Tag Archives: cylinder head

July 2007 – Compression ratio test, email humor from a vendor

Compression ratio test

I actually have the engine pretty much complete. The value covers are still off (more on that sometime later) and I need to get a crankshaft pulley (really, a matter of ordering it, but more on that below). I figured that I had some catching up to do, and the compression ratio tests seem a good place to start.

Figuring out the compression ratio. Top picture is the tool. The four large holes are for the studs, and the two small ones are for pouring in the liquid. The middle picture is the head measurement being taken. The red over aluminum is multipurpose grease I used to seal the plastic to the head. And the bottom picture is the measurement of the volume of the top one inch of the bore. For the head measurement, I used colored water; for the bore measurement I used motor oil.

Ray Livingston has developed an easy way to find out the actual compression ratio on XK engines. There are a few measurements that are required, and a little fabrication is necessary. That fabrication consists of making a plexiglas cover for the bore and hemispherical head space. I made mine with scrap plexiglas that we had laying around.

With a nice request, Ray will supply the spreadsheet that required to interpret the results of the measurements, and the very good instructions he sends with the spreadsheet include how to take the measurements with the head in place or not. So, it’s entirely possible to chase down the pinging problem of your XK-engined Jaguar with the head in place and Ray’s instructions in hand.

The plexiglass tool serves one purpose: it levels out and holds liquids that are poured into the bore and the hemispherical chamber in the head. You need to drill holes to allow the head studs to go through (if you haven’t taken them out), and you need two holes to manage the liquid you use to measure capacities. One of these is for liquid to go in, and the other is for air to come out. I made the piece by just cutting a square of roughly the right size and then laying it on the inverted cylinder head to locate the stud holes and the two liquid-related holes. The two small liquid-related holes should be at the edge of the bore or chamber. You can use the stud holes to affix the plexiglas when you’re doing the filling with liquid, but I found that a firm press with my fingers was just easier to manage — I figured I’d spend more time making the part than really was necessary.

The principle is to measure the unknown volumes by filling them with a liquid. Obviously, the volume of the cylinder head’s combustion chamber can be altered with machining. You shave your cylinder head to truth, and the effect is that the combustion chamber shrinks ever so little. You do the same to your block, and the bores get just a little smaller in volume.

The process for me was very simple, since I had the head off. Ray provides instructions for measuring with the head on, but pay close attention to his warnings and directions.

With the head off, you need the plexiglass tool, some grease (for sealing liquids in and the plexiglass tool on the surface of the head or block), a dial indicator to measure the space at the top of the bore at Top Dead Center and to set the piston at exactly (Ray’s emphasis) one inch from the deck of the block, a “telescoping gauge” to measure the width of the bore, a vernier caliper, and an accurate measure for the liquid. Ray suggests something called a “burette” with about a 100 ml capacity, but I didn’t have anything so fancy. Instead, I got a 100 ml graduated cylinder from my friend Laszlo, and that worked just fine, though I had to pour the liquid rather steadily. If I were doing this test frequently, I’d probably find a burette. Ray suggests using mineral spirits, too.

I started with the head, and I used colored water as the liquid. (I figured colored water would be easier to see.) I put some grease around the chamber and around the valves. A spark plug was installed, too. Once I pressed on the plexiglass tool, the grease acted as a glue almost. Lateral motion of the plexiglass was possible, but lifting it off the face of the head required some effort. As the chamber filled with water, I was careful to press the plexiglass tool down against the face of the head, so there wouldn’t be (that much) extra liquid to fill any space made by the float of the tool over the grease.

Measuring the bore is a little more complicated, since you need to measure the distance from the deck of the block to the top of the flat part of the piston at Top Dead Center. A dial indicator and a mount is needed. Then you bring the piston down one inch, wipe some grease to seal the piston and bore, and do the liquid trick. For the bore measurement, I used motor oil. That was a little challenging, since it is viscous and your measurement can be confounded by the fact that oil sticks to the side of the graduated cylinder. Also, the surface tension properties make it a little tougher to read the level of the oil. You have to take the bore width measurement, too.

At any rate, I ended up taking measurements at least twice, and in the case of the head, probably four or five times before I was satisfied. To get a result all you do it plug the numbers into Ray’s nifty spreadsheet and choose a head gasket thickness. I’m using the “Payen” composite gasket (0.035″ thick), and I came up with a compression of 8.31:1. Remember, I have the 8:1 pistons in this engine.

