A Jaguar XK 140 OTS

Jaguar hit two of the longest home runs in the history of sports cars.  The first being the legendary XK 120 and the second, of course, was that object of everyone’s desire, the E-type.  Many people are aware, and I suppose that many people are not, that the XK 120 was initially intended as a kind of a concept car, and William Lyons seriously considered building it with a dual overhead cam four cylinder engine as well, an XK 100.  Actually a few of these still exist, the engines, not the cars.  But people wanted them, and so the car went very hurridly into production in 1948, and the last ones were built in 1954.

XK 140 open two seater

Although it was definitely the car the public wanted, it wasn’t the car Jaguar necessarily wanted  to build, because its development time was so short.  Later on in 1954  a new model, the XK 140 was introduced.  This was the car Jaguar would have built 1n 1948 if time had permitted and it was an all around better car than its predecessor, except possibly on the charisma front.  More power and better handling via rack & pinion steering, plus more legroom which was created by moving the engine about three inches forward.  That helped the handling too.  It added up to a thoroughly improved car of which an interesting Special Equipment model was introduced across the model range of Drop Head Coupe, Fixed Head Coupe and Open Two Seater.

"C" stands for competition

Jaguar established their international reputation thru racing in the 1950’s and in 1951 & 1953 they won the prestigious LeMans 24 hour road race.  That car, although based on a lot of stuff right off the factory floor, also had a few trick parts, one of which was a competition cylinder head, and  homologation requirements  necessitated the production of 100 castings.  Well, owing to a clerical error, Jaguar got a thousand.

Open Two Seater, less chassis

William Lyons, who was a pretty shrewd marketer in addition to everything else, decided to  put ’em on the sports cars and charge more money.  This car, built late in 1954, was the 508th LHD open two seater off the line, and it was also fitted with overdrive, one of only about 50 OTS cars so equipped.  I glommed onto it about 30 years ago by the simple expedient of trading even up for a chainsaw, probably about the going rate at the time.  So my New Years’ Resolution (actually I made it in October) is to get a wiggle on with this car.  I figure by the time it’s done in a few years I’ll be fully vested in my Social Security stipend and that ought to be about enough to pay for the gas.

A Happy New Year to you.

Hunter-Gatherer

Although we are officialy celebrating the waning days of 2013 by taking Christmas week off, Patrick is actually out in the shop assembling an E-type Independant Rear Suspension  unit.  Some people love what they do, which is why we’ve been doing this for the last 25 years or so, and on Monday the lights will be on and the phone ringing (O.K. they’re ringing right now) and it will be business as usual, working with the usual retinue of interesting stuff.

Butch with a Mark IX Jaguar

This was one of my favorite pictures of the past year, Butch under the hood of a big Jaguar Mark IX sedan installing a set of tappet guide hold downs on the exhaust side.  This is a repair more commonly undertaken while the cylinder head is in the machine shop for a valve job, but it’s what the customer said he wanted, so we did it.

In fact we did  a huge amount of service work on this car with a dollar value that far exceeded the cost of the best Mark IX

Patrick buttons up an E-type after a gearbox overhaul

on the block, but in the end the owner still wasn’t happy, although we do wish him success in his new sales and repair venture.

In this house we try to stay as far away from the sales side of the business as we can, because we think there’s a fundamental conflict of interest between making the best repairs you can and getting the best price for a car you can.  We fix those cars all the time, including, recently, one from Candia, N.H.

Chris puts the hammer down in an Elva Courrier

When a crummy set of County brand pistons with too much oil control  blew up the engine in this Elva Courrier, Chris pieced another one together from our collection of servicable used parts, and on test it actually exceeded our performance expectations.  While we had intended it as a stop-gap until we could build up a proper uprated engine for the car, the owner pronounced himself entirely satisfied, which goes to show that perception is still reality.

John took a new job in early December

Every year has its comings and goings.  John took a new job earlier this month in a general repair shop in Springfield, Massachusetts, more or less around the corner from Bay State Medical Center, where his girlfriend is an R.N.  Not enough young people have John’s work ethic: Show up on time, work a full day, widen your skill set and enjoy your work.  Of course not enough veteran workers have that kind of work ethic, either, but if you think you are one, or know somebody who is, we’d like to talk…

Using Gudgeon Pin Clampers

We’re just about ready to assemble an MGA engine, just waiting right now on the balance work on the crankshaft and clutch & flywheel to come back.  My time has been taken up with prepping a TD engine for assembly and also prepping a 3 main bearing MGB engine for the machine shop.

We have a pretty basic drill with machine shop prep: Once the engine is completely torn down we knock out the water jacket core plugs (known at NAPA and elsewhere, erroneously, as “freeze” plugs) and also the main oil gallery plugs and remove the engine serial number plate for safekeeping.

A very bad gudgeon pin clamp bolt

Then everything gets washed up, we run the crankshaft, connecting rods & main bearing caps thru the bead blast cabinet, and the cap & con-rod hardware tumbles around for a spell in the immersion cleaner.  You can see more of this on the Sports Car Services website engine pages.

