Thanks for that, I hadn't even thought about those pipes but shall inspect them now.

Note for the future--I have the car raised level and high enough to let the rear end assembly be lowered five inches, which is more than enough to drag it out through one side wheel well (I used a come-along (lever hoist) anchored to a tree to pull it out, then an appliance hand cart to move it into my "garage").

Also like to note that the entire unit was not forward-tipping while in the air but settled "nose down" once the hub carriers were on the ground.

I shall be applying Fluid Film to some exposed areas under the car before reassembly. Eg, I have removed, cleaned and painted the muffler hangers and shall cover them with it when reinstalling.

 

[sigh] I suppose one needs a sense of humor to work on a classic jaguar.

So here is my fun story. I'd set aside this weekend to finally put the IRS cage back in the car. I had some time late yesterday to lift the car and move the cage/jack into position under the car so it was ready to go into place today. I started to raise the cage, focusing on lining it up properly, but as I was checking it from each side and adjusting the jack I noticed a puddle of something under the right side that wasn't there before. "What the...?"

Given the puddle's location, my first fear was that my newly refurbished over-axle fuel line was leaking [groan]. I dipped my finger into it expecting to smell/feel petrol, but it was a clear oil. I knew it wasn't the diff oil, because the new oil is purple, and it seemed too thick to be brake fluid. I'm asking myself, 'did I break something as I was initially raising cage?' I raised the IRS unit on the jack enough to get a look underneath. Ugh, one of the rear shocks decided to commit suicide while sitting overnight. My next thought, 'is it too early in the day for a beer?'

I hadn't planned on replacing the rear shocks because that is the ONE thing that had been replaced, and don't really have that many miles on them. The shop I used to take the beast to, had a customer order and pay for four Boge shocks, but never brought their car back or returned the shop's call. After sitting on the shelf for over a year, the shop offered them to me for free it I paid the labor to put them in. I guess that was more years ago than I thought.

Soooooo, I have to replace that shock. And if you replace one, you should replace four. So that raises a few questions:

1. Should I replace the springs too?

2. Does anyone have any recommendations for shocks? Are the shocks with springs installed available?

3. I assume it will be much easier to replace the shocks with the cage out of the car, correct?

 

I'd simply replace the one bad shock and call it good. No need to replace the springs.

It's not bad at all to remove the shocks in car, no need to drop the cage again.

 

Is there a trick to lining up new mounts when raising the cage?

I replaced all four of the IRS cage mounts, taking note to make sure they were installed in the correct orientation. I also didn't tighten the bolts/nuts that attach the mounts to the cage, thinking that would make it easier to align/maneuver the mount to chassis holes. When I raised the cage before noticing the leaking shock, only one of the mount to chassis holes was close enough to insert the bolt. Raising the jack any more seemed to only result in raising both the cage and car. I double checked the new mounts are identical to the old ones.

Reading some threads in the forum archives, there was reference to only replacing one at time to make it easier, but that ship has sailed since I already removed the old mounts. The ROM says when replacing the mounts, to bolt them to the chassis first, then raising the cage into the mounts, but @Greg in France posted that he tried that once and would never do it again.

So before I have a chance to attempt installing the cage again, what is the secret?

Thanks

 

FWIW.....I always leave the mounts on the car and then lift the cage onto the mounts. <shrug>

I can't remember any tricks per se. Some pushing, pulling and jiggling is required to get things lined up. I do one side then the other rather than trying to get both sides lined up at once

Others will chime in

Cheers
DD

 

If you have them bolted to the cage that's fine, but I'd do them up tight. The rubber is amazingly easy to move around, you will need a tapered punch though the holes to move the mount around and then you can get bolts inserted. I usually do one pair on the car and one the cage - I think front on the car, rear on the cage, but I can't remember if that is revered. Probably doesn't matter.

 

Putting the cage back in today, and good news is I have the 8 bolts inserted through the mounts and frame.

Bad news, I only have two bolts going all the way through the mount holes on the interior side and I'm stumped. Can't figure out a way to leverage the rubber to get the holes lined up on that side.