The amusement of buying used parts

The XJ6 has different pulley styles from what I originally had. (Pages on differences of the 1963 3.8 liter engine and the 1979 XJ6 4.2 liter engine are available for the cylinder head and block.) My 1963 E-type had “double groove” pulleys, and the crankshaft pulley was entirely different, both in bolt holes and in fit. The crankshaft vibration dampners are different from E-type to XJ6. So, I was off in search of a new crankshaft pulley. People the the Jag Lovers forum suggested Classic Jaguar as a source for new, and indeed that was the case. But I wanted to check out used part sources. I have exchanged emails with “Marius” at Marguar Jag parts (an Ebay vendor), and he’s been responsive though hasn’t had the parts I’ve needed. Since he didn’t have the correct pulley, he suggested I contact Geoffrey Reis at Jag Connection. That ended up generating an amusing email exchange that I publish here in entirety.

From: geoffrey@jagconnection.com
Subject: RE: 4.2 crank pulley, E-Type, "double grooved"
Date: July 17, 2007 10:24:26 PM EDT
To: Mark R DeLong
Mark. If a phony reproduction pulley is selling for (and worth?) $95, why would the real thing, which is unreproduceable accurately, be worth less than that? It makes no sense, and actually shows me that I've underpriced my pulley. So, if you want it, take it now. The price goes up to $130 on Friday. Thank you, Geoffrey
-----Original Message-----
> From: Mark R DeLong
> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 8:28 PM
> To: Geoffrey
> Subject: Re: 4.2 crank pulley, E-Type, "double grooved"
>
> Thanks for the reply, Geoffrey. I found a new aluminum pulley from Classic
> Jaguar (http://www.classicjaguar.com/per9.jpg) for $95 plus shipping. I'd
> be willing to pay you $70 plus ground UPS. Let me know if that's OK, and I
> can Paypal or whatever.
>
> m
>
>> On Jul 17, 2007, at 1:00 PM, Geoffrey wrote:
>>
>> Hello Mark,
>> Yes, we have a pulley with two grooves. $100 plus shipping would do
>> it. Call if you'd like; tonight is best. Thank you, Geoffrey Reis at
>> Jag Connection.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Mark R DeLong
>>> Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2007 9:04 PM
>>> To: geoffrey@jagconnection.com
>>> Subject: 4.2 crank pulley, E-Type, "double grooved"
>>>
>>> Marius from Marguar Jags said you might have some parts, he didn't
>>> have what I needed and forwarded me to you. Do you have a crankshaft
>>> pulley that fits the 4.2 dampner and has a double groove? I have an
>>> XJ6 (1979) pulley, but it's not the double grooved variety. I need it
>>> for an E-type.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> m

Well, Geoffrey didn’t get my business, but I do believe others can find a pulley from him for $130. Two weeks from now, it very likely will cost more, so it would be good to hurry. Me? I’ll be happy to get a pulley from Classic Jaguar, an item which is hardly phony and a good replacement for something that is, after all, accurately reproducable.

June 2007 – Cylinder head differences, ’63 and ’79

The head — 1963 E-type v. 1979 XJ6

As a side note before launching into depictions of the 3.8 and 4.2 heads, I discovered in my reading that Jaguar wasn’t the first to have bored out the 3.8 (or, maybe, the 3.4) liter engines to 4.2 liter displacement. It was reported that race teams had done so well before Jaguar decided to bore the XK to the max. If that was the case, I think Jaguar’s design for the 4.2 paid more attention to cooling than a race team could have. The major differences between the 3.8 and 4.2 liter versions of the XK seem to me to concern cooling.

Essentially, the cylinder heads are the same with the expected differences from the placement of the bores for the 3.8 and the 4.2 liter displacement. It’s quite apparent that the XK block couldn’t have gone any bigger than 4.2 liter, by the way. The bores are tight. The cylinder heads differ in the way that they handle cooling, though.

On the intake side, the XJ6’s 4.2 includes additional holes for coolant to be passed to the manifold. These holes may well be in the 3.8 head, too, though they seem to have served as a way of clearing the casting before they were plugged.

The only physical alterations to the 1979 XJ6 cylinder head were plugging these coolant holes with Dorman plugs (number 555-020) and removing an emissions control device (see below). Otherwise the head looks to me to be quite close to the earliest 4.2 and 3.8 liter versions perhaps except for some coolant holes at the rear and a somewhat stouter casting in the front timing chain area. Of course the machining was also slightly different for the hemispherical chambers for the differently sized engines, but the external intake side was similarly machined to accept the intake manifolds, one piece for the XJ6 and three-piece for my SU setup.

