Chassis Imminent !!

Spoke to Andy at GD today - my chassis has gone off for powder coating - so it should be ready for collection towards the end of next week.

Watch this space!

New Rear Calliper

New rear calliper arrived today and the old one was collected - excellent service from Ward Engineering. Needless to say the replacement calliper fitted OK and I finished measuring up for shims.

And that's it. Chassis needed now. I'll phone GD towards the end of the week to see when it will be ready for collection.

I suppose I should really make use of this time to sort out sourcing the engine and gearbox. Problem is I've looked at so many different options from so many different sources that I am now overwhelmed with choice and subsequently no further forward!

Hmmmmm.

Running out of things to do!

There's not much I can do now until my chassis arrives. I finished building up the other driveshaft and fitted the remaining needle roller bearings to the other lower rear wishbone.

I'm not going to build the diff up yet as I need to trial fit it to the chassis to work out what shims will be required between the diff and the lower wishbone pivot shaft bracket. The shims need to be spot on to ensure that:

a) The pivot shafts fit through the brackets on the chassis

b) The rear toe in is correct (how much the rear wheels point in towards each other)

c) The line thrust for the rear axle is correct (the direction in which the rear wheels will propel the car - hopefully straight doen the middle of the chassis)

This will be much easier with the diff on it's own rather than having all the bits attached. The jag rear end could be considered a little complicated and I keep mentioning various bits and pieces that make no sense to the majority of people - so here's an exploded diagram to give you some idea (click on the picture for a larger image).


Desperate to do something I thought it would be a good idea to calculate what shims will be required between the rear brake disc and the differential output shaft in order that the brake disc will be central (within 15 thou) within the caliper - see photo below:

I did this no problem on the nearside calliper - but when I went to have a go with the offside calliper I found the bolts wouldn't go through the calliper - in fact the holes seemed about 20 thou too small! Plus when I checked the brake disc (had to wedge the calliper in place as the bolts wouldn't fit) the disc was too far outboard which could not be corrected by adding shims?

A quick call to Ed at Ward Engineering resulted in the mystery being unresolved - he is however organising a replacement calliper.

So that's about that - I can't think of anything else I can be doing now - other than making sure I've got everything I need to progress when the chassis arrives - my fault as I have obviously overestimated the amount of work required to get to this stage!

Rear Suspension (1)

I also made a start today on the rear suspension - sounds good but in fact all I did was install the 4 needle roller bearings (and bearing tubes) on the inner pivot shaft fork of the wishbone.

Drive Shafts (1)

Also started rebuilding the drive shafts today. Started with the n/s one fitting new universal joints - all relatively straightforward compared to dismantling them!

Front Suspension (3)

Got the castor shims today so I finished off the two upper wishbones. There isn't much more I can do on the front now until the chassis arrives.

Front Suspension (2)

Finished off the other hub and wishbones this evening and I also remembered to order the castor shims as well today! Hopefully these will turn up tomorrow and I can finish the upper wishbones.

The next job I think will be build up the drive shafts with the new universal joints - then I think I'll fit the new needle roller bearings to the rear lower wishbones - then I'm really going to be needing that chassis to get much further.

Front Suspension (1)

Having left the Oil Seal to soak I was able to finish building up the first hub. First step was to fix the new disc to the hub (remembering to put copper grease on the mating surfaces and bolts). Here's the disc bolts being torqued up:

The bearings were then packed with grease and the inner bearing installed followed by the oil seal and deflector ring:

The outer bearing was fitted and the hub pumped full of grease. The 'D' washer and nut were fitted but final adjustment of the bearings will be done on the chassis. The lower ball joint was fitted to give a sort of completed hub:

The brake caliper can't be fitted until I get the chassis as the new fixing bolts and steering arm are in the chassis bolt pack. I finished off by fitting the stainless steel inserts into the poly bushes on the wishbones - these were a tight fit and needed persuading with a G-clamp.

I started on the other hub but shall complete it tomorrow after the oil seal has soaked again.

Oh - and I again forgot to order the castor shims!

The Build Starts!!

Having cleared the garage of redundant Jag scrap, cleaned up and reorganised it was time to start building something!! Still a few weeks to wait until the chassis arrives but there is plenty to do.


Thought I would start with re-building the front hubs. First job was to fit the new polyurethane bushes to the wishbone arms and fit the wishbone arms to the pivot shaft. All done quite easily although the nuts aren't torqued up yet as I need to fit the upper ball joint first - which I can't do as I have forgotten to order replacement castor shims! - phone call to SNG Barratts on Monday then.
The next task was to fit new bearing races to the hubs - I wasn't looking forward to this as I thought it was going to be a bit tricky. I had however had the foresight to buy a set of bearing drifts. Here it is in action:
It turned out to be a relatively simple job taking only a couple of minutes in total. Here's the end result:
Next I fitted the new stub axle to the carrier together with the refurbished water deflector. That's about it for now as before I can fit the hub to the carrier I need to fit the stub axle oil seal in the hub and this needs to be soaked in engine oil for 24h - and guess what - I hadn't. I must start to plan ahead!
I finished off fitting the new bushes to the lower wishbone but can't complete this until I get the chassis as the lower fulcrum shaft has to pass through the chassis.

I'm off to lay some slabs on my father in law's drive tomorrow so there will be no progress - although there will be a generously proportioned free Sunday Lunch!!

No More Painting!

Well that's that - no more painting now - finished the last remaining corner tonight!

Yesterday I modified the original Jaguar brake pipe brackets - modified is perhaps a strong word as all I did was cut/grind off the unwanted parts of the original dust shields!
Before:

After:

It's been a week since I got my delivery of new / replacement parts and I don't seem to have progressed far? I've actually spent a fair bit of time studying my Jaguar manuals and carrying out other research ready for the re-assembly stage (and checking for missing bits!)

Now that all the cleaning / grinding is finished the next big job is to clean out the garage ready for the arrival of the chassis and the start of the build proper. I phoned GD and my chassis will be ready in 2 or 4 weeks - (the chassis guy wasn't there at the time and they weren't sure which batch mine was in) - I think 4 would be better than 2 as I've got a fair few jobs to do yet and I wouldn't want to get sidetracked with the chassis sitting there!

Oh - and I need to aquire a few more tools also.