Ben Stafford had another problem with his 420. There was generally very poor oil pressure of only 20 to 25 PSI when hot and cruising on the open road that dropped back to almost 0 at idle. The engine did not sound "clapped out" and the oil consumption was quite reasonable. The electric oil pressure gauge was suspected but substitution of a hard line gauge only confirmed that the electric gauge was telling a true story.
I suggested that before he did any thing drastic like an engine overhaul he should check the condition of the oil pressure relief valve. I have had two occasions in Jaguars where low oil pressure was traced to relief valve problems.
Ben found that the oil pressure relief valve spring had been bent. This resulted in the valve itself sitting at an angle on the relief hole and a groove had been worn into the face of the valve. He used a lathe to clean up the face of the valve and subsisted a straight spring for the bent one
The results were fairly dramatic with an improvement to 45 PSI on the open road and 15-20 PSI at idle when hot. In his own summation of the situation he "was surprised that such a small gap in the relief valve had led to such a dramatic loss of oil pressure."
Whither goes thy oil pressure? (continued)
MY Mk2 3.8 Auto has had a slightly low oil pressure and I was a little concerned that the engine may have been "loose" i.e. getting worn. I took a trip to Ben Stafford's to use his hoist and get easy access to the pressure relief valve.
Upon removing the relief valve it became immediately obvious that the valve face was not seating properly. A quick trip in the lathe to face off the valve resulted in an increase of 10 pounds per square inch over all of the operating range.
However I now believe the real problem lies in wear on the upper flutes of the valve which allows it to sit in the bore of the valve body at an angle and the final solution will be to replace the valve itself with a new part and possibly even re-sleeve the valve body.
Whilst I had the MK 1 radiator out I was having a serious look around for rust and any other problems prior to painting the general area surrounding the radiator. I had a close look at the steel brake line that feeds the left front wheel brakes from the hydraulic distribution block just after the power booster. Overall it looked pretty good however there was one spot where there was some rust for about 10-mm. When I touched this the line started leaking hydraulic fluid. This spot is actually hidden from normal view as a U shaped bracket below the radiator supports the brake line in this area.
I went to make a new line but found that parts of the flaring tool were missing and suspect they were in eldest sons toolbox as he was the last to use it. I was also very busy with work and decided to outsource the manufacture of a new line to Stopmasters in Brendale. They made a new line complete with new fittings for the grand sum of $18 and at that price I have decided that I shall no longer persist in these sort of minor repairs with all the running around to get line, fittings and a working flaring tool all together at the same time.
I also enquired about the possibility of using copper line rather than steel but they informed me that Queensland Transport has ruled copper line as illegal because of problems of work hardening and cracking around the end fittings. That is a little strange as all of the Pommy restoration magazines seem to recommend copper brake line as a solution to their never ending corrosion problems.
Club member and friend Ben Stafford had just returned from Papua New Guinea and dropped in for a beer. I told him of this brake line problem and he said that he had had precisely the same problem in the same line in his 420. i.e. under the radiator. It appears that this "sleeper" corrosion problem may exist in MK1&2, S type and 420 cars, which share fairly similar engineering in their front ends. I'd suggest that next time you have the radiator out of one of these cars a close inspection of the brake line would be in order. It is relatively easy to replace the line with the grille and radiator removed.
As a result of the problems I had with the spark on the MK 1 3.4 auto while headed for the display day which I never got to [see Oct 03 Nuts and Bolts] I had a serious think about the ignition system in this car. It is very simple and on a par with the FJ Holden employing a coil, points, condenser and distributor. In fact alongside the modern day electronic systems it is downright crude. I pondered is there a better way?
There are modern electronic ignition system which can be fitted to run without points and deliver a massive spark however I detected some reluctance from a couple of commercial distributors of these devices when I wanted firm guarantees that they would fit a MK1 distributor. In fact they asked what was a MK1!
Using my vast background of Datsun 120Y experience I decided that the simple way was to retain the system, as it was however I would introduce a ballast resistor and coil. As I had lots of 120 Y used components in the parts bin including ballast resistors and coils I thought that a simple no cost experiment would be worthwhile. The results were quite spectacular. This car, which was always finicky on the start roared into life immediately. From dead cold it would catch on the first revolution of the crankshaft. Encouraged by this I purchased a new coil, ballast resistor and relay and the car has not looked back. In fact tonight I had to move it around in the shed and it still stated immediately although it is at least one month since the last time it ran.
