John & Butch guide the TX while Steve wheels the jack
John’s been pulling down the engine bay in the Jaguar Mk2 for detailing. One of the larger pieces was the automatic transmission, which John wrestled out of the car this morning with some help from Butch, also on the floor, and Steve with the jack.
Now that he’s got the engine bay completely stripped, he’s on to the fun stuff of cleaning an accumulated 50 years of grime off of every conceivable underhood ancillary component, and prepping them for paint or polishing. This is a process which will keep him fully involved for a week.
Patrick pulls down an MG TF transmission
Meanwhile, downstairs in our driveline room Patrick pulled down this MG TF transmission for inspection.
It had obviously seen some recent attention, judging by the wheel bearing grease still clinging to the nose of the mainshaft where it had undoubtably been used to secure the input needle roller bearings in exactly the same manner we do.
Checking valve stem heights on a hemi head
He’s working on top of our ‘auxiliary’ bench, which is actually a cast iron surface table. Incredibly, it’s hand scraped to an accuracy of +/- .0002″ (plus or minus two ten-thousandths of an inch) ! Amazing what a skilled hand can do.
We protect this accuracy with a piece of plywood laid over a sheet of cardboard when we’re not using it for measuring purposes. it’s pulled back here to allow
David checks valve clearances
for a comparison check on the valve stem heights on the cylinder head.
One cam follower, a.k.a. “tappet” was about .075″ taller than the others at the pushrod seat. I was looking for the valve with the shortest stem height in the hopes of finding the necessary clearance. In the event I didn’t, so we will change it out with another one from England.
Steve took this picture. I’m working on the exhaust side here. A close visual inspection will reveal that the intake and exhaust banks each have their own camshaft, gear driven from an idler which in turn is chain driven from the crankshaft. The nose of the intake cam is slightly longer because it will drive a gear for the distributor.
