Putting It All Back Together

Dateline - 08/20 and 08/21, 2016 - Spent the weekend putting things back on the car.  I wanted to concentrate on one area at a time so I started to work on the trunk early in the day before it got too hot.  I was able to put on most of the chrome and license plate before it got too hot (with the garage door open I'm in the direct sun.  It took longer then expected because, well just because.

Once it got too hot to work on the trunk, I closed the door and moved to the front of the car,  I installed the side markers and front blinker/driving lights.  This was a pretty straight forward if fiddly job.  Having all the gaskets I needed helped a lot.

I also fiddled a bit with the doors and the headlights but didn't really finish anything.  Here's a picture of the front of the car with side markers and front blinkers.

Front with side makers and turn signals installed

By about 2:00 pm it was too hot in the garage to work comfortably so I went into the house and relaxed for a few hours.  In the evening, I pulled out all the chrome and found some of the pieces I had not finished polishing and went to work cleaning them up.  I also cleaned and reassembled the front quarter lights.  I had purchased new gaskets for them so had to get everything fitting correctly.  I also put new seals into the outside window scrapers.  This was also fiddly work that took more time then one would expect.

Sunday, I was able to spend more time on the car because it was a lot cooler.  I was able to put time into finishing the truck which included mounting latch mechanism and the knob.  I had bought a good used lock from a guy parting out a series 1 and swapped out the the good handle for the badly pitted one that was on my car.  I then mounted everything so that the trunk now closes!

I also worked on the backup lights and the license plate lights.  The left backup light worked fine, but the right one had a bad connection that required that I pull the light off the car and reset a connection.  After fixing that, I ran all the wires into the trunk lid to the hing and wired everything up.  Both the backup lights work now as well as the little LED license plate lights I'm using.  These are small lights that make up the top two license plate bolts.  These should work pretty well.

I have put some Jaguar lettering and a Jaguar V8 symbol on order to fill in the blank spaces on the trunk.  Here is a picture with what I completed this weekend:

Trunk mostly completed

For the rest of the day, I started installing some of the chrome pieces, starting at the rain gutters and the passenger and drive side door.  I also placed but did not install the quarter lights.  There is a lot of chrome on this car!

That was it for the weekend.

Major Milestone! The Car Has Doors (And Hood, And Trunk Lid)

Dateline - 08/13/2016 - This was panel hanging weekend.  Matt and Karen came over and helped me hang all the panels.  It was a hot day on Saturday and we sweated a lot in my hot garage, but managed to get the trunk, hood, all four doors and the back fender valances hung and except for one small cut finger, no major accidents or injuries!  Matt and I were pretty knackered by the end of the day though and so we all went out to Outback Steakhouse for dinner (because yours truly didn't get the stakes out of the freezer in time to thaw completely!).

Matt brought his cameras over to log what was going on and took some really cool wide angle lens shots (the wide angle makes my stomach look bigger then it really is.  Honest!)  He also set up a camera that took a picture every 15 seconds and made a really cool time laps video.  All are included below:

Mounting trunk lid

Trunk lid mounted

Taking off hood latch so we could close the hood for fitting

All the relays in the dash

Interior dash

The usual state of my workbench!  Okay! Not the cleanest work area in the world!

Interior with doors closed

Dash from the top

And here is the video on YouTube.com




On Sunday, I did some more fitting.  I ended up taking the hood off again because I could not get the latches to work.  I had welded down the tongues on the hood which took away the flexibility needed for them to engage with the latches.  So I had to take the hood off and beat in the area of the hood that meets with the hinges.  This positioned the hood back about 1/2 inch when closed, and allowed the tongues to insert correctly into the latches.

I also mounted the front valance piece that runs between the fenders under the bumper.  This wasn't too difficult but we had run out of energy on Saturday to do this.

I was really sore on Sunday and it was getting hot again, so I ran out of steam pretty quickly, but I did manage to get one door seal mounted on the driver side front door.  Then I called it quits!

