I have the pedal box and brake servo rebuilt and in the car; I’m still waiting on the re-sleeved master cylinders, so it’s not quite together, obviously. Still, another bunch of fiddly bits all back where they should be…I think. The brake reservoirs, their shield and the bracket holding them are all new, none of that made it through to the other side, alas. The hardware is original. The shield comes with small holes for the bolts, but no allowance in the insulating material for the steel spacers. I chucked a 3/4″ spade bit in the drill press and that worked well for machining the material away.

I have the looms roughly in place, but I don’t have my gauges back from the specialist yet so am loathe to commit myself before fastening them down. I also inventoried my dash switches this evening and it doesn’t look that promising. Sadly, the switches are all expensive and I suspect they’re not as nice as the not-very-nice-to-start-with originals were!

I have undercoated the bottom of the car, and have decided to just leave it black. It’s a nice crisp look and while I think the factory made a half-hearted effort to paint down here, I think this will ultimately look better on this car.

This shot is for my friend Jeff, who gets a bit weepy when he sees a functioning windshield washer, something quite rare on a car I own. This reproduction unit has two connectors, whereas the original had three. The loom also has three wires. If you open an original motor, the center connection doesn’t go anywhere–in other words, they spent money putting a wire in the loom which had no use that I can see! I’ll need to figure out what to do with the “extra” wire.

If you’ve never had the pleasure, putting the fuel tank back in an E-Type is a genuine challenge, especially if you want things to have paint on them when you’re done. There’s only one very exact position it will “slide” into place (if you define sliding as one of the labors of Hercules). In any case, it’s done, with the new in-tank fuel pump and sender as well.

One of the things you note when putting a car back together from scratch is just how many places there are for fluids to leak from.

Up front, I have a few more things in place, and the start of the wiring and brake lines. I rewired the wiper motor and restored its finish, but as I never ran the car I have no idea if it was working when it came out. It looked OK, not exactly the test of choice for electrical equipment. Friends have told me you can bench test it, but my manual offers no help there. I’ll see what I can figure out.

Though we’re doing better than the BSA as far as reproduction parts not always being absolute junk, there have been a few disappointments. I had to rewire the wiper motor twice; in my efforts to be as “original” as possible, I used braided cloth wire which proved too thick to exit the motor housing. (The wire I used is still correctly colored but a slightly later type. It’ll be fine.) The cable from a specialist which runs from the solenoid to the starter is at least a foot too short. One of the connecting tabs on the solenoid itself is the wrong type. The clutch line kit turns out to be of a later type (which will work fine), and it seems you cannot get the early style. So it goes.

“It’ll be fine” becomes a mantra the further you get into a project. You start out with the intention of doing everything exactly correct and at the end you’re more about getting it done and in one piece than chasing every tiny detail; though I still fret about everything, these days I will (eventually) compromise.

A friend assembled his E-Type using hardware he could find at the local Lowes, and while I was horrified at the time, I can sure see the appeal: Take the two bolts which hold the heater valve in place. They’re a size not even specialist fastener people can get these days, and one of mine was missing. I ended up using two stainless screws of the right length and pitch, but they should be tiny little bolts, not screws. If this was someone else’s car I might even snottily say “those should be tiny little bolts, of a size not oft seen these days!” Though I hope I’m not really that much of a prat.

(I suppose I can hunt for a used tiny little bolt from a wrecked E-Type at some point, but it’s something only the most dedicated would notice. Still, it bothers me. A bit.)

You also can see why some businesses specialize in “improved” E-Types rather than “totally original restorations”. It would be much easier to put a car back together with a complete new bolt package, etc.–don’t sweat the tiny “concours” details and instead spend time on fit, finish and making things work well.

And you thought fitting the frames together was a challenge. Refitting the front suspension was genuinely difficult. Especially so because I put a couple of crucial pieces on backwards the first time. A cautionary tale within!

It’s probably common knowledge, but the lower front a-arms are sided–at a (quick, careless!) glance they look identical. Once I was through fighting that, things got a bit easier–however, I’m really good at taking off and putting on the front suspension of an E-Type now. Wish I wasn’t!

The bone-headed move aside, major tripping points were:

• The lower a-arm needs to go into the frame as an assembly, so the front mounting blocks needed to come back out, which I had put in to screw down the frames. Turns out this wasn’t too terrible, but filled me with dread after The Great Framening. (I got to do it twice, once I realized the a-arms were sided, too.)
• The reaction plate wouldn’t fit within the actual body tub. Not sure how that happened, the body place had the reaction plate, but apparently it had never been test-fit. Putting it in was a dreadful job, which required the screw jack multiple times; it eventually fit, but not all that willingly. I will be putting in the engine and gearbox without removing said plate, a tricky, trying procedure to accomplish on a painted car. On the plus side, it’s the only way I’ve ever removed or replaced an e-type engine, so it’s what I know.
• The left-side torsion bar was pretty difficult to put into place. That’s the side with the engine frame that didn’t want to go into the car. I’m hoping that the bars don’t need adjustment once the machine is on the ground and full of engine and gubbons–though that’s almost unheard of. Sigh.