Had to take a break for some lunch, and hopefully one of you will have a suggestion for me.

Thanks!

 

Dang, what a frustrating day. After struggling for several more hours, I decided to pull the bolts, drop the cage, and take the mounts off the cage, and try the other method. Thought it would be easy to get the bolts through both sides without any weight on them... haha... what a fool.

Of the four mounts, only one would allow me to get the bolts through the holes on both sides. Comparing the old mounts to the new, there are two subtle differences. The bolt holes in the new mounts are very slightly smaller, but not enough to be the only issue. The larger issue is the bend the metal on the mount isn't exactly the same, though if you hold them up side by side they look the same. The pictures below illustrate the problem, I put a bolt through the inboard side of the mount and frame so that you can see that the bend of the mount isn't quite correct.

After having to wait on parts, now I can't believe I wasted an entire day struggling with those.

Though my old mounts aren't broken, it's tempting just to use those, but they're 33 years old and that seems foolhardy. Any ideas of a way I can bend or fix the new mounts?

 

That's infuriating!! What ******* produced, then SHIPPED that? Mac, if your old mounts look and feel good, put them back in. As was pointed out above, they can be replaced later if necessary without a full cage drop.

I'm not having a good time getting parts. Seems retails have forgotten how to retail. No one has everything I need, some don't know what they have until they go to pick the parts to ship, etc etc.

 

I didn't want to give up and just re-install the old mounts, as wanting to renew the mounts was part of the raison d'etre* for dropping the cage along with the diff leak... (*that was a nod to Greg In France) ...I was thinking of returning the mounts and ordering new ones, but wondered how would I know if they would be any better?

After sleeping on it, I decided to try some vice work with the mounts and various forms of persuasion to see if I could bend them as needed, but without enough success to make them work. Until I thought of another form of persuasion, Here's my tip for anyone else who faces the same issue. I used a heavy duty C clamp to force the mount to wrap tightly around the frame, see photo below. It was remarkable how much a difference the C clamp created, and with leveraging a long tapered punch when needed I got 7 of 8 bolts all the way through. The final bolt required filling a third of a millimeter with a round file to barely enlarge the mount hole, which was fortunately toward the middle section with lots of metal, and not the sides closer to the edge (if that makes sense).




Hopefully, this tip will help someone else.

Part way there, all eight bolts in and mounts secured to the frame. End of my lunch break, let's see if I can raise the IRS and get the mounts lined up on the cage this afternoon.

Cheers

 

Mac, Well done! Good perseverance!

Presumably, those mounts weren't from Jaguar? Where did you source them?

Paul

 

This project has taken so long, that off the top of my head I don't remember which source, but I ordered all the parts for the rebuild from SNG Barratt and Moss Motors, until the shocks then it was Welsh Enterprises. All generally very good suppliers for Jaguar parts in the US. I know I remember ordering the mounts based on the Jaguar part number CBC5737 because I knew the convertibles used a different mount. I think I remember the plastic bags being labeled like OEM Jaguar parts, but I tossed those weeks or months ago. Apologies that I don't recall, but I can look it up later if you want.

Cheers

 

IRS cage successfully lifted and mounts connected, with far less drama than the prior day and half. So after a full weekend, i'm where I thought I would be by noon yesterday, but enough progress that I can start connecting things instead fo tearing them apart as soon as I can find more time to get stuck in.

Must carry on!

 

Well done.

 

I ordered a bunch of little parts from Moss, who "shipped" them into another dimension where it took 6 days to get them to the USPS. They're still in California.

Rockauto just sent me the wrong rotors for the rear, I mean altogether wrong, they're vented fronts with 5 holes for a smaller car and not coated as described. It took 9 days for them to arrive from Arizona (the order was split in two; the other batch came in 2 days which is what I'm accustomed to with this supplier). This is their second error on this car--last year they sent an alternator that didn't fit and I had to pay half the shipping to return it.

