Butch heats, John bends
Somewhere in the early history of the Jaguar Mark IX which is John’s current workpiece something got bent in the rear. If it was a full-on collision it was masterfully straightened because none of the usual signs like wrinkled inner panels are there to be found.
What we do know is that the left rear brake caliper mounting bracket was visibly bent, as you can see below, even if the surrounding panel work shows no evidence of it.
Visibly bent Mark IX rear caliper mounting bracket
Left rear caliper assembly after straightening
The Mark IX is kind of a rare bird. It’s the last of the early post-war Jaguar Saloons, updated with the 3.8 litre engine soon to power the E-type, and highly advanced for the time disc brakes developed at Jaguar’s behest by Dunlop, the two manufacturers working closely together on the project. On a practical basis the relative uniqueness of this arrangement means that used parts are scarce, and a quick perusal of the internet classified ads only turned up a complete rear disc brake set up, condition unknown, being peddled somewhere north of a cool thousand dollars.
Steve lockwires E-type rear calipers
This situation tended to dictate that we were going to work with what we had to work with, but we’ve done this stuff before, so Butch heated while John bent. Since the proof, as they say, is in the pudding, you can make your own judgement as to how it came out.
If you’re wondering about those brake calipers, they always look like that when we’re done with them, just take a look at the calipers on the Jaguar I.R.S. differential assembly Steve was working on Monday. He’s seen here preparing to lockwire them in place.
Re-studding an MGB exhaust manifold
Establishing cam timing in an MGB engine
It wasn’t all Jaguars here this week (Thank Goodness !) because we also spent some time working with the best british sports cars ever built, the MGB’s. You can say what you want to about that pronouncement, but I’ve spent close to 200,000 miles behind the wheel and I know.
Right now Butch is finishing up a late MGB which had a broken overdrive thrust ring which he changed. While the driveline was out we also did a quickie ring & valve job and replaced the camshaft. In the picture on the left you can see Butch taking the old exhaust studs out of the manifold after another application of the heat wrench.
The photo on the right is from my cam timing session Tuesday into Wednesday with a performance MGB engine we’re building up. If you click the picture you can see the JE pistons manufactured to our specifications that increase the displacement to around 1950cc’s. What you can’t see is the APT VP 11BK camshaft which will give it a useful bump in the middle, or the APT gas-flowed, big valve cylinder head not yet installed. This engine is, of course, fully balanced (including the clutch assembly) as well.