My mood was particularly black when I had the suspension completely reassembled, realized the a-arm issue–and that everything would have to come back off. How did such a silly blunder happen? I originally (rather casually) assembled them ten years ago (!) and I just bolted them to the car without checking my work.

With all the excitement, I added some wrench-rash to the frames; I’ve touched most of it in and it doesn’t look too bad. Once everything else is in place you’d have to be very picky to find where I nicked the paint. I hope.

This feels like a bit of progress. I need a few pieces for the steering column, and am waiting on rear axle machine work (as well as brake cylinders). I think I’m going to fiddle with the wiper motor next–and maybe try to drink enough to consider putting the fuel tank in!

This was a lot more “exciting” than I had hoped, or anticipated. The car was painted with the framework in place, though that’s not how early cars were painted–a decision we arrived at as the bonnet was shimmed and fit nicely. Plan was, I would later removed the temporary frame bolts one at a time, replace them with the refinished bolts, and no one would be the wiser. Ah, had it been so easy.

The problem: the lower bolts on the inside of the frame were (apparently) never test fit and, indeed, would not fit. The right side wasn’t awful, but the left side wasn’t close. This is a fairly crucial thing to have right, as the reaction plate and engine mount have a tight working relationship.

In the end I had to remove the frames entirely and start again…fitting the lower bolts first and then working up from there. In retrospect painting the frames off the car would have been the right move. For extra fun, the right frame was contacting the tub where (probably at my direction) we had removed the factory dent that allows the round diagonal tube to clear the tub, so I had to re-install this dent.

Once I had the lower inside bolts fit on the right frame, the rest went in without too much struggle. So far, so good. But the left frame wasn’t to be so forgiving. After doing some checking, the left frame’s lower-outside-mounting-pad’s attachment point is about 3/8″ from where it needs to be. This is not uncommon, many early cars apparently left the factory that way; they often just bent the frame with a hammer to “fix” it.

With a painted frame, that wouldn’t be very cool. In my case, I was able to get the frame bolted to the bulkhead through a bit of creative use of a punch as a lever…but when it came time to bolt the picture frame to the front of the engine frames, the frames were about an inch too close together at the bottom. (FYI, you cannot spread triangulated steel frames that far apart with your hands. About an eighth of an inch is it!)

After consulting my friendly experts online at xke-lovers, I used a screw jack between the lower frame members (just in front of the engine mounts) to spread them apart. Even so, because there was also a bit of a twist in the left frame’s position from the misplaced pad, it made nearly every bolt a bit of a struggle to place, but I got them in, eventually.

I did some quick “squaring” measurements from points on the tub and the frames miraculously seem close to exactly where they should be.

Next E-Type I restore (and if I do another I need to learn to weld, as my days where I can pretend to have the money to pay for bodywork are behind me), the frames are getting completely bolted into place–and, ahem, adjusted–before any paint goes on.

All things considered, not too much paint rash was added to the car from this struggle, and I’ll touch it in when I get a chance.

Inexplicably, one of my original bolts was re-plated in cad instead of black oxide; I’ll carefully give it a touch of matte black paint to disguise that. You can see it on the lower cross member of the picture frame, above.

Most of my fasteners have been re-plated–I’ve now finished the tedium of sorting the various items back into their proper place. Above and below are photos of that process. I took (bad) digital photos of each baggie’s contents back in 2002, before dumping the stuff into one big box for the platers. This turns out to have been barely enough information, and I should have recorded much more.

If I did it again, I would:

1. Take many more photos of each sheet of paper’s fasteners, including from lower angles to give an impression of the thickness of nuts and washers;
2. Shoot a video with audio notes for the above, as well, including descriptions of oddball details and missing fasteners (ie, “there are only three screws here and there should be four, one had to be ground off”);
3. Spread the fasteners out more and write similar notes to above, including bolt sizes and thread pitches if able to determine them;
4. At least degrease and wire brush the fasteners before photographing them.

I’m sure I have some fasteners misidentified and I have a troubling number of extra fasteners, which probably means they were just thrown into a box way back when because, heck, how hard could it be to put them back? What’s interesting is how, for example, all of the seat bolts are missing from the plated stuff, including the spacers. This means I did something with them after photographing them but before they went to the plater. Weird.

I’d say 80-90% of the fasteners on the car will be original; I’ll lay in a stock of black oxide bolts, shake-proof washers and cad nuts for those places something is missing.

My biggest remaining dilemma is the odds-and-ends chrome that remains un-plated. It’s about four to ten times the cost of buying new to have them re-chromed, but I’m not sure how much is available, and, frankly, pattern parts can be pretty bad, only approximating the original. But take the rear-view mirror as an example: There are four or five (small) pieces of chrome on it, each costing about $50 to plate. Then you have the case, a few screws, and the glass itself. In all, it would be about (I’d guess) $500 to restore. You can get a reproduction of the entire assembly for less than $60.