Here, as below, the top picture shows the 1979 XJ6 head, and the bottom shows the 1963 3.8 E-type head.

XJ6 4.2 liter head, intake side. The two round coolant holes were already plugged with Dorman 555-020 inserts before I took this picture. With the exception of those open holes, the XJ6 head is machined the same as the 1963 3.8 liter head.
E-type 3.8 liter head, intake side. The holes that were later used for coolant were plugged with threaded inserts in the 1963 3.8 liter head for the E-type. Other Jaguar models using the 3.8 liter head may have used the holes for coolant, but I haven’t looked into that.

The top of the 1979 head sports six holes on the plane where the spark plug holes are located. They sit on the left side of that surface and are positioned between the holes for the left-side head bolts. These holes are for an emissions control device, lines for which attached to a manifold and had an attached heat-deflecting barrier. I’ve been told that this emissions device is commonly removed on XJ6s of the time and the holes plugged. Actually, when we removed the lines and the fittings from the head, they were hopelessly plugged with grime so I doubt they served any purpose. The holes led into the exhaust side of the head. They might simply have been intended as a means of speeding warm-up.

The three plugs on the XJ6 head were unbranded Dorman-like inserts. The 1963 3.8 head used bolts to do the plugging. I believe these holes were for clearing the cast. The 1963 head gives the impression that the bolts do some reinforcement work, and even if they did not, the process of threading the holes for these inserts (and, for that matter, for the holes on the intake side) must have taken some time and care. Certainly that required more work than inserting plugs into the XJ6 head.

XJ6 4.2 liter head, top view. No paint on this one, and as a matter of fact very little worry about appearances. Grinder marks were plainly visible. Note the plugs in the three cast clearing (probably) holes and the emissions control device holes offset from the spark plug holes. Otherwise, from the top the 4.2 head looks just like the 3.8 liter E-type head.
E-type 3.8 liter head, top view. The gold paint is a bit taken off from the head cleaning, but the polished aluminum and the paint dress up this head. Instead of pressed in plugs, threaded bolts fit into the three holes along the head. Otherwise, there’s not much besides the emissions device holes on the 4.2 liter head to distinguish this one.

Bottom’s up, the head is nice and true, just back from the machine shop. At the rear end of the head, there is a major difference from the 3.8 head. The 4.2 liter head has two coolant holes that appear in an extension of the cast, at least when it’s compared with the 3.8 liter head. The 3.8 liter head more or less has a flat rear wall, while the 4.2 liter head flares out as it meets the block. Of course, the bore locations vary between the 3.8 and 4.2 engines. The XJ6 head has twelve additional coolant holes that are inset more to the midline of the head, fore and aft. These small holes roughly meet the block where a machined cut sits between the bores. Coolant going through those cuts certainly was effective and the cuts themselves probably allowed for expansion in the metal between the bores. (I’ll probably take some pictures to illustrate this difference when I muster up the strength to move the 3.8 block around a bit.)

The 4.2 liter head also cut pairs of coolant slots in the outermost positions adjacent to the bores. I’m not exactly sure what the purpose of that was unless to strengthen the face a bit. The 3.8 liter head has large single slots in the same position. The 4.2 liter head looks a bit beefier. Walls are thicker in the front, and the hole sizes are smaller, yet there seems to be more coolant flow possible, and more directed flow at that. I’ve not weighed either head, but I’d bet the 4.2 would be noticably heftier.

XJ6 4.2 liter head, bottom view. The bottom is the most different from the 3.8 liter head, in that the coolant holes are more numerous both in real numbers of vents and by the addition of the two new vents at the rear and ten holes near the bores. It seems obvious that the engineers paid a fair amount of attention to cooling the 4.2 liter engine. In comparison to the 3.8 liter head, the aluminum casting is a little stouter, as the walls at the front timing chain cover show.
E-type 3.8 liter head, bottom view. In comparison to its larger brother, the 3.8 liter head seems simple in design. Where the 4.2 liter head split long slots into two, the 3.8 let the casting have long coolant slots adjacent the bores. The small, near-bore coolant holes on the 4.2 are absent here. The casting is a little thinner on the front, and on the back wall of the timing chain cover, a small “V” is grooved in front of number six cylinder.

XJ6 4.2 liter head, rear view. Note the bulge and the extra aluminum in the casting at the very end. This bulge is where the additional two coolant holes fit. The rear end of the cam areas are a little different.

