The goal today was to get the heater box finished up. I made a couple of brackets from sheet metal to hold the heater core in place.


Clamping them in place to check fit and to make sure I can remove the heater core.


A couple of welds will hold them in place.


I had to cut one new hole and enlarge one of the existing holes for the new heater core.


This meant that I had one extra hole that need to be closed up. I welded in a piece of sheet metal to close it up.


Next step was sandblasting the old paint and glue that held the insulation on. This was too big to fit in my powder coat oven so I gave it 3 coats of semi-gloss paint.


With the heater box drying, I moved to the alternator and AC mount bracket.
I tried something new for this. SendCutSend let me design a pretty simple bracket. It's a 5"x9" piece of 1/4" steel that I had them put a 90° bend in. It looks like it's been laser cut and was cheaper than me buying a piece of steel locally. It took about a week to arrive.


The plan was to weld the universal alternator bracket together, then weld it to the piece of steel I had bent, then drill holes so bolts go through the alternator bracket and bent steel. It becomes the alternator/AC bracket.


Here is the alternator/AC bracket bolted to the engine block.
This picture is deceiving - there are several inches between the end of the plate and the inner fender.


I cut down a pair of Vintage Air AC brackets to keep the compressor below the hood line.
Here I am aligning the pulleys and making sure I have plenty of clearance between the compressor and the exhaust manifold. Once I was sure I had lined up the pulleys properly I tack-welded it together.


After final welding, sand-blasting, a 3 coats of semi-gloss paint.


I might put a brace between the back of the bracket and the engine mount bracket but that might be overkill. This feels pretty secure.

 

A short day in the garage today. Before I pulled the steering box I pulled the large washer off the input shaft to make sure the shaft seal was my leak point. The UV dye tells no lies.


While I'm no fan of bling for the sake of bling, I do appreciate an upgrade that combines functionality and appearance. Someone was here before me and put in inverted flare to AN fittings, so I dug through my selection of AN hose ends and found I had the right fittings to replace the power steering pressure line with a braided stainless steel hose.
You can see the old pressure hose in the bottom of the pan - it looks like a braided nylon hose.


The back of the pump will get a straight AN fitting to attach to the braided stainless hose.
The return line is a low pressure application and will just be standard 3/8" power steering hose.


The AC condenser came in yesterday and I spent some time today looking at how to attach it to the radiator.
My standard practice here is to use 1/2" thick high-temp foam insulation to space the condenser from the radiator. The foam seals the two assemblies together so the fans pull air through both heat exchangers while the foam prevents the radiator heat from conducting to the condenser.


I ended up ordering 12" Spal fans that pull 1,600 CFM each. I think that will be plenty to keep the AC blowing cold and keep the engine temps in check.

 

I'm getting close to the end of the heater box project. I sealed the heater core with foam strips and screwed the lid back on.


The original insulation for the heater box came off in pieces. I found this insulation which matches pretty close but not exactly. I'm debating if I want to use it or not but it's something I can think about for a while. This is the top surface which is perforated vinyl.


The back side has a layer of foam insulation.


My new heater valve and hoses will be here tomorrow so I can start plumbing up the heater.

 

The material I had on my old well worn original heater box was identical to the Hardura material that is used as the boot floor carpet. A hard black vinyl material with a course horse hair type backing. I had some left over from making my boot carpet so used it on my heater box as the original stuff was shot. The edges are supposed to be stitched but I did not have the facility to do that so I sealed the edges once it was stuck on with black gasket glue to give a neat finish to the edges.

 

The version for the Heater Box is known as Hardura felt. Woolies sell in the UK.

We just made up our own with same material used under bonnet/hood. Used to come as a Mk2 kit from Barratts.


Work in progress.







Original.

Picture courtesy of Alan Wiedie.

 

I had a fun morning out in the garage. I started with re-sealing my power steering box and while I had everything out I made a new high-pressure line with braided stainless steel hose.
I filled the system with fluid and looped a belt around the pump pulley to my drill and powered the pump with that. I just wanted to get the fluid circulating to check for leaks. I put a piece of white cardboard underneath the box - we'll see if we have any leaks......


Then I moved to putting the exhaust manifolds back on. That was easy enough.



After that the alternator/AC mount went on. Here's the final installation of the alternator.


Then I mounted the AC compressor to see what size belt I needed.


There's plenty of clearance between the exhaust manifold and the compressor but I'll probably fabricate a shield to protect against radiant heat.


Finally I moved onto working out how to mount the fans to the radiator.

 

The AC Delco 15525 belt was a perfect match for length but was not the right width. It bottomed out on the crank pulley.
AC Delco 17525 is the wider belt and will not bottom out on the pulley. The 15x belt is .41" wide and the 17x belt is .47" wide.

 

I'm still waiting on a few more small parts to finish up the AC compressor install but AC Delco belt 17525 (or 9525 if you prefer Gates belts) was the perfect fit for my install.