I’ll think about it.

One thing I wish for, as I’m in this stage of the project: a supplier with a decent online shopping experience. The major vendors all have online catalogs, but they’re very slow and don’t always have every part they sell. They generally also have absolutely awful keyword searches, so you pretty much need to know the part number yourself before you look. Finally, the user interface design on most is not so hot; either you can’t find your cart or you can’t find your way back to the place you wanted to be.

I recognize something is better than nothing, but it seems like the way to do this would be to simply use the Jaguar parts book(s) and have clickable plates and reproduce the assembly lists, the idea being that if you’re working on the heater box, for example, you can just click on the pieces you need and be done. (You obviously still need part number lookups and keyword searches, too.) Moss does this (to greater and lesser extents) with their MG stuff, and it’s a pretty nice way to order. I’m a guy who loves online ordering, but the big orders I’ve placed so far have been done by phone–the salesman at the other end generally knows the thing I want but cannot find via their websites.

A shot after the last time I washed it, a couple of weeks back. It is much grimier now. I think I got a fantastic deal on this machine, it had some issues (and still has a few things to sort out) but it’s a fun, pleasant machine to drive…and look at.

I’ve been blasting and painting those parts I didn’t prepare a decade ago, and sending off large orders to the various specialists, while I wait for the fasteners to come back from the platers. Above you can see my replica of the crayon body-number scrawled onto the body when the car was new. It’s pretty close to the original in appearance; I may have finally found my calling.

This is most of the front suspension ready to go back on the car. Some early cars had black-painted front suspension rather than cad plated, and I spent a lot of time looking at mine before coming to the conclusion that mine was painted. However, a couple of original cars on xkedata built about the same time as mine have cad plating…so who knows. It’s not incorrect as such, but I’m probably right up against when they stopped using black painted parts.

The machine shop still has a number of my rear axle pieces, including my diff, the half-shafts, radius arms and hubs. Not to mention all of my caliper pistons! Without fasteners it’s academic, but that’s the next batch of stuff I hope to take delivery of.

I received my new Coolcat radiator, and it’s beautiful. I have an original radiator for an early car (seen on the right) but it leaks and they cannot be repaired due to their construction. The replica “cheats” in that it’s a modern radiator with machined side-trim to replicate the look of the plate construction of the original. Once it’s painted black it should be reasonably convincing…

This is most of the fuel system, though I need to repaint the tank–it was spray bombed by the radiator shop that boiled it out (and repaired the rust damage) and it’s not the world’s greatest paint job. Tank is too big to fit in my blaster, so I’ll scuff it up and spray it.

This is my shelf of “ready to go back on the car” bits. A friend gave me a set of Avon tires which I had mounted on the wheels; the tires are old and not really suitable for high speed use any longer, but they’ll enable me to put the car on the ground (eventually) and do some low-speed test drives. Probably in 2023, at this point!

I did get one thing partially done, which was to put the drain hoses in the trunk…except for the one from the fuel filler, I ran out of hose! The square patch in the floor (which we didn’t dress as it’s hidden) was where a jute pad was placed under the tank. It rotted the floor and the bottom of the fuel tank. I’ll stick with the more modern closed-cell foam doughnut around the sump!

Thankfully! My friend Gabe took the car off my hands in trade for some of his professional time, for what precisely is yet to be determined. I have more than enough projects to keep me busy, and would never have got to this one.

My friend Paul is selling his restored Lotus Elan +2 via a Bring a Trailer exclusive. It looks and runs great and drives very well–almost all the Lotus cars I’ve driven have been Paul’s, and they’ve all been very nice. He’s put a lot of time and effort into the restoration, and it shows. Take a gander at it on bringatrailer.com and drop him a line if you’re interested.

In an effort to get ready to bolt a few things back onto the car, my friend Paul came by and helped me move the bonnet from the E to a cart I made for the purpose. I always forget how relatively heavy the E-Type bonnet is…even without lights and bumpers it’s probably closer to 200 pounds than 100 pounds, and you don’t want to damage it or the car. (Edited to add another photo.)

I always hated the idea of storing it on the back edge, often noted as the thing to do in repair manuals. This cart uses the attachment points to hold the bonnet vertically, in an effort to have it take up as little room as possible.

If your car is on the ground with bumpers on, a better way to remove the bonnet is to release the counter-balance assemblies and jack the car up just enough so the bumper over-riders can be used to support the bonnet vertically, nose-down. Much easier with a lot less opportunity for damage. Put a cloth on the ground first, of course!

Added another shot to show construction of the cart. The only critical dimension is the distance between the outside edges of the two uprights, 33.75″ in this case. Any height of roughly 48″ above the cart deck will see the bonnet miss contacting the base.