The extra metal on the rear end of the 4.2 liter head is easiest to see with the two heads side-by-side. This extra bulge is practically unnoticeable from the top, since it only flares out from the back face of the head about an inch from the base of the head. I don’t know exactly where the coolant goes within the head itself, especially since the internals of the castings are both quite airy — filled with voids at least. The two extra coolant holes that the extra metal allows must have served the coolant needs of the head itself, however. The holes are actually quite well removed from the cylinders in the block, and I have assumed that the flow from these extra holes would have be down from the head, probably originating from areas nearer the cams than the valves.

You can see one challenge in the new head — it doesn’t have holes for the bolts attaching the tach generator or serving to block off the end of the cam area. On the XJ6, the lower semicircular void was fit with a rubber plug, and the value covers lacked any semicircular cutout. If I refit the tach generator, it would probably be merely ornament in any case, since the cam end won’t drive the generator, I believe. I might drill and tap the holes, though. I don’t know if I want to put up with a make-do plug.

E-type 3.8 liter head, rear view. No extra metal here. The head ends straight off the back. Note the threaded holes to fit the tachometer generator (right side) and the hole cover (left side). The area around the cams are more subtly cast than in the 4.2 liter head.

I have an intake head gasket from the 3.8 — it looks to me pretty much the original, since it’s as thin as could be. And I have a new head gasket for the 4.2. I have yet to compare them, except in the most cursory fashion. The new gasket is considerably thicker, with metal rings fitting the holes for the bores. I thought about asking Ray Livingston for his special spreadsheet to determine actual displacement, but I wonder if it would apply on this engine. This one has 8:1 pistons, I’m almost relieved to say. Even with some shave off the head, the compression shouldn’t exceed 9:1, and least by much, and I’ll be running premium gas anyway.

Aaron got the upper end and bottom end gasket sets for me, and when I can retrieve a few tools from neighbors, I’ll be setting things back to rights. Terry’s Jaguar Parts is sending the last bits (as far as I know) and a cam setting tool. So, we’ll soon be good to go.

I’m hoping that the next entry will do the same job on the block and its accessories. I have learned that some 3.8 E-type elements will need to be refitted on the engine, and the oil filter fitting that I was happy to see on the new engine might actually prove to be a bit of a challenge.

May 2007 – New engine!

New engine! —New, at least for me

Very exciting! I picked up an engine to resolve the issues of the thrust washers and crankshaft. This one is a 4.2 liter XK from a 1979 model year XJ6. I used the free advertisement section of Jag Lovers to track it down. David Boger lives a little over two hours down interstate 85 from me, and so it was an easy pickup after we made the deal.

The engine is basically the same as the one that came out of my car, except that it was fuel injected (I didn’t need that) and a 4.2 liter. The water pump and belting is a little different, and (as the picture shows) the XJ6 has a fan attached via the water pump. It also has an electronic ignition, which I will keep. The block itself is configured a bit differently for the XJ6, since it uses the E-type engine mount points for the power steering pump (and something else on the other side). The XJ6 engine mounts are set a little further back. The nice thing is that you can still use the E-type mounts in their appropriate places — just remove te brackets for the other stuff and stick in the engine mount brackets. The cylinder head has a couple of extra holes for coolant, and some subtle changes that are less of a bother, probably. (See below for information about the head.) David provided the XJ6 exhaust manifolds that I’m going to try to use. The originals I have are fine, but I like the XJ manifolds, and I’d like to keep the heat shield in place, since damage to the bonnet paint over the manifolds has been reported.

David has about a dozen XJ6’s in his collection of parts cars, ranging from series one through three. He has a series one that looks like a good candidate for restoration — a right-hand drive model with some interesting details. It was damaged a little on an outer sill, but that was a pretty easy repair, I thought. He’s working on another XJ that’s perched on the ramp that you can barely see in the background of the picture. Instead of an XJ6, this one is an XJ12, with a front end full of metal. I don’t know what his ultimate plans are for the car, but it’s a good project. I think it would take me a long time to take on a V-12, though it would be fulfilling to complete … until you have to pay for the fuel, of course.

