A friend of mine has a Daimler V8 in Metallic Grey with dark blue upholstery. Looks magnificent.

 

It looks good on Jaguars of all ages.

What became of the Callum Mk2? I've heard nothing of it for a few years.

 

I have no idea. I heard a rumour that he had sold it but it was nothing more than that. It's like Mercedes Benz. All their designs look best in Iridium silver. It's one colour that shows up all the subtlety in design.

 

Thank you Bill. I was wondering how well the chrome would contrast against the grey paint - I think the answer is quite well! That's a beautiful shade!
Thomas

 

Thomas, If it's a suitable metallic/opalescent grey, when the sun shines and reflects from the chrome, it also makes the paint shine on the curves of the body. My XK in the top photo is actually grey, but looks like silver in the sunlight. I was planning on buying a silver blue car, but, when we saw this parked next to it, it was so much better.

 

My personal opinion is that BRG and red is the best exterior/interior combination. To the extent that I changed the interior on my XJ-S.

 

I think BRG looks best with Biscuit upholstery, door panels & carpeting.

 

Not much to report; lately I have been driving her whenever I can. I noticed when driving above 65mph there was a small and diffuse amount of warm air entering the cabin. I thought it might have been the scuttle air vent but some strips of painter's tape and a blast down the tollway showed that was not the culprit. The only other option really was the heater box not being sealed to the firewall; I removed that tonight and resealed it with some weather strip.

In the process of removing the heater box I knocked the reaction valve filter/cap off the master cylinder and lost the spring in the process. Those are cheap and easy enough to replace so with a new one arriving Thursday I'll be back behind the wheel in time for the long holiday weekend. I was reading up on how the system works and it's quite an interesting approach to achieve power braking with a remote booster. I had never given it much thought until now but I have a new found appreciation for how the system works.

 

Yes it is an interesting system. Back in High School and when I was getting my first college degree I worked part time rebuilding brake master cylinders and power brake boosters for all sorts of cars, trucks and agricultural equipment.

 

I've been spending more time driving the 420 than anything else lately, but this weekend I finally got around to making a cover the heater out of the heavy Hardura I bought a few months back. I made a pattern using a paper grocery bag, transferred that to the Hardura, and cut it out using a razor knife. I used heavy-duty black tape on the seams which held up to the heat of a 150 mile drive today; the next time I pull the heater box out I will glue it in place.


Now that the Memorial Day car shows and drives are out of the way, I'll spend some time this week replacing the window channels, rub strips, and door seals on the right side of the car.

 

On my 420, the door tops are screwed into some type of hardwood blocks which are then screwed to the door itself. While the hardwood blocks are mostly hidden from view, they show evidence of water damage that happened some point over the last 56 years.
My first inclination was to go to a specialty lumber store near me and buy something that would be a good replacement. Maybe mahogany, or walnut, or something like that. After cutting it to the right shape I could coat it with some polyurethane to seal it from the elements.
Then I remembered I had some ½" by ½" black UHMW polyethylene on the shelf. It's the right size and it's easy to machine so getting it to the right shape will be easy enough. I'm going to try a piece of the plastic and see how well it works. It should be a forever solution and being out of sight I'm not too worried about how it looks.

 

A little water damage on the original mounting blocks won't hurt anything as long as it holds a screw, specifically the screws that hold the door caps in place.
Scuff the wood with a 100 grit and paint it with some black Tremclad paint, not water base.

The plastic will work too, but a holes must be drilled first for the door cap screws, or the screws will twist off.
Plastic has no wood grain (air pockets) so it can't be compressed when a screw is driven into it.

The holes drilled have to be a little bigger then the shank size of the screw, even in hardwood most times.
The use of Vaseline helps the screw go in easy.
I find "Number" drills work best here to get just the right size hole.
If the screws become too tight when mounting and you feel they may twist off, back them out and go the next size up.

 

Boiled linseed oil is a very good way of recovering and protecting mildly weather worn wood. It leaves a pleasant smell as well.

 

I had a very rare day all to myself, so I decided to finish up the seals/window channels/door wipes on the last door - the passenger front. At this point I am very good at the process and from start to putting all my tools away took about 4 hours. I have learned that the front doors are much harder to remove from the car than the rear doors but the seals on the front door are easier to replace.

From day 1 the aft end of the interior door handle/arm rest was adrift and I wasn't sure what I would find. It turns out the rivets holding this plate to the door had broken which resulted in the screw having nothing to attach to. It had to come out anyway so while I had it out...


I ran it through the sand blaster to remove all the old paint and rust...


Then painted it so it will last another 56 years.


Replacing the door seals is an in-depth job and the door must come off. It doesn't even look possible to do it with the door in place.
The most interesting part of this picture is that you can see the original paint color on the front edge of the B-pillar in contrast to the repainted color on the outside edge.



I also decided to do something about the AC thermostat. There is one mounted on the AC unit in the trunk but it's not adjustable when the car is in motion. After last week's trip in the car when my wife complained it was too cold I was looking at options on adjusting the temperature from the driver's seat. I found cable-adjustable AC thermostats and thought about how I could make that work, then I remembered I had run across this thermostat a few months back. It's an electronic thermostat instead of the more common mechanical thermostats. I'll have to extend the wires for the temp sensor and find a spot under the dash to mount the control box but that's easy enough.

 

That's the answer. Did you have one of those stupid temperature adjusters on the back parcel shelf? Whoever came up with that bright idea should have been strangled at birth.

 

If you think that's bad, here's what I'm living with. The round knob in the center of the unit (towards the right edge of the picture) is how you adjust the temperature of the evaporators. It's not reachable from inside the car and since there's a panel covering the AC unit in the trunk, it's not even easily reachable if you stop the car.

 

Hi Thomas,
You should put it where the 420 has its A/C controls, in the middle of the cubby above the heater controls. That way your wife can turn it up when she is too cold.

OR you could do what one of building HVAC guys did that I knew back in the day. There was a VP secretary that always complained about the temperature at her desk. So he put a thermostat at her desk that she could change when ever she wanted. The thermostat wasn't connected to anything but she thought she was in control of the temperature and never complained about the temperature again.

 

Thorson:
Could you not take something like this in the desired RPM range and connect it directly to the knob of the evaporator ?
Then you could run the wires to the front from the servo motor.
A dead man toggle switch for reverse and forward; you would have to come up with a trip switch for both directions when the knob reached the end of its travel.

 

Oh my. That's even worse than the rear parcel shelf centre.

 

Now that's thinking out of the box! Great idea and would be super easy to implement too! The only downside is you lose the visual indicator for where the temp is set, but the upside is that it's much easier to hide a switch than that box. I did something similar to this on my XJS when I replaced the vacuum controlled fresh/recirc air boxes with linear actuators.