Not a fat lot...

What with all the painting and fiddling with this Triple Webered Vitesse haven't got much done this week, nothing actually..

Spied a leaking apollo tank on ebay for the oil system, sounds ideal as it just needs a blob of weld I guess -all I need is the tank and the kit is £200 new...Could be a good steal.

Anyways once this pesky Jag is done will be parking the Spit in the middle of the garage and doing a mad week on it...Maybe that will get it done.

Oddly I am in no rush at all, I know it will be good when its done, why rush ? :) Must be getting old...erggh..

Tart!

Last of the tarting up done.

Got some metal for my bulkhead.

Tarted windscreen frame...Been meaning to do that for ages!
Have to get a laminated screen fitted next. Triplex is like 7kilos!
Tarted my window..Had a white seal which was all grubby, replaced with black.
Seals better.

Jaguar E-Type Restoration - engine is back in

Interesting angles required to "shoehorn" the engine back in, its SO tight, like 1.5mm clearance bulkhead to chassis crossmember.
Bit off skew but she's going in.
Thats better :)
Jobs a gooden.

Bit of work today sticking the ancils on and wiring it up..VERY pleasant work as opposed to dealing with rusty old muck.
Coming on, airbox needs a coat of silver just trial fit.
Brakes lines need making up, few random plumbing jobs, loose ends and exhausts to fit.
Nice and shiney, this car has been a budget job, ie not an unlimited budget by any means...I think all in its cost about 30 grand including purchase of the car, which is VERY reasonable. My limited overheads mean I can offer extremely good value for money...I hear of figures up to 100,000 pounds for e-type restorations!

Hopefully its owner will want another car done after! Maybe a number more, who knows.

Be nice to restore and tune up a Triumph next? :)

Super Bling Roof - Mirror shine!

Super Shine! Have to buff the rest of the car now :( its not half as good.
This cuts chomps through 2 pack like butter, or a pig through bone...I advise this product on modern paints, use G6 or G10 for cellulose you can use G10 after G3 on 2 pack for a motorshow shine...You loads of arm power at first after 1500grading the area, wet the rag and keep wetting the area and buffing hard, then use more water and a paste with a lighter arm pressure, working down to really light pressure then gliding over the surface. This stuff is good...More shine that T-Cut, you use next to NONE of it, it goes miles and its a load more aggressive than T-cut also polishes off to a waxy shine...Its the bomb.
Deep shine!
That's glossy eh?
The shine is 10feet deep.

Minimal effort required.
Nothing better than doing a job yourself, you get to do it properly! Might have buff the rear end later...

The roof hasn't been waxed yet, gonna use that Carabuna? Stuff, from Brazil, wax from leaves, hard as concrete, last 12months, not 1 wash like Triplex or Turtlewax tatt.

Have to remove and tart up the windscreen frame next, its still the funny white the car was originally painted in, back in 94! Has some bubbles and its rough as a bears arse. Might be a good time to fit a new lighter laminated screen and a sun blocker strip thing across the top...Also want to adjust the water channels on the edge to blow water off better.

Best get back to some hard engineering soon, basically the plan is to get the car done for the 10CR, thats my only aim this year...Get the engine and that sorted then beef up the suspension during winter..Wont see much action this season.

More Shiney things :)

Shiney roof. Well will be, its flatted awaited polishing when its settled a bit more.
A K-series bore and piston, all clean and no marks and hone marks still all there.
Took me bloody ages today fixing all these horrible bodges on the dissy and things on the stuff I have to add to the engine..Everything on this e-type is crap, treated like a Triumph by the previous owners!

Lovely white hardtop!

Epic job...Had reaction, rust, fibreglass, filler, dents...

Ended up using a litre of 2pack acrylic on it! Painted inside with a brush then sprayed, outside repaired, sealed, build primered, flatted, build, flat, reaction yuck! Build, flat, colour, tiny reaction! flat, colour, micro reaction, flat, colour and it was done!

I got a really nice gun finish using some cheapo self contained spray thing meant for doing small objects..Had to thin the paint alot for final coat, got a few runs, has been flatted out with 800grade, then 1500 graded..

It awaits a final polish with G3 cutting compound and a wax...Must say it'll kick the arse of the paint job on the car and the E-Type when done!