I walked his grounds, visited his horses, met his wife and 22-month old daughter. I determined he was a good man to buy an engine from. I certainly know where I’ll be able to find E-Type parts that might be interchangeable with the XJ series. And, seeing those old XJs made me wonder if I should try my hand at one of those eventually. I have an XJ8 (I think they call it an X308 model, or the like) now, and it’s a wonderful car. The earlier version XJ6 series has the same glove-like, natural quality. The interiors of David’s cars, though most of them were worn out, still had that Jaguar feel. In my opinion, the XJ6, series one through three, were nice cars, but the following boxy ugly version of the late 80s seems to have lost its way. Jaguar found the path again with the XJ model that currently is offered, I think.

He walked me to pay homage to the donor car, which sat at the end of a row, sans rear suspension, front end akimbo, left front panel gone, lights poked out — all probably mounted on other rides somewhere.

David is a square dealer, and he offered me the history he had of the engine and its donor car, telling me what did and did not work. He lives near Rockwell, North Carolina, which is not too far from Charlotte. He’s probably most available by email: david@everydayxj.com. I’m adding him to my list of suppliers, since there do seem to be useful overlaps of parts between the E-type and the good old XJs. [Added 20 January 2008: David has a website now: http://everydayxj.com.]

It’s been striking to see how much the early E-type engines were ornamented. The engine block from the XJ6, cast and fitted during the dread British Leyland years, was crudely sprayed a faded blue. The cylinder head on our old cars were painted gold and the area covering the timing chains was smoothed and polished, or at least brushed. The XJ6 head was barely extracted from the sand after it was cast and then quickly gone over with a grinder to remove casting seeps. and seams. No cosmetics in the late 70s, I’m afraid.

The “bottle jack” method of cylinder head removal

In short, the cylinder head was a bugger to get off. The head bolts had corroded, except for the pairs on each end. I guess this is quite common. I first thought that the head gasket was giving us the trouble, but quick taps of the bolts (with head nuts fittted, of course) quickly told us which ones were locked tight. They were the ones that didn’t budge or rattle in the least. Aaron squirted bolt loosener (PB “Blaster”), and that seemed to help a bit, and we made tiny headway to free the corroded bolts.

But a quick search on Jag Lovers brought up references to a “bottle jack” method that appeared to be quite effective. I have to admit that I was a little baffled, but at least I had a couple of hydraulic jacks. They have done various and good service on everything from cars to ninety-year-old floor spans. Why not on a cylinder head, too? When I was sitting at the computer, I had no idea where the things would go, but with jacks in hand and kneeling next to the engine, it was apparent.

The underside of the head juts some way out from the top of the block, and the block itself has a shelf-like flare near the bottom. The jack sits between these points. The picture tells the story, at least in part.

I think that if you have four hydraulic “bottle jacks,” you’d have the best luck. I had two, and Aaron and I were constantly shifting them to push the head off more-or-less straight. I was worried that with too much uneven pressure the head could be damaged or the bolts even more fixed in place. If you had six jacks, you’d probably be able to take off a stubborn head with very little trouble. I would do one thing differently, I think. I would probably situate a stout angle iron under the head before applying pressure. That would spread out the pressure and eliminate any marks from the top of the jack. However, you would have to make sure that the pressure from the jacks would be going slightly inward. Otherwise the angle iron could pop out — perhaps dangerously, given the pressure that can be exerted.

I had intended on detailing the differences between the 1963 and 1979 cylinder heads in this entry, but I think I’ll delay that a bit, since we hurried the head to the machinists. When it comes back all fit and shiny, it’ll be a better example to look at in any case. I hope that the next entries might help some other restorer do a similar transplant.

April 2004 – Cylinder head paint, small plating, bushes installed

Cylinder head gold paint

When my dad was here, we inspected the tappets that accept pressure from the cams. One of these appears to have been damaged either by dirt or by corrosion. The surface of the plate where the cam touches has been pitted. This will probably have to be replaced, since a roughened surface like that will certainly wear the cam and also be significantly weakened itself. The other tappets show almost no wear at all. My dad says that the cams bear the most pressure of any parts in an engine. They look to me to be models of precision and efficiency.

A previous owner of the car seemed very happy with gold paint on the cylinder head and sprayed the entire outside. From what I can tell, only the area between the value covers and behind the cover over the timing chain sprockets was painted gold, the rest either left aluminum or polished. I removed the gold paint from the timing chain sprocket area, and prepped the rest by removing as much as possible of the gold paint. No chemical strippers were used, since I didn’t want to have to worry about unfortunate reactions with aluminum.