How it all works is quite simple. When you are cranking over an engine on a 12-volt system the actual battery voltage drops to about 8 volts. This means your 12-volt coil will not work very efficiently when starting but is OK when running. If you substituted an 8-volt coil it would be good when starting but would burn out with continuous running. However a resistor designed to get rid of 4 volts when continuously running will protect the 8-volt coil. That is the ballast resistor. The relay is used at start up to short out the ballast resistor. The coil of the relay is connected to the starter motor voltage supply and activates when the starter is turning. The points in the relay are connected to either side of the ballast resistor and when they come together the relay shorts out the ballast resistor and full battery voltage is available at the 8-volt coil.
As we get more sophisticated I will try to introduce circuits and diagrams but at the moment I am stuck with a pretty basic computer and you will just have to bear with me on the description. While the foregoing information is not rocket science it appears to be a worthwhile modification to older Jaguars and is relatively inexpensive. Anyone who is really stuck can phone me and I will see what I can do to mail them a circuit diagram.
The grey MK1 project progress hit a brick wall and stopped as I tried to get the windscreen wipers operational. I should have woken up that there was something pretty wrong when I saw the flexible drive cable from the wiper motor to the wiper arm gearboxes disconnected and I also had noted that an attempt at a roadworthy a couple of years ago resulted in a failure because of inoperative wipers and body rust. [The rust is all gone now.]
Removing the Lucas DR3 wiper motor revealed a lack of brushes and some pretty amateur soldering of new flying leads into the motor itself. By luck I had another wiper motor that had a seized armature bearing and I was able to use the field windings and brushes to get a basically serviceable motor running on the bench. But the wiring colour code seemed to be wrong and I could not for the life of me make out the switching system to get the two-speed operation. There are 6 wires running into the motor with the colours of red, green, blue, brown, white and yellow
I resorted to the internet to attempt to sort out the colour codes however there was nothing about internal wiring of DR3 wiper motors but the mention of the name " Lucas" certainly brought a number of jokes about the "Prince of Darkness".
Finally I pulled the top off the wiper motor in one of my other MK1s and established the correct colour codes. Whoever had installed the new leads had certainly got it wrong as only two colours of the 6 wires were correctly terminated I then connected the motor to the car system and all hell broke loose as the supply fuse got blown. What now? A crawl under the instrument panel revealed that in the past some one had installed a wire to run 12 volts from the fan switch to the wiper switch. That is not how it should be done and when the wipers were turned on the 12 volts was being taken straight to earth.
Obviously the system needed to be restored to original specifications and the wiper system is now working. I will do a diagram of this wiring in the future as the leads on these motors are now typically 40 years old the colour on the original wiring has completely faded out and anyone wanting to overhaul one is going to have difficulty without "the knowledge"
While there is a specific need to purchase the correct rubbers for certain areas of cars such as windscreen rubbers etc. there are quite a number of commercial everyday rubber applications such as spat rubbers which can be purchased from non original suppliers for a fraction of the cost of genuine articles.
While doing up the Winjeel I had to replace a number of cockpit seal rubbers. Now the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation [CAC] made heaps of military aircraft in WW2 and post war made Mustangs, Sabres, Winjeels, Jindivik target drones etc. Obviously they were military oriented and there is no civil aircraft aftermarket support as you get with Cessna, Piper, Boeing or Airbus.
I visited Universal Engineers in Virginia who used to be M.P.O'Rouke in Bowen Hills. They still sell assorted rubber strips and mouldings primarily to the bus, truck and trailer body building industry. However they advised that Clark Rubber in Sandgate Road Virginia also had a good assortment and would be worthwhile checking out.
To my surprise they were correct and at Clark Rubber, Virginia I was able to obtain all of the rubber sections I required. In addition they were quite willing to give me small 50 mm samples of their rubbers to try/fit against the problem seal area before I finally settled on the section that I needed. I found them most obliging and they also sell in fractions of a metre. Their prices weren’t too bad either
Please note that not all Clark Rubber stores stock the same items as I am advised that they are now a franchise system. The local store near me does not have the range I found at the Virginia store.
I have heard some horrific stories about the costs of re-plating bumper bars and I have seen receipts for over $1000 for a re-plate of a MK 2 front bumper bar. Being faced with the possible cost of replating the MK 1 bumper bar previously mentioned in this column I decided to checkout the local plating people at Pine Rivers Electroplating at unit 3/23 Paisley Drive in Lawnton.
I spoke to Mark who by sheer luck had a Jaguar S type front bumper bar in the workshop. He advised that the cost to replate that bar was $320 plus GST. He also said that they would quote for any bumper bar and prices would vary depending on the amount of work required to do the job. He said their company insisted on doing it the “old way” i.e. plenty of copper plating under the chrome. Failure to do this by other plating shops has led to premature rusting and corrosion of plated finishes.
One very interesting piece of news is that they have now have the process to treat die cast corrosion and are willing to carry out this specialised plating operation. They are also involved in plating in gold, silver, bronze nickel and zinc and are also capable of re- plating early silver reflectors in headlight units.