Still have a ways to go, but big progress none the less!

Thank you Matt and Karen for the help!!!

Made Great Progress on Interior

Dateline - 08/06/2016 - Worked two days this weekend to get the dash and center console in.  The center console was tricky, but because I had fitted everything so much before hand, everything fit pretty well.  The tricky part was re-figuring out how the vacuum connections needed to go together to get the climate controls to work.  But after about five hours, I had everything in and working!  Climate controls, air flow, heat, fans, switches and radio.

On Sunday I worked on the driver side dash.  I needed to rewire the information center because I had changed how the lights worked and which ones did what.  It took some figuring, but fortunately, I had a diagram I had put together originally that stated which wires did what, so it was a matter of transcribing the old and new and soldering the wires back together.  Once that was done, I was able to mount the dash.

After mounting the dash, I tried the lights and everything worked until I tried the dimmer. I noticed that the center gauges did not dim.  It was then that I realized the I had screwed up!  The dimmer that I am using for the lights needs to have both the hot and ground go to the dimmer switch.  When I wired the gauges, I ganged all the grounds together back to chassis ground.  So I had to take the gauges out again and rewire them so that the ground ran back to dimmer.  This meant that I had to pull the driver side dash out one more time.   After an hour of rewiring and refitting, I had everything in the car and it's all working correctly now.

I still have some work to do on the center console to get the gear selector lights working, but that should be a minor amount of work.  I'm also sewing new shifter and parking brake boots out of the tan vinyl to get rid of some of the overwhelming black center console.

Here are pictures:

Center console installed sans shifter and e-brake boots

Complete dash

Another car had my Attention

Dateline - 07/31/2016 - This weekend I worked on the Team Odin Race Car in preparation for the upcoming race on August 27/28 at The Ridge.  This is a LeMons race, and my first in this series.

After the engine replacement during the April race, we had a very bad vibration in the car.  We didn't know if it was the engine or something connected to it.  So Chris and Derek put the car up on the stand and we removed the transmission and started it to see if we could feel the vibration.  It was there.  So we removed the clutch and pressure plate and ran it.  Still there.  So then we started swapping flywheels.  We found that a Rover flywheel had the least amount of vibration through the entire range.  Of course, the rover flywheel would not match the clutch we had, but Chris had a low miles rover clutch in house, so we put everything back together and it felt very good.  So the car is ready for race day!

As for the Jag, I did do some work.  I drew up and etched yet a third circuit board that took out the load resisters and depended upon the 12 volt diodes I originally used.  I'm waiting for a couple of diodes to come in that I ordered to finish that.

I also worked on carbon center console.  I finished sanding and put four coats of lacquer clear on it.  After a good wet sanding, polishing compound, Cleaner wax and final waxing, it looks really good.  Not perfect, but hay, it's all done by hand, not machine!  I put all the components into it last night (Radio, switches, lighters, air vents, cup holder) so now it is ready to mount in the center console!  This is a big deal!  I've done a lot of work to get this part done, and I'm happy to be at the point that I can install it.

I've only a few things left to do inside the car.  We are planning on hanging panels in two weeks, so it is getting down to the wire!  Very, very cool.

Light Work This Weekend

Dateline - 07/24/2016 - Did light work on the car this weekend.  I spent some time working on the circuit board for the information center.  I'm not really happy how it is turning out and am probably going to do it one more time.  I'm going to change back to using 12 volt diodes and remove the load resistors.  It's a pretty tight squeeze to get everything on the board and I really am not happy with the results.

I also spent some time painting the trunk and resetting the fuel delivery system.  I didn't take pictures but I'll post some later.

That's it for now.

UPDATE: pictures:

Trunk after painting and installation of new fuel system

Close up of new fuel system.  Note fuel filters on each tank to keep dirt from getting into the valve system.