Terrysjag.com is now owned by a German firm called Engel and will not ship parts from their location in Michigan to me, a 4.5 hr drive. They'd rather ship from Germany, so placing an order has to be done by telephone to see if they have the parts in stock (the German inventory is not attached to the website).

 

During the week I’d sneak an hour or two to go in the garage to start connecting things up, and given how things had gone before, this week it all went surprisingly well.

A couple of tips from my experience this week. One, if you have a pair of long nose hose pliers like the ones pictured below, it makes putting the hand brake springs back in easier than anything else I could find. It allows you to pull the spring and align the spring end into the hole on the cage connection.



BTW, am I the only one who is a little mystified that Jaguar used a design for like 40 years that routes an exhaust pipe ridiculously close to brake calibers and lines? Heat and brakes aren’t supposed to be close friends.

With that in mind, I read numerous threads of people having problems adjusting the exhaust pipes far enough away from the calibers and not having them bang on the cage. I stumbled onto a little trick for reconnecting the exhaust that helps in this regard, at least if you still have the resonators attached. First step is to get the two hanger pins successfully into their hangers and push the over-axle pipe and resonator all the way toward the rear of the car. Grab a tall jack stand and a rubber block. Position the jack stand with the rubber block on top ready to slide under the resonator. Rotate the over-axle pipe and resonator unit on the hanger pins toward the outboard side of the car and use the jack stand to hold the resonator in that position. This puts the over-axle pipe in the maximum distance position from the caliber. With resonator held in place, it’s much easier to get the exhaust olives/clamps in position and properly seated.

Addtionally, SNG Barratt offers a stainless steel braided brake line to replace the rubber one, which worked nicely.

Everything all buttoned up, and I just had to wait for my daughter to come over to help me bleed the brakes since the better half is out of town (thanks @ptjs1 for the instructions -- I modified for LHD). Did a full flush of old fluid so the bleeding took a bit of time, but she was amazingly patient. Though she did scare the ---- out of me when she accidentally started the car while I was lying underneath the cage bleeding the first caliber.

Time for the test drive. Good news, remarkable difference in how the car felt and the absence of several noises the car used to make. Including the diff noise from the leaking output seal. Well worth all the effort, waiting on parts, and all the fubars encountered.

Slight bad news, with the diff noise gone, I can hear a different noise that will need to be addressed, but I’ll start a new thread on that once I get over the disappointment. That aside, I’m glad I screwed up the courage to get stuck in and persevere through putting it all back in.

Thanks everyone!

EDIT - The other issue is the parking brake doesn't appear to work, though I followed the ROM procedure (or at least I thought). Too tired to work out what I didn't do correctly.

 

Mac
Check out my parking brake permanent fix in the stickies, I think. Too late now the cage is back in, but next time maybe! The OEM setup will never delievr a reliable brake over time.

 

Nice job, Mac, happy you got her back together. I'm still waiting for some parts to arrive. But grateful for your advice and everyone else's.

Didn't see it in the stickies but found your thread, Greg: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...cement-148450/

 

Question regarding the handbrake, in the following section of the ROM when they refer to the "handbrake actuating lever" are they referring to the parking brake lever in the car or the lever on the caliber?

Thanks

 

Here is the handbrake issue, with the cable adjusted inside the car, the handbrake does engage and prevents the rear wheel from moving unless applying enough force or putting it drive or reverse and it will move. Not really that great. If you adjust the cable to get more 'bite', the Park Brake light will remain on after disengaging the lever.

I disconnected the springs and the cable from the handbrake calibers to see if there was an opportunity to get more "adjuster ratchet clicks", but moving the caliber arms fully in both directions there were no more clicks to give. Looking at the pads, they are very close to the rotor and look like they are in spec. Therefore, my guess is that when I have time to remove the driver's seat, I can adjust the cable to get the correct 'bite' when engaged, and free wheel movement when released, then adjust the microswitch on the lever so the Park Brake light is off when released.

Does that make sense?

For now it works for my purposes because the only time I ever usually use the handbrake is when I put the top up or down.