Call Jon for Jonathan. John was his dad after which the business was named. I can vouch for their high quality. Did my car with their material right down to lambswool Union Cloth headlining. The BAS material is completely wrong. See my signature. Minor corrections have been done/made since these were taken.

 

WOW. I am speechless. Any before pics? Your level is my goal. FYI, psi on low cylinder hit 110 today, so pretty sure I am ok. I have a spark plug hole with stripped threads, but other than that, I can see it running no problem. Then I can assesss how far I want to dive into the motor. (lets be honest, I am going to do a full rebuild) Same for the trans.

I will welcome your input as I walk this path. Did you buy new wheels or refurb? Also, did you use new bolts, or re-plate the old ones? Its a real tightrope deciding how crazy to get with originality. Mine is never going to be a high dollar resto, but how close to original is the "right" amount?

 

New Wheels from MWS ~ read my thread in my signature. Fitting an insert or Helicoil to your stripped plug thread is dead simple. Your choice.

Bought many new bolts. Only plated perfect ones. Engine rebuild Plasti-gauged every bearing. Crank, flywheel & clutch balanced. Rods & pistons weight matched.

Old pics pre digital. Interior properly resprayed after media blasting inside & out & inspecting all cavities for rust with a long boroscope and new harnesses everywhere ~ full new set. Fortunately a completely rust free car that lived in the dry at over 7000 foot for it's entire life & garaged. Not a single item not restored whether you can see it or not. True ground up. Just been rated the best in SA for insurance purposes & 100> points by the Crank-handle Club Judges. Many corrections made along the way to ensure correct. e.g. now correct clutch bottle cap. Battery cover not fitted yet but correct helmet & screw leads used.











The finished item on it's way to the carrier to Cape Town where I live. Some work to finish in some pics, work in progress. Now attaching all correct decals where they belong ~ showed to Judges. I finally have them all plus all correct paperwork that came with the cars. Correct pouches (with Maroon press stud), owners manuals, service book etc. etc. No 4 off the SA CDA line restored to British spec. Minor corrections have been done/made since these were taken and those in my thread.