Like a piece of glass, not a ripple in sight...all the seamed are well sealed, glossy gutters...I'll ram some waxoyl in the internal parts after its finished.

Buffed a small area and its like a best finish I have ever seen :) All a bit OTT but I do like things right!

I will be adding a new rear window, simply bonded in with white adheseal, no screws etc like before...Also the new window will be pearled polycarbonate, it looks like a really mild pearl effect glass...Really cool! 3mm polycarb.

Really pleased, I bloody hate bodywork. I want the car to have all these odd jobs done before it hits the road!

Strange cleaning happening

Never cleaned the boot in 7 years. Came up well. Resealed the seams as the sealer has some cracks..Used Adheseal from Innotec supplies. This stuff is an amazing product, glue and sealer, flexible and super strong glue. Prevention being the best form of cure, few small brown marks appearing, now gone. Will paint boot area again when I get some paint.

Sorted out the pesky rust/water trap. Will drill a small water drain hole at the lowest part and give this a couple of coats of 2pack. Also drilled some holes here and there in the sills and wheelarchs to release water....Car was well waxoyled from when I got it and there is not piece of rust anywhere after 7years.

I will be re-waxing the entire tub and chassis before it hits the road...As should last forever then! I hate bodywork so prevention is good!

Will also re-seal and repaint the entire inside of the tub to after welding and work is completed. Shiney Shiney.

Paint experiment - Roll cage mods.

Been meaning to neaten up my footwell for a while. Rust was starting where I had worn though the paint with my feet.

I thought i'd do a quick experiment with the only 2 pack paint I had, grey.

Worked out really well. I just sloshed some paint from the tin, added a big dose of activator/hardener and painted it on with a brush, really thick...Settled to a streakfree and flat finish. Have to pickup some white paint to spray my bulkhead, so I'll rub off the little rust spots and rough the old paint and then brush the remainder onto the entire cockpit as it seems to be almost as good a finish as spraying provided you lay it on thick and use wads of activator, its gone bonehard in about 2hrs...need to repaint some of the cockpit anyway as there will be welded areas etc. Can't be arsed spraying inside the cockpit it makes such a mess.
Also gonna give fabricage a ring next week and pickup another 40inch piece of CDS tube and some tags to weld on the cage and put another bar in the cockpit.

This will run just under the steering column across the two front bars that go down into the footwells...Reason for this is, firstly safety from side impact, bit like Mattius accident, it'll stengthen the bulkhead A post area ALOT..Save the cage bending into your right ankle.

Also I can then mount the steering column to the extra bar, it annoys me a bit as it waggles about slightly cause there is no grovebox support or the pieces of dash that stiffen the column support.

I could also add some bars from this to the suspension turrets in the future?

One rather nice Jaguar engine

Its a 4.2 - 6 cylinder, gobs of torque, about 260hp, it weights half as much as my spitfire!

One job ends another starts!

Got my block finished. Not ideal as I dropped it off at a place I hadn't used before...When you give a well made piece of precision engineering to someone, you might atleast expect them to hold in a vice using alloy jaws? No such luck, the penis viced my gasket face. He also managed to drop it and damage the seat area on one take off adaptor...Took me 2hrs to planish the marks out and fettle the seat area with engineers blue and a tool I made...Anyway its done...I could have slapped the bitch who abused my fine engineering...What a spud. Even had the cheek to ask me for some cash, to which my reply started in F and ended on F and consisted of two words.
Good welder but what a wa*ker. Its shaped like it flows oil/liquid with flat sufaces to mate against other flat surfaces cause its a precision item, how DARE YOU crush my baby in a vice you cack handed bastard!

Thats better. I had a nice day in the sunshine, seeing the bloke about more CV adaptors and a few other ideas then some monkey pisses off.
I will be moving the passenger side rack mount over about 1/2" it then clears my oil line better. Also I will be packing the rack up another 6mm. My measurements for the oil adaptor/block design were mm perfect. The lines now clear the rack by 3mm, or go either side by 3mm clearance with the rack in the raised position, perfecto.
This makes the rack arms perfectly flat by moving the rack upwards more..So no bump steer, or totally minimised anyway...Another small handling / precision and ride quality/stablity gain.
Block in its final home.
Kind of glad that jobs done, next job is out with the white paint and brush and mark everywhere on the chassis and turrets that need minor dressing back, no more than 5mm here and there, but many trims I must make, or probably many lump hammer adjustments!