The gold paint I used was the “Oldsmobile Gold” engine paint from POR-15. From what I could tell, there was no difference in color from the paint in place on the head when I took possession of the car, which is certainly not to say that it was an original color. While I was removing paint I did notice (with some momentary excitement) that a “pumpkin orange” color lurked beneath the grime, but I’m assuming now that this was discoloration due to age or heat or both. The reason for the excitement? There are rumors, denied by Jaguar, that at least some early 3.8 liter engines were fitted with cylinder heads sporting a pumpkin orange paint.

Nickel plating small parts

Since I want to install the front subframes fairly soon, I decided I would go ahead and get a nickel plating kit from Caswell Plating and do the front suspension mounting brackets. The brackets fit into the subframe and really need to be installed at the time when the subframe is fitted. The pieces have surface area below the 16-square-inch per ampere of current that nickel requires. I was able to cobble together DC power sources to make about an amp, so 16-18 square inches was about the limit. Plating nickel is indeed easier than plating zinc. The electrical charge doesn’t have to be quite as precise, I think, for nickel. And, perhaps, experience counts a bit in plating. I was very pleased with the results.

Although Caswell suggests plating nickel for 60 minutes to get a plate that is for automotive applications, I went ahead and increased plating times to between 80 and 90 minutes. As with zinc plating, surface preparation really counts. I had already sand-blasted the suspension pieces, but just to make sure that I cleaned up all rust and old plate, I submerged the pieces in a “pickle” containing one part muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid) to two parts tap water. Then I attached the negative lead from a AC-DC converter to a sacrificial piece of steel (in my case an old drill bit) and the positive lead to the piece I wanted to clean.

The process of completely cleaning takes several minutes and I imagine that really rusty pieces would take longer. I wouldn’t leave the piece in the acid with electrical charge unattended or you might dissolve the piece. I generally took the piece out, buffed the faces with a wire wheel, and returned the piece for a short bath in the acid mixture to remove whatever flash rust might have appeared during the buffing. Then it was a matter of following the Caswell instructions, and of course adding some time to their recommended plating session. I did notice that the acid bath sometimes made the surface of the pieces rough, and so the buffing smoothed things out.

Bushes installed (with the Ray Livingston method, modified)

In a recent discussion on the Jag-Lovers E-type forum about bush installation, Ray Livingston provided a sensible way of doing the job. (As a matter of fact, Ray seems to be full of sensible solutions to problems one encounters with Jags!) His solution involved a pipe with an inner dimension slightly larger than the outer dimension of the bush, a threaded rod, nuts, and washers. Basically the Ray Livingston Method was simple: you fit the bush to the open side of the mounting bracket, slide the threaded rod through the pipe, then the bracket, and finally through the hole in the bush. Put washers on both ends of the rod, followed by nuts, and then tighten the nuts to squeeze the bush (sprayed with silicone as a lubricant) into the bracket and finally slightly into the pipe on the other side of the bracket.

Simple, elegant, and cheap.

Of course, if you have a big honker bench vise, you won’t need to use the threading bits. But Ray surmised that pulling the bush through with more pressure on the centermost parts of the bush would probably make the process easier. I discovered that he was right. Also, the Ray Livingston Method could probably be used with mounting brackets still on the car — while hauling a car to a vise or vice versa would be a bit more difficult.

My approach to bush installation was the Ray Livingston Method, Modified. Instead of pipe, I used holes drilled into a stout piece of wood and instead of threaded rod, I scrounged up a nice long carriage bolt that I had previously used in a press.

The holes that I drilled were 1 1/2 inches (for the larger brackets) and 1 1/4 inches (for the smaller). Two of the smaller brackets — I can’t remember now if they’re the for the upper or lower fulcrum shaft — are attached to the frame with three bolts that go into a fitting attached to the frame, sometimes slightly spaced with shims. These three-bolt brackets won’t lie flat on the surface of the wood, so I made a slight indent with the drill bit so that the piece would lie flush to the wood at the point where the bush was inserted.

I found that the bushes went into the larger brackets quite easily. The smaller brackets were a bit more of a challenge, since the bracket tended to slip into the hole in the wood, setting the pulling force a bit awry. This was a rather minor challenge, though. Once things were set, the bush slipped right in. You do have to fiddle a bit to get the bush to go in so that about the same amount of rubber appears on each side of the steel bracket. This sometimes means pulling too far and having to remove the piece, turn it upside down and pulling the bush back a bit.

The shop manuals seem to suggest that a man with a firm hand can install bushes. That is not the case, even with the soap-water mixture that Jaguar then recommended to lubricate the bushes. You need a device. And use silicone instead of soap. Silicone doesn’t harm the bush (at least the ones I got), and it won’t promote rust on the bracket.