Overall I was impressed with the way this company presented itself and the prices quoted were within my expectations. I shall certainly be giving them a try in the future.
I can hear regular readers groaning “he’s not on that brake hose subject again” however a bit of thought about this one is definitely worthwhile if you are restoring a car or doing a major overhaul of a brake system.
A company called BrakeQuip has gained Department of Transport and Regional Services approval for a Component Registration Number #30886 to manufacture stainless steel braid covered Teflon brake hoses. What attracts me is that teflon hoses have an infinite life in aeroplanes and are miles superior to the old cloth/rubber hoses, which only have a life of 6 years in an aeroplane engine bay.
There are also a number of other claims including less elasticity in the brake system giving firmer pedal pressure without sponginess and therefore increased efficiency particularly under heavy braking. They are slightly more expensive than rubber hoses typically costing around $65 each
They appear to have set up a number of outlets and franchised agents to make these hoses on the spot. . I found two in Pine Rivers, one at Brendale and one at Lawnton.
They make them on the spot to your specific requirements by copying your old hoses. They have a website which is www.braidedhoses.com.au.
The rear axle of the MK1 and 2 is located on the extreme end of the rear spring leaf and is controlled by a torque arm on either side of the car running from a body mounting to a bracket on the axle. This then locates the axle in relation to the body and stops the spring winding up under acceleration torque somewhat like a trailing arm system. The torque arms are fitted with metal/rubber bushes and with age these deteriorate with a subsequent loss of “stiffness” in axle location and general handling suffers. Don't confuse the torque arm with the panhard rod, which runs laterally [across] the car from the right hand side to near the differential centre. It centres the rear axle and suspension.
On the red MK 1 I knew that these bushes were getting pretty bad. Every time I jacked it up I could see daylight through the rubber area of the bushes. I obtained a new set from Jag World [PH 3272 7287] and with some help from a friend who is a club member we removed the torque arms, pressed out the old bushes and inserted the new bushes. Note-I have seen an illustration of this operation in a UK magazine using a bench vice. They must be different over there because we used almost all of the force of an 8 tonne hydraulic press to get the old bushes out.
We also found that the right hand body mounting for the torque arm was cracked and required some serious oxy welding to repair before refitting the torque arm. It also helped that this fellow club member happens to have an electric/hydraulic two-post car hoist in his private shed. This made the job much easier.
There was no doubt that as I drove the red MK1 home that evening along a winding high-speed road that the handling had vastly improved
When it came to getting the white MK1 through a roadworthy one item that became obvious was that the rear shock absorber mount rubbers were completely perished and new rubbers would need to be fitted before it would pass. With that in mind I had the car on ramps at home and fitted the new rubbers by the time honoured system of lying on the shed floor and applying much grunting, effort and some amount of cursing.
Whist lying on the floor I recalled what Tony Herald had said about how he cleaned under his concourse car and thought why not start here? So I degreased and cleaned up the diff and the general areas under the spare wheel well and petrol tank area and subsequently applied some black paint etc. It sure looked better.
To my surprise when the car was on the hoist being checked for roadworthiness I noted that a patch of my new paint on the differential had been scraped back to bare metal. I then realised that the odd suspension noise that I had heard was not a noisy/squeaky shock absorber but was actually the differential occasionally rubbing on the body area immediately adjacent to the petrol tank. I did not point this out to the chap doing the roadworthy and he was more interested in tie rod ends etc. The torque arm bushes looked OK but more on that later
After getting the car registered I organised use of the previously mentioned club members hoist. Mark Miosge from North Qld. Jaguar Spares in Mackay [ph 07 4954 6003] had offered me a good deal on a pair of torque arms he had overhauled with new bushes for a customer who had never collected them. I had acquired them “just in case” I needed them. When we removed the old torque arms the bushes literally fell apart so what looked OK was in fact totally “shot”. The new torque arms were fitted with a subsequent improvement in handling and the elimination of the occasional squeak.
I have since noted that the red MK1 has a patch welded on the rear of the diff housing just where it would rub on the body. I presume this is an old battle scar from a previous occasion when the torque arm bushes flogged out
I have been refinishing old woodwork in pommy cars for most of my life. As I approach the 60 years of age barrier – [on the low side you are middle aged the high side you are geriatric] I have been approaching paint manufacturers about their products and the finish I could expect to use on woodwork.
Most urged me towards two pack finish techniques. From experience in the commercial industry this was not the way I wanted to go. Most two-pack systems are carcinogenic [cause cancer] and the finish looks like plastic.
The ever helpful people at PROTEC paints suggested using their CATALAC system of refinishing before they realised that I was going to use their furniture finishing product in a motor car.
