These are some of the parts that will need further assembly and a couple of bushings pressed in, and a ball joint or 2 will also be put where they need to go.

I have not done the front hub assembly yet as I need to make sure the new brakes will fit before I commit to that assembly, it should all bolt in according to what I have read so far.

 

The same thing has been done with the upper arms as well, and just as before you do not need to see all the little bits being fitted unless you request them, so here are the upper arms all powder coated as well. I will be coating all the front and rear suspension parts as I move my way through it all until it is done.

I don't have the bushings for these just yet so you have to wait and see how this all goes together.

 

Hi everyone, yesterday I thought I could have the old K frame out and the new one in before the sun went down. Wellllllll, that didn't happen, It took me almost 2 days to get it all fitted and the engine down to its correct height in the engine bay.
I like the colour it has been painted in, and yes I call powder coating paint. Because this took a lot longer than expected, this was really as far as I got with it all for now.

 

I am quite sure we all know about the invasion of the newer style poly bushings, they have some good reviews and equally some bad ones. I have decided to give them a bit of a go and see if they really are an improvement, however the shock bushings have remained the same press in jobs of the past.

Yup! all powder coated, but I always intended it to be that way, besides I have to use that press I bought at least once.

I did need to make sure it was pressed in to give an equal amount of metal on both sides. I did however loose the complete set of rear bushings, I am not too happy about the idea but I still need to get these things in, so I have ordered another set.

 

I do have a little bit of a problem lurking in the back of my mind, The engine in the car right now is a stock as a rock engine from a 1992 Ford LTD. (Australian version.) and sits nicely in its place now, but I have acquired a pair of GT40P heads, and I am contemplating using them, I am just wondering if the rest of the upper end will still fit. I am told I can use the AU XR8 Falcon as they used the same heads, so I will look into it in more detail as time progresses.

 

As long as you dont put on one of those stupid looking bonnet scoops.....

 

I think that has already been covered quite some time ago.

 

Now!!! We have had no real progress for quite few months. I have no intensions of boring the hell out you, however it seems some people are not happy with what I do. (bugger.) There is a reason for the bonnet scoop, the main reason is height of the engine, secondly it lets out the hot air. The engine sits a little bit higher than the carb engine I used to see if I could get a V8 engine in there.

The engine covers will hit the bottom of the bonnet, I did consider a bonnet bulge at first, the change has been made now.

 

Dont get me wrong you are doing some great things in terms of making your jag a modified vehicle to your taste, I just hava a thing about bonnets scoops!! If you have to do it you have to do it!

 

Okay, I have been playing silly buggers today. I have a couple of pics to show you how much the bonnet scoop was really needed.

 

The black section is made of plastic, and that is why it has not been powder coated, the rest is an alloy, and it has been powder coated green. the next pic shows how close it gets just before the scoop starts.
the next shot shows it all climbing upwards.

 

This gives you an idea of how much area I needed to cover.

 

So today I started fitting the transmission mounts and will finally insert the driveshaft into the transmission, hopefully it will be done by the end of the day. More pics tomorrow.

 

Well today I did at least get the transmission mount finally done, then I had a couple of other ideas.

I have dropped the link a little bit, I have a couple of ideas, just not sure what to do with them. So I have made up a small bash plate, and hopefully soon I can try out my other ideas, if they don't work well nothing much there.

So I made up this bash plate to start with, thinking of playing with the air flow under the car, but just ideas for now.

 

Well today has come to an end, but it has been a very good day for me at least. I finished installing the transmission mount, and got the tail shaft done, and as predicted I ordered the new lower control arm rear bushings, and I later found the ones I had lost. So both lower control arms are now in place.

My shafts seem to be in very good condition so I painted them up with copper anti seize, put the new poly bushings in place and poked it all through. I did the same thing with the front control arm as well.

My shafts seem to be in very good condition so I painted them up with copper anti seize, put the new poly bushings in place and poked it all through. I did the same thing with the front control arm as well.

I decided to put some lowered springs in the car, I will need to wait for these to arrive. I put the old shock in place, mainly so I don't loose all the bolts and nuts, as they also will be replaced.