The bushes I got are apparently “Metalastic.” At least they’re labelled as such.

March 2004 – Bonnet test fit, plating prep, cylinder head cleanup

Bonnet test fit

The garage had a very special visitor over this weekend. My dad, Wallace DeLong, came up to North Carolina after making the rounds through Florida to see relatives and participate in a travel exchange with people in Sarasota. I was a little worried about suggesting that we take on a project with the old car, since I didn’t want to impose my restoration work on an unwilling participant, but it actually turned out that Dad wanted to do exactly that.

As I mentioned before, Stefan Roundy provided a fine replacement for the bent bonnet subframe. That piece, along with the replacement left subframe from Bill McKenna, meant that the front frame could be put together with sound pieces. The bent up bonnet frame meant that the bonnet itself hung badly, and I was anxious to see whether the new bonnet subframe would straighten out the bonnet fit.

So, Dad and I installed the front subframes and mounted the bonnet on its hinges.

It fit squarely off the front bulkhead (firewall), though the bonnet measured just shy of an inch forward of the bulkhead — a bit too wide a space. We figured we needed to get the space to about a third of that.

We made some makeshift shims to insert into the hinges at the top. Basically, to bring the bonnet back, we had to make sure that the hinges were tightened until the hinge touched the area on the lower valance where they fit. No shims there — we needed to get the bonnet back as far as possible. Shims at that point would move the bonnet forward. Once we had done that, checked to see how the bonnet fit against the lower sections of the bulkhead and the upper sections. Things were slightly wider at the upper part than at the lower, meaning that we could raise the bonnet to even things out.

We did the raising in two ways: we raised the bonnet subframe by inserting a small shim between the subframe and the “picture frame” at the lower connections. And we placed shims over the top section of the bonnet hinge that pivots on the subframe. These two things did the trick. I do not think both will be necessary when we actually fit the bonnet after the suspension is in place, since the dynamics of the frame will change, and the bonnet subframe will probably sit slightly higher as a result. Roger Los mentioned that his bonnet fitting was simplified after installing the suspension pieces that fit into the picture frame. When I first read that, I felt it might be a little dubious, but seeing how the structure fits and acts when bolted down, it is very probable that the rigidity of those pieces will support the frame in the right places, with the result that shimming will be less of an issue. I think we’ll still need to shim upward, though.

The final gap between the rear of the bonnet and the front bulkhead ended up being about 3/8 inch — about a half centimeter, a little wider perhaps. I’m reluctant to go much narrower than this, simply because the thickness of the primer and paint will make things a little tighter. The gap is about right. It is amazing to see what a new bonnet subframe will do to the gap, at any rate. When we first mounted the bonnet back in August of last year, the gap was a crooked disaster.

Front suspension parts for plating

Although I didn’t subject my dad to the gritty glories of sandblasting, we did weigh and organize the front suspension pieces that are due for nickel plating. There is still one suspension fitting that needs disassembly and cleaning. It has resisted my efforts to extract some pretty rusty bolts. It’s soaking in penetrating fluid now. We have 64 pounds (about 30 kilograms) of metal to be plated. I’ve decided not to send off small parts like washers and nuts. These I will probably plate myself, as I’m leaning toward ordering a nickel plating kit from Caswell Plating. Bill McKenna says it’s actually less putzy than zinc plating, and that seemed simple enough.

The platers is located in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and UPS wanted almost $90 USD to ship the parts. I figure that the trip will be a pleasant drive, and I should know what the charge will be without having to spend $180 USD on shipping, roundtrip.

Cylinder head cleanup

The final thing we did was clean up the insides of the cylinders where the valves are located. Five of the six chambers had a good deal of grime in them, and the remaining one (number one) was not too bad — which made me suspicious. I think that the fuel mix was set rich, probably to avoid pinging? Wire brush attachments to the drill made quick work of the grime. The valves were obviously in good shape, and my dad and I wondered if the valves were recently replaced in an overhaul. Dad looked pretty closely at cylinder wear and the valves and felt that the last overhaul wasn’t that long ago, and the engine didn’t require a massive amount of work. We did not look closely at the crankshaft (most of which is still in place), and there is a high probability (in my mind at least) that the rebuild of the engine was focused on the top, and not the bottom. Even though the bearings for the piston rods weren’t bad, the keys in my mind are the crankshaft bearings. After all, it’s fairly easy to replace rod bearings, but to replace the crankshaft bearing you have to remove the crankshaft. Wear related to that is heavier on this engine, so I’m suspicious. When we get to the engine in earnest, the crankshaft comes off and the measuring begins.