They described their CATALAC product as having almost no ultraviolet resistance as it was formulated for indoor furniture. I responded that if one of my restored woodwork pieces spent 36 days a year in the open i.e. outside a garage I would be surprised. They agreed that a life expectancy of 20 years would be reasonable for that sort of exposure.
The system starts with a clear sanding sealer, which is used in exactly the same way as primer filler on metalwork. It apparently contains filler and about 3 coats are adequate to fill most wood grains. Note that it is very important to strain the filler as I kept getting white spots in my trial wood finish pieces. I thought it was coming out of a dirty spray gun but after much effort in cleaning a spotless gun it turned out to be a paint problem.
After spraying the sanding sealer it should be allowed to dry at least overnight and preferably 24 hours. There is a fair bit of contraction in most fillers and immediate sanding will not allow this contraction to settle into a stable configuration which will sand back and remain a level surface. The problem is known as “sink back” in the motor trade. After the sanding sealer is well and truly dry as previously mentioned it should be blocked down i.e. rubbed back with wet and dry paper supported by a sanding block. The best grade of paper to use is about 360 to 400 wet and dry papers. I have used 280 grade to get a fast cut but then used 400 grade to smooth off the finish.
Note that it can be rubbed wet with water but use it sparingly on Jaguar wood as water may affect the plywood or timber base used under the walnut veneer. Another small word of warning is we have discovered that you really need to rub the sanding sealer right back or very close to the wood. Otherwise there is a slight refractive effect in the finish if too heavy a coat of sanding sealer is applied and not rubbed back properly. It will come through the finished product as a suggestion of “milkiness”.
Once it is all dry the wood can be sprayed with 4 to 6 coats of CATALYC 7500 HG lacquer and a very nice finish results. Trials were carried out with less glossy finishes in this lacquer range which goes from matt to very shiny however we all agreed that the HG [hi-gloss] was the preferred finish.
Probably the best part yet to come is the price of the PROTEC product. A litre of sanding sealer is less than $10.00 and that is more than adequate for one car’s woodwork and it is a similar price for the high gloss 7500 HG lacquer. When I dropped into the PROTEC Geebung branch one Friday afternoon a week ago they were out of stock of 1 litre cans of 7500 HG lacquer but they had plenty of 4 litre cans at $22.00 + GST. I.e. $24.20 retail or just over $6.00 a litre. Since I have other projects on the go where clear lacquer is useful I thought to heck with the expense and lashed out on the 4-litre can
You don’t have to send a lot of money to the Poms to identify fairly closely when your MK1 / 2 was built. There is no doubt that the certificate they send you will give original details on the car which is nice to know but do you really need to know unless it is going to influence the concourse judges or increase the value of the car.
Upon being asked any question relating to age/build of one of these models I immediately reach for the Nigel Thorley “Original Jaguar MK1/MK11” book. This is an excellent publication and one of its endearing features is that it traces each model of car by dates of production changes to the assembly line.
Thus by knowing the chassis number and engine number it is possible to narrow down the production date to within a couple of months. E.g. the Mk 1 was in production from 1955 to 1959 and there were no less than 25 production changes, which average out to one every two months. These production changes are typically dated with a month and start off with “from chassis number so and so” or “from engine number so and so”. Simple arithmetic between the change dates and chassis/engine numbers will give an indication of the quantity being produced and from this you can make a reasonable estimate of when your car was built and more particularly what the production status of your car was all about.
Although this book is expensive at typically $59.95 it is the reference bible for anyone wanting to get their MK1/MK2 restoration correct and the colour photos of interior trim and changes in production are really good. The text is well written and is totally to the point. I.e. no padding-just information. I have read it several times and still emerge with some new snippet or fact that I have previously missed.
Another worthy publication is the “Practical Classics Mk 2 Jaguar restoration”. I wish I had read this years ago. It traces a project car that was professionally restored but at the same time as much as possible was retained from the original trim etc. For example it gives guidance on replacing the door trims by salvaging the original vinyl and attaching it to new backing boards. I have also used the same technique in MK 1s. There are literally dozens of photos of each step along the way and many hints and tricks are explained including how to find the hidden screws that retain trim and also woodwork restoration etc.
For the restorer of a MK2 [and a lot of the book also applies to a MK 1 particularly in the body and mechanicals] it is extremely useful and whilst not cheap at again $59.95 I believe the cost would be more than off set by savings made in the restoration process from the books recommendations on salvaging trim etc.
These books are available from any good motoring bookshop. The prices I have quoted are from a bookshop advertising on page 51 of Edition 101 the Australian Jaguar Magazine. There are also a number of other Jaguar models covered by the "Original " series of books as well as the "Practical Classics" publications. If they are anywhere near the standard of the MK2 publications they should be good investments. You could also enquire with our club librarian as to their availability on loan from the club library.