Hi guys,

I'm considering joining the jaguar family. I recently met someone with a '59 Mk1 with new wheels, brakes, exhaust, steering, rebuilt trans. He even re-did the headliner and has the replacement wood for the interior. All it needs is a 3.4l engine (which he has on another car for an additional $1000).

I'm not trying to produce a show car. It's cool because it's a classic and I'd love to clean it up, make it pretty, and take my wife for a stroll in a car that's over 20 years older than we are

Would this be considered a nice buy or a potential temple of doom???

 

Dre, if I lived closer, I would be buying that car. Just keep in mind that if you have some mechanical ability, you can make a very decent car for fairly little money. Granted, at the same time, I would highly recommend plan on spending an additional say $3000 (for a total of $5000 since I would get both cars) to fix some of the problems that will pop their heads up with a car like that. The older Jags were well known for electrical issues. If you can get something like a Painless Wiring kit (not promoting them, just know they have a lot of kits for what I am talking about), it will cost you probably about $600 to get installed (you doing all the labor), but this will ensure the car will be electrically sound. With wiring that is 50 years old, it is going to be very brittle and prone to many problems.

LIke I mentioned before, I wish I lived closer as I would be picking up both cars. Granted, plan on a lot of time with the car as I am sure it will need some TLC. But, it will be time well spent for a car like that.

You don't mention the condition of the sheet metal. That might be something else to look into. Being that it is a car from the northern states, if it has been driven in the snow, it can have serious problems with the underside and even possibly the frame leading to a very weak support structure for the car and possible ending up as a money pit in the end.

 

Thanks Thermo. I will get a chance to check out the car in person this weekend. From what I researched, I need to check the body for smoothness in search of rust or putty. I got a hard-to-see set of pics because he doesn't have a great camera. It's emerald green and was used to ride around town till the rod in the engine was bent. He bought the other car to swap engine and trans (its body was in bad rusty shape he says) but ran out of money due to the unexpected job loss. I intend to do the work myself so I'd definitely look into the Painless kit. That is the fun part that makes this car more attractive to me than buying the finished product.

I've done plenty of work on cars but never pulled or installed an engine (truly wish I could) so I will probably get someone else to do it . Everything else will be done by me.

Anything else I should look for? Should I be concerned about the type of gas that goes in? Would I need some sort of additive (new gas in older car)? Sorry if I'm rambling. I've been quite excited up to this point

 

I'd be excited, too. Sounds like a great project. Heavy on the "project" part :-)

As mentioned, a rusted-out body will be the deal breaker that'll turn a fun project into a....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZAS5...eature=related

Cheers
DD

 

True, I'd like to avoid that at all costs! Any tricks to determining the condition when the body already has paint on it?

 

Look for rust bubbles in the paint. Sorta like automotive leprosy. And look closely at the underbody, bottoms of the doors, lower body panels. If you see rust bubbles on the surface it's sure to be much worse underneath.

Rust can be half-assed patched up and painted over and it won't show....until a year or two down the road.

Good luck

DD

 

Since it was one that he'd been using to drive around town I was sure that it would be ready to roll after the engine swap (and a few other repairs of course). Unfortunately, that's not the case this time. It had been sitting up long enough (a year maybe?) that the wood on the dash had gotten soaked by humidity and mildew so all of that would need to be replaced (may be hard to find) along with the carpeting (no big deal). The engine/trans swap would be coming from an XJ6 3.4 that he bought specifically for this purpose. Rust was not extremely bad but was visible under the door at the corner and at the rear near the wheel well. Has all paperwork and documentation for all the work he'd done (the wheels alone ran over $1k! Not to mention steering, brakes, stainless steel exhaust...) so he invested quite a bit into it.

Sadly, my pockets aren't yet deep enough to tackle as much as I can see that needs to be done . For $1000, this one is a pretty cool ride for a great price. I'm hoping someone grabs it who can appreciate it. Now my wife and I are stuck on the Jags so we're looking for another classic (don't know which, just gotta be as pretty as the Mk1 was )

Take a peek at it... http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/cto/1889081353.html