Here’s what the chambers looked like after some cleaning:

June 2003 – Bonnet, outer sill, etc.

Bonnet POR-15

It may have been Thursday night, I forget. Anyway, the forecast for the weekend was rain again, and I wanted to get the bonnet center section and wings sealed with POR-15. So I did that on Thursday night, with the center section in front of the garage and the wings nestled inside the garage. I learned a lesson any schoolboy already knows: if you paint at night under the sky, insects get into the wet paint. And, yes, they did: loads of small gnats drowned in the POR-15 paint. I was able to put two coats of POR-15 on before I ran out. On Friday night I sanded the areas of the bonnet where fly lumps appeared, and now the bonnet is pretty smooth. It is definitely not ready for primer, though. Aaron and I will have to take out the unfortunate lumps and grooves that remain even still. It is almost to the point when a primer and block sanding will take care of everything, but now that the entire construct is a metal-silver it’s much easier to see what might need some more attention. We’ll probably block sand the sealing coat, and perhaps we’ll reapply POR-15 if need be.

I don’t think we’ll need to redo any POR-15, though. It’s getting close.

The next step on the bonnet is fitting the lower section to check that everything matches all right. After that (and after any adjustments that might be needed), we’ll POR-15 that section and the inside of the center section and the wings. We still have a bit of surface prep to do on the inside of the right wing. I’d then like to get the internal structure of the bonnet ready and fitted. These pieces are all in very good shape, though they do need to the stripped entirely, sealed and painted. Fitting will be done with new nuts and bolts, though I have cleaned up the so-called “oval washers” for refitting.

Left outer sill fabricated

I bought a new outer sill for the right side, and I decided to try fabricating the left sill from raw 20-gauge sheet metal. It was actually pretty easy, and I saved myself $150, give or take. The sill is really little more than a rectangular piece of steel, partially curved and bent at the points where it meets the rest of the car body. Since the car is symmetrical, I just used the right sill as a pattern, reversing the bends and curves so that the piece would fit on the opposite side of the car. It took about four hours to get everything into shape. I still haven’t completed the piece, since I want to trial fit it before doing the final shaping along the ends and making the indentations and grooves on the lower part of the piece. I made sure to give myself some extra material, so that I had some leeway with the bends on the upper section of the piece. The sill I used as a pattern was about 12 inches wide, and I cut my piece 13 inches. It ended up that I will have to trim the lower section a little.

Before the sills can be attached, I want to apply POR-15 to the inside of the outer sills. We’ll also have to complete the attachment bracket for the left lower front frame (the one the was rusted out). This will entail fitting the frame, such as it is, and drilling the holes for the bolts. I’ll also have to spot weld the nuts on the inside of the bracket — two of those nuts are actually in the sill, so you don’t have access to them once the outer sill is attached. Actually, I’m in no rush for this to be done.

Right valve cover polished

I think I may have mentioned that I’m trying another POR-15 product. It’s called “Glisten PC” and it’s a tough two-part clear coating for polished metal surfaces. I notice that the aluminum valve covers and other aluminum parts of the car oxidize pretty rapidly. It would be nice to be able to protect that metal from the air so that it could keep its glow.

I had buffed and polished a valve cover and made ready for coating it with Glisten PC. As with POR-15, you need to prepare the metal so that the stuff sticks. I followed the instructions and used a special metal preparation called “AP-120” which evidently reacts quite quickly with polished metals. You leave it on “no longer than two minutes” (according to the instructions), and then wash it off. I put it on for about a minute. Trouble. The AP-120 discolored the polish. I went ahead and applied a small amount of Glisten PC to see if the polish would come back. No luck. I ended up removing the Glisten PC, rebuffing the entire surface, and applying some paste wax. I don’t know if that will help preserve the finish, but at least it doesn’t discolor the aluminum as soon as it goes on.

I think that POR-15 rust preventative paint is really very good stuff, and I recommend it highly. I’m not enthusiastic about Glisten PC, also by the POR-15 folks. It could be that it works very well for metals other than aluminum. I’ll give it a go on chrome and steel. We’ll see how it works on those metals.

You might have caught a glimpse of the polished valve cover in the sill picture above. I’ll close this entry in my restoration journal with a close up.