As a general rule, 3main MG engines, be they TC, MGA or MGB, all have a “clamp” style wrist pin.  In the “T” series (XPAG) engines, it’s a groove cut all the way around the O.D.* of the wrist pin (or “Gudgeon” pin), but on MGA & MGB engines (“B” series) it’s just a slot.  The first picture is an MGB con-rod with some nicely worn out bearings, but the 2nd is of an MGA pinch bolt (gudgeon pin bolt) which fortunately didn’t let go and destroy the complete engine.

*O.D.:  Outside Diameter (not to be confused with O/D: overdrive)

A geometry problem

Butch missed this one when he bolted the Revington TR suspension underneath this TR3 a couple of weeks ago, and it wasn’t until he checked the handbrake operation that this problem became all too obvious.

It is unclear to us what occasioned a previous installer-technician (O.K. I jest) to R&R** the rear brake backplates, and in so doing pull out the axle half shafts as well, but he did.  Unfortunately, he ended up a bolt off on the six bolt mounting flange with the obvious ill effect to the handbrake cable geometry.  Equally curiously, the rear axle seals were new, but the wheel bearings were badly in need of cleaning & repacking.

**R&R:  Remove & Replace

Problem solved

This is another of a continuing series of shoddy repairs to this car masked by shiny red paint.  Skip back a few weeks for a reprise of the 2nd most dangerous steering repair we’ve ever seen.  It’s hard sometimes to let the guilty go unpunished, and it’s the 2nd time we’ve seen this kind of  feloneous intent on the part of this Missouri sports car hustler.  Several years ago we had an MGC delivered into our hands which had the disconcerting characteristic of diving to the left as the suspension unloaded going over an undulation in the road.  On the rebound it would take off to the right.

Merry Christmas from UPS

The car had been hit so hard at some point in time that it had broken the pinchwelds in spines of both main frame members.  But, hey !   It was marketed as an ex-race car.   By the way, the Beatles named the culprit in the song “Tax Man”.

This is the busy season for retail and transportation, and last last week our stock order arrived with a pair of loose MGB GT  7 leaf rear springs with the hollow, splined shaft pictured here affixed to them with packing tape.  We know that the springs at least started their journey fully enclosed in a cardboard box, and we’re guessing this (presumably) automatic transmission mainshaft did, too.

A retaining clip glows cheerfully

In this industry MGA & MGB three synchro transmission overhauls are a basic repair like a tune up or a brake job.  All of them eventually suffer from the same failings; bad second gear synchromesh and heavy wear of the layshaft and needle roller bearing assembly on the first & reverse end of the cluster gear.  When you’re in there, it’s a good practice to replace the rest of the bearings and synchronizer baulk rings while you’re at it.

Easing-in the transmission mount

The needle bearing assemblies in the cluster gear, there are three of them, are retained by spring steel clips which were always the Devil’s work to remove.  For years I thought there must be a better way than using a couple of awls.  Well there is, and this is it.  Just flash them with the oxy-acetylene torch for long enough to cause them to glow red, which anneals (softens) them, and you can practically remove them with a wooden tooth pick.

Patrick already used heat

MGA transmission mounts are a press-fit in the tailcase, and I’m sorry to have to tell you that the quality control has been quite up and down on these the last few years.  I first noticed a problem when a mount with too much O.D. broke the a tailcase housing a few years ago.  Now we’re much more careful. Some times we turn ’em down a little bit, but a little heat judiciously applied will also expand the aluminum housing enough for the mount to press in easily.

Using a thread tap as an extractor

The MGA speedometer gear housing has an oil seal which is retained by a sleeve and is often overlooked.  A 1/2″ 13tpi tap makes an ideal extractor for the sleeve.  Thread your 3/8″16tpi tap into the oil seal and tap it out with a drift.  BTW: This oil seal (AAU 2304) isn’t in the transmission overhaul kits some catalogue vendors sell, you’ll need to order it separately.  It’s also known by the Jaguar part number C32592.  Same seal.

Butch installs a hole for a transmission dipstick

Last Friday Butch & John wrestled the new overdrive transmission into the red TR3 from Texas.  The new one is actually a four synchro unit with a oil check & fill plug on the side, but sadly no provision for an owner/driver friendly dipstick.  After all, how many people have a lift in their garage ?   The Brits knew that when they designed these cars, only later on they forgot.   Switch locations being different, we couldn’t use the old cover.  But Butch fixed that on the Bridgeport.

Saturday morning Patrick and I, but mostly Patrick, changed the head gasket on my winter beater MGB GT, so on Monday morning I decided to hike over to the Post Office to assess the state of the repair.  The car ran fine, but it was virtually the only one on the road.  Four studded snow tires make it safe.  Just forget about those three season radials, even if you have four wheel drive, your car needs them, too !

3rd gear descent: Monday morning on a snowy road in the MGB GT which has a new head gasket now.