Need to find some longer U bolts...If you want a kit to raise the alloy rack mounts and level your steering rack so the arms are better aligned on "lowered" cars to the main tube drop me an email the geometry goes to pieces when lowered... davidpowell@clara.co.uk I should have a batch of U bolts and spacers/packers in the next few weeks.

More oil block fiddling.

Drilled a few more holes, its now a functional item bar getting the unions welded on. Nicely ported too, to match my head :)

Recess is to help oil get out easier from the larger chamber in the block. Like mini cylinder head ports! Could add some valves and make a 2 stroke head!

Another chamfer on the base to clear the turret mount area.

I had an NPTF 1/8th x 27 tap, which was lucky so I added the Triumph oil pressure gauge boss and pressure switch.
This is good cause it comes out in basically the same place as the triumph one! So no wiring adjustments or anything and its hidden low down on the block, doing anyway with messy cables and wot not..I intend to run the front loom along the chassis rail, hidden, its about 3inches from this block.
Hopefully get it welded tomorrow, got a hairline fractured Dellorto DHLA48C carb some bloke wants repairing before the flange snaps, so two birds with one stone!

Oil Block, Remote Filter, Bling Fest

What a mission! Just stuff in the way everywhere! Wanted the filter on the passenger side shock tower...No chance.

Actually worked out OK in this position. Cause I can fit my old oil cooler take off on the remote filter head at a later date and the pipes etc will be nicely hidden under the radiator shroud base plate.

Just have to finish off the cooler block now its all jigged up and get the "JIC-10" style weld on connectors welded on and drill the oil bores and port them out...Nearly there.

Firstly have to acid clean the block, cause it ain't BLING enough..Also that pulley has to be blinged up...

Decided to invest in some decent re-useable aerospace alloy goodridge connections, the whole system uses JIC-10 connections and hose, which is slightly bigger than normal..

You can re-use these things a million times which is good as I intend to make my own Apollo tank thing if needed just need to pop to Caterham dealer and copy the design :)

I can re-use these connectors also they swivel and what not so fitting it easy in suit'u, unlike fixed braided pain the arse mocal lines you get in cooler kits!! Hate them, and push on black rubber is horrible and prone to wear holes and clip tastic etc..Also 3 of these only weight as much as 1 mocal plated thing, the adaptors are all alloy too in the remote head.

Also worked out well cause I messed up the hose length once and had to undo the connections and go again.

Not cheap mind!

Bottom pipe just rubs on the rack mounting plate , there's no way around this in any location the bloody thing rubs somewhere its a VERY tight, its really the only part of the conversion thats not ideal....so I will hack a small angled section off the rack mount area and re-instate it with a new piece of metal giving enough clearance for the pipe...

Also need to account for the fact I intend to raise the rack another 1/2" once I find or make some longer U bolts...This means a slight bevel needed on the top weld on connector on the oil block.

The block fits well, I'll still need to shave a few mm from the edge of the Turret as room is VERY sparce.
Have to make a decent mount for the remote filter head, that's just a dummy. Good job I didn't cut those old rad mounts off the chassis?

Filter will need a small protection plate adding to the chassis as its inline for stones and what not, no biggy..Its also now in a low position and angled down, so it won't drain out. Also won't piss oil all over the chassis and engine when you change the filter, just a tray on the floor needed.

In this location I can easily add the old Spitfire Mocal oil cooler take off plate with a different adaptor, checked that, the filter is still well above the roll bar and chassis base and safe in location, can fit a mini cooler across behind the front valance and drill a few small holes to feed it...You only need a pissy little cooler on the K, if at all, - 10row by 15cm or so.

Also the apollo tank can be driven from a sandwich plate on the remote filter head with 7.5litres of oil there might well be no need for an oil cooler with a 75C water temp, so the apollo tank is the best idea I think...I could get some "fins" welded on the tank for cooling, Caterhams never seen to have coolers bar super tuned ones same for Elise and MGF...The tank will mount to the other radiator mount on the passenger side, they are nearly as tall as the engine...This would be neat enough and has been considered in my location of things...Took me 2hrs this evening pondering all location of future upgrades and wot not before finalising anything.

Almost the last job. Hopefully get time at the weekend to finish this oil stuff off.