounts, transmission mount and stabilizer mounts
*Cleaned and greased the Alternator, brushes WAL
*Cleaned and lubed the starter, Brushes WAL
*Cleaned and lubed the distributor (frozen)
*Replaced the output shaft bearings on the differential, replaced seals pinion shaft and output shaft
*Replaced brake rotor (rear), had calipers rebuilt by Whitepost
*Installed new brake pads (rear) and parking brake pads
*Replaced front and rear Shock absorbers
*Replaced rubber bushings in radius control arms
*Replaced wheel bearings-set to correct end play
*Replaced bearings in fulcrum shaft, inner and outer-set to correct end play
*Replaced the axle half shaft U joints right and left
*Replaced the exhaust system with Bell SS
*Replaced the muffler mounts front and rear
*Fixed the horn-needed new relay
*Fixed the passenger side seat belt latch
*Removed the bump stops-oversized tires rubbed on them

Servicing included:
*Oil and filter changed-9 quarts Valvoline 20-50 VR1
*Valves set to spec
*Distributor rebuilt and timing set to 8*BTDC
*Changed transmission fluid Redline Synthetic MT90
*Changed differential grease Redline Synthetic Gear lube 75-90
*Greased all zerks front and rear, Red NLGI/GC-LB
*New air filter and fuel filter
*Wheels balanced
* Front wheel bearings greased and set to proper end play, Red NLGI/GC-LB

Next time I will offer some 'tips' on care and feeding of your cat....

Cheers,
Lynn

*All that I can think of, but can refer back to previous posts for details.

Lousy Lucas Parts

Well, Jennifer's Jag is back down on the ground with a new SS exhaust system.  The timing is set at 8* BTDC and the idle is at ~750,  on a test drive without the bonnet it ran well and the new brakes seemed to work well.  One thing though, the horn didn't work so back to the garage to sort that out.

This afternoon I started by checking by looking at the simplest things first, fuses, horn switch, wiring and last the relay.  Well, the relay had bitten the dust at ONLY 51 years!  You'd have thought that Lucas could have done better than that!  D__n Lucas parts!

After replacing the Lucas crap with a new Bosch parts I sure the horns will be working well into next week!*

Installing the IRS, had to rock it forward just a bit to get the radius arm to line up and bolted in

Here she is sans bonnet but ready to roll, except that the old rubber gas hose to the carbs was brittle with age and cracked-easily replaced.

The conversion for a Lucas Relay to a Bosch relay

Lucas relay, the Bosch relay would probably fit inside this one so if someone wanted to keep a stock appearance this might be the way to go.

If everything goes well tomorrow I might be able to get the bonnet back on,  I would like to test drive the car for a few miles to make sure every thing is sorted for Jennifer.

Cheers,
Lynn


*;-)

IRS, one step at a time

I've been able to get little bit done on the IRS here and there over the past two months but it has been a very busy time around our place, fortunately Jennifer has been very patient with me.  Assuming nothing else comes up I should have Jennifer's car back on it's wheels this month.

Can't recall what I thought was important in this picture but suspect it was part of fitting the fulcrum shaft to the hub and setting the preload on the fulcrum shaft bearings.

New rotors, think I've posted this picture before?

Installing the passenger side fulcrum shaft and the radius arm.  One has to install the radius arm before the hub is assembled as the hub blocks access to bolt that fastens the radius arm.

This was particularly tedious, setting the free play on the hub bearings, there is a speciality tool that would help with this but I had to improvise by making a variety of different shims out of brass shim stock.  I finally got them within the recommended specs of 2-6/1000.
Actually this picture is showing an unacceptable way of measuring the free play, can you spot the problem? *Answer below

One side done, the other coming along.

Free play set and installing the 'tie' plate on the bottom of the IRS

Rolled over and set on the jack, need to do a few little things, fill the differential with gear oil, attach the hand break mechanism then it's ready to bring in under the car!

Doesn't look like much but these are some of the old parts (not the jack;-) Old bearings, seals and so forth.

Well, that's it for today, hope all is well in your world and your project go smoothly!

Cheers,

Lynn


*Measuring the way shown in the picture will give an inaccurate reading because it will pick up the free play in the universal joint too.  What works better is to mount the dial indicator on the hub and measure against a spot that you've marked on the hub, this will give one more consistent results