 

Okay everyone today is a fairly slack day, waiting for parts to arrive is quite frustrating at times. I thought I would go over a few comments made over the last years so. I haven't responded to some of them because I thought at the time they did not deserve an answer. Don't get me wrong I also enjoy looking at an all original car. So I decided to have a look around about engine weights among the manufacturers, and I found some interesting things about our engines. Now I am a member of a few modified Jaguar forums. They can be extremely informative, sometimes downright wrong, and then then purist that try to use defamatory remarks to describe the modification part to the obviously superior genuine Jaguar part. I personally don't have a following of a particular brand of parts in most cases, although I must confess that some parts are definitely better than others, cheap parts can be just as the price is; CHEAP. These will fail very quickly in most cases and so try to do a bit of research before you try a different brand. Anyway back to engines. A quick search shows our Jaguar AJ6 engine coming in at 430lb, an all alloy block unfortunately I don't know if it has any accessories attached which in itself can make quite a difference to the overall weight of the completed package. We will now compare the weight of the inferior Heavy US cast iron manufacturers. The most common being the Chev 350 V8 and it weighs in at 570lb, but for me it was a little bit too big for my engine bay. (1988 XJ40) and the Chrysler was a little bit bigger, and heavier again, so still not much good for me. Ford on the other hand has so many engines it becomes a challenge to decide what you are looking for. In my case I was looking for the smallest sized engine, physically, the weight and capacity did not really come into my equation at the time. I was looking for length and width, (Mainly width) and at the time I focused on the most common of engines I know of. In Australia we had the Cleveland engine in most of our Ford v8 powered cars in the early 1970's and the Windsor in the 1960's. The Cleveland was a much wider engine than the Windsor, but it wasn't a common engine here in Australia for a while, until the 1990's when Ford Australia decided to re introduce the V8 engines into our cars again. (These dates are not totally accurate) anyway the Windsor was re introduced with EFI and was putting out some good power, this engine was also narrow enough for me to use in my application, and the comment "heavy US cast iron" this engine weighed in at 411lb, so slightly lighter than the alloy Jaguar AJ6 engine. I chose this engine simply because it would fit, no other reason. In Australia we called the 302 engines in metric a 4.9l, I believe in the USA they labelled it a 5.0l and having EFI just added to the pleasure of fitting one into my car. That is the end of my dribble session for now, I will do other dribble sessions as I encounter some other statements. Remember these are from an assortment of forums and therefore some statements may or may not have appeared on this one. I don have 1 question; If you are not interested in modifications to cars, why join a modified forum?

 

Hi there everyone, I have a question about improving the turning circle of my XJ40. I know they don't really have a good turning circle normally, so I was wondering if there is anything that can improve it while I have the front end all stripped down for now,

 

Hi Clive,

I always wished our XJ40s had a tighter turning radius too. Unfortunately, I am not aware of anything that can be done to improve the turning circle with the standard steering rack and front tire width.

There were at least two or three steering racks used over course of XJ40 production. I think the earliest ones were by Adwest, and all the rest were by ZF.

The X300 and X308 also have ZF racks, but they have the Servotronic variable assist that requires a vehicle speed signal from the instrument cluster, so working out the electronics and communication could be complicated or insurmountable. The default condition of the Servotronic racks is low assist, so for parking and slow speed maneuverability you would want the power assist to work. And I don't know if the turning radius is any better with the Servotronic racks. That information may be available with a little research.

Over the years I've hoped someone would identify an alternate steering rack or replacement pinion & rack parts that could improve the XJ40, but I can't recall anyone ever doing it. Maybe you will be the one to succeed!

Cheers,

Don

 

I only got one day to work on the car this weekend, so I decided to do something that won't take much time to do. I decided to make up the tail pipes and start making them ready to be fitted even though the rest of the exhaust will not be there. The reason for this is the tail pipes I want to remain fairly level and having the desired stick out from under the rear bumper, only to find I didn't have enough 25mm flat bar to finish the mounts, hehehe always something I suppose.

I am also now waiting yet again for bushings for the upper control arms and ball joints, I will be considering new front wheel bearings as well seeing it is all pulled down at the moment.

 

I understand that some things seem a little heavy at times, and I feel for good reason, although I admit I am possibly over engineering things. The exhaust end I have made up are to be held in a fairly precise location and so these are being made to stand alone for now, and when the full exhaust goes on it will be done by an exhaust shop, so it will only be the ends that are a tad heavy, and they will also be rubber insulated to avoid any unwanted vibrations to go through the body. I am after all trying to keep it all fairly quiet inside at least. I know that a true dual system is not the best for any engine really, but that is what I will be running when it gets installed. I am looking for a nice deep tone on the exhaust, but not very loud, and I have found that a true dual exhaust gives a very distinct sound. Something I discovered back in my younger days. You will all see what my aim is when the ends are done and bolted in, until then you will just have to use your imagination.