 

This morning I got the tensioner for the AC compressor belt worked out. Using a rod end bolt and a 90° bracket I have a pretty effective way to tighten the belt.


All buttoned up. I still want to work on a bracket to steady the mount but I am happy with how this is turning out.


Next up is the new cable from the alternator to the battery. I'm trying something new this time - asphalt coated wire loom. It should do a good job of protecting the wire but the main benefit I see is that it's going to be a pretty close match to the wire loom that's already there.


I'm also happy to report that my power steering box rebuild appears to be a success as I don't have any drips underneath the car.

 

That's wonderful. You really are steaming away at it and extremely competently may I add. Great job!

 

I have both parts, bracket and clip, aftermarket, still in the SNG Barratt packaging. If you are interested, contact me at jagstype@gmail.com

Cheers,

David

 

Thanks for the offer David but I had 2 donor cars so I have 3 of them. One fitted. Maybe someone else needs one.

New correct inlet pipe has arrived so I can now trim & fit with Alan Wiedie's rubber sleeve he had manufactured.

Excuse illusion of diameter change caused by shadow. It is perfect.

 

And Cass. Thanks for the Webasto tip. It's their pipe. And James is bringing my Smoothride wires balancing kit when he's next out in 3 weeks time. They have bought a lovely house in Cape Town & will become swallows between Worcester & CT. Grace their daughter will go to school in CT ~ just around the corner from them and a great establishment. Reddam House.

 

It's not much of a picture but it represents a pretty significant milestone. The SendCutSend people cut and bent two brackets for me and I was able to finish the brace for the outside edge of the AC compressor bracket. The top has a rod end bolt screwed into a threaded sleeve, which is welded to a bracket that bolts through the engine mount.


With this done I can now reinstall the radiator, the new cooling fans, and the condenser. Then I can start plumbing up the AC lines.

 

I'm winding up 2022 with a strong day in the garage. I started with mounting the AC condenser to the radiator. Removing the grill made the process much easier.


Both cooling fans are mounted. I hot-wired one of the fans and it pulls a significant amount of air through the stock radiator (which is pretty thick) and the AC condenser.


Next up was a ground cable for the alternator. I wanted to make sure there was a good ground path.


With my new heater core I decided to go a different route with the heater valve. The stock vacuum-operated on/off valve is OK, but I wanted to be able to control the amount of hot water going to the core. I'm using a cable-operated valve. The other end of the cable with connect to to the Cold/Hot slider on the dash.
You can also see that I'm plumbing up the heater (and the radiator) with silicone hoses.


I think I found a spot for the PWM fan controller. I'm not a super big fan of it being so visible in the engine compartment but I don't have a whole lot of options.


I pulled the box of AC fittings off the shelf and started thinking out how I'm going to plumb the system.

 

I had to go to the east coast last week to help out my Mother-In-Law with some stuff around her house, but when I got back the FedEx man had delivered once again.

Very few of my gauges work with any sense of accuracy and while I enjoy the old school charm of a set of vintage Smith's gauges I also appreciate gauges that are truthful. Back in November I took advantage of Speedhut's Black Friday sale and ordered a complete set of 6 replacement gauges. The 4 gauges in the center of the dash are standard 2-1/16" and are easy to find, but the faces on my tach and speedo are closer to 5" and the largest gauge Speedhut makes is 4.5". Close but no cigar.


Enter the good people at SendCutSend who made me 4 washers that are 4.995" OD and 4.445" ID. They cut them from a sheet of .080" 6061 aluminum and powder coated them flat black.


These washers will allow me to use the 4.5" gauges in my dash.


I used Speedhut gauges a few years back on my MGB with a v6 engine and really like them. For the sake of simplicity the gauges I ordered for the Jaguar do not have any warning lights built into them but it's a nice touch.

 

Starting to look like an Aston Martin DB6 without the shaped top.

All you need is Selectoride on the black LHS knob with 4 protrusions.

 

Just to be clear - that last picture is my MGB, not my Jaguar.

 

It's 50° in Chicago in January so I made the most of the warm weather and spent a little time in the garage. I started with plumbing the heater and radiator using silicone tubing.


I also started working out where the AC was going to fit in the trunk. I'm currently leaning towards centering it on the back wall of the trunk and turning the unit so the hoses face the back of the car and not the front. If they faced the front it would be difficult to hook up the hoses the way I want to without cutting the rear bulkhead.


I also eyeballed the positions for the center air intake and the left side cold air outlet.

 

I think mounting the unit in the boot was a wise decision. So much more room and although you are not going to have the AC blowing in your face at least the cab will be nice and cool. One thing to look at is the possibility of having the ability to get some of the AC air directed towards the rear screen so you have a demister unless of course you are lucky to have a working electric screen demister. I have one as standard but the garage who started the restoration on my car prior to my purchase pulled the wires out of the screen when the took the rear screen out and I tried all sorts to reattach them but to no avail.