Took a Break This Weekend

Dateline - 07/16/2016 - Took a little break from the car this weekend.  I was invited to go to Crescent Lake on the Olympic Peninsula for the weekend.  What a fantastic place!

I did do some work on the car though.  I finished rubbing out the steering wheel, which came out really nice!  I also sanded and smoothed with Acetone the Information Center housing.  And I worked on he circuit board.  I hand drilled all the holes for the components, and test installed them to see how they fit.  It's close quarters, but everything will work.  It helps that the resistors are installed on the back side of the board.  I'll have pictures when I finish soldering everything together.

Fuel Leaks, Stripping Paint and Odds and Ends

Dateline - 07/02/2016 - 07/04/2016 - The week started off a bit rocky when I found out that the wonderful relay system that I had installed in the trunk to control flow from the two tanks leaked, badly!  Gas had been flowing down into the spare tire area and basically stripped the paint!  Here is a picture of the damage.

Paint damage done by gas leak in trunk.

So I went on line and purchased an actual auxiliary tank control valve that is a replacement for exiting valves for Ford and GM trucks and installed that.  This is actually a better solution because it is a three way valve so I only need to power it when I have gas coming from the right hand tank.  With no power, gas flows from the left tank.  I did loose the ability to shut gas off completely when the power is off, but that is a small price to pay to know that it is not going to leak!

Since the paint is pretty much destroyed in the trunk, I decided to strip it and paint the trunk with POR15, which is a very tough, solvent resistant primer.  This should seal the bottom well and be a good base for the new paint.

Another item I ordered was a replacement for the radiator filler.  The one I had was leaking badly from the overflow tube.  I purchased an aluminum replacement part that fits in the same place in the upper radiator hose.  So, while I was waiting for the paint stripper in the trunk to work, I got the engine running and hot enough to try out the electric radiator cooling fan.  Took some time to get it to come on around at 180 degrees, but I finally got it to cycle correctly.  It is good to know the fan is work correctly.  I have the manual override in the car also, but I definitely wanted these to work correctly via the thermostat mounted in the radiator.

While the engine was running, I noticed that I had a transmission fluid leak from the radiator.  One of the new lines I created did not seat correctly, so I had to put some more turns on the fitting.  I'm keeping an eye on that to make sure it is fixed.

I also worked on the Information Center circuit board.  I had to etch a new board so that the brake and oil warning lights would work correctly.  I also read that I should put load resisters in place to make sure I don't burn out the diodes, so I created a new board design with the correct changes, printed out on the laser printer, and etched a new board (see prior posts on the process here
http://leapingv8s.blogspot.com/2013/03/odds-and-ends-and-odds.html
http://leapingv8s.blogspot.com/2013/03/feels-like-slow-weekend.html and http://leapingv8s.blogspot.com/2013/01/not-feeling-well-but-work-goes-on_28.html).  I'm still waiting for the diodes and resisters to come from Amazon.  Here is the new board layout:

New circuit board for Information Center that has load resisters and positive power to brake and oil warning lights

I also worked on the plastic surround for the information center.  I did a 3D print a long time ago in PLA plastic, but wanted to do one in ABS because I can get a much smoother finish.  The problem is that I lost the original model I used to do the print, so I had to take one that I had modified and reshape it to the correct size and shape.  That took about four hours, but I did get one printed out finally.

Taking care of some other odds and ends, I sand blasted and painted the outside headlight bucked, painted a defroster vent I bought on ebay to replace the one I had that had a broken frame.  I also finish sanding the steering wheel which I had stripped and filled last summer, and put five coats of clear lacquer on it.  And I mounted the rear deck panel and rear speakers.  I didn't get around to mounting the center brake light yet.  I want to wait until I get the window glass in place to make sure it fits correctly.

Now I have to paint the trunk bottom again and reinstall the new gas flow system.  I also need to finish the center console fascia, but the list is getting really short now! I'm starting to run out of things to do on the car that don't require having the body panels installed.  That's a really cool thing!