Today was the Restoration Fair & Swap Meet held by the Old English Car Club (OECC) at the Saanich Historical Artifacts Society (S.H.A.S.).
It brought together all marques and local clubs to start the summer classic car season. We brought out a MGB shell almost completely stripped in support of the show’s main theme.
As with the previous years we enjoyed the laid back, park-where-you-want atmosphere and the many people helping eachother out to complete their projects.
At last the Federal XJ6C engine bay is done! We decided to keep the original look and feel of the engine bay instead of opting for earlier polished cam covers that wouldn’t have matched the rest of the bay.
Much clutter was removed by deleting both the EGR and air pump and their supporting brackets. The air conditioning was also re-routed straight to the firewall instead of around the entire bay to cool the fuel rail.
Long gone are the Strombergs in favor of twin SUs with a manual choke cable. The European version of these cars came with twin SUs and a starting carburetor that nested in between.
Cleaning. That’s basis for any cosmetic restoration and our XJ6C was no exception. This particular model is pretty heavily laden with an inordinate amount of pieces which make it even more time consuming than your average E-Type restoration.
With power steering, air conditioning, exhaust gas recirculation, secondary air injection and pneumatic climate control systems, the series 2 XJ6 should not restored on a whim.
To exemplify our argument, we present three corners of the engine bay with before and after photos. I don’t know what possessed the Jaguar engineers to use white butt connectors and clear slip on connectors, but they took considerable time to clean.
Whereever possible the original CAD-plated bolts were retained, as well as the clear harness holders, green washer lines, white braided wire sheathing and correct rubber. After we get the car back from the trimmer, we can reveal the engine bay in its entirety.
Final Assembly is well underway with the Aston Martin DB MkIII over at Jetstream Custom Auto. The owner has opted to leave the bumpers off and go for a track-ready look, complete with fount-mounted spot lights. Almost the entire exterior of the car is complete with the dashboard and interior trimming left to install. Can’t wait to see and photograph this car on the road.
Today we got some of the final pieces for our Federal XJ6C from David Boger at http://www.everydayxj.com/.
Included are some very rare pieces like the often missing undershield that protects components beyond the front valence. Also included are the fragile exhaust manifold shields and some fitting bits that the engine lost during its first rebuild.
Many thanks to David at Everyday XJ who carefully found the parts and shipped them to us at a very reasonable rate. His impressive NLA NOS stock extends from the E-Type to the 2009-2012 Jaguar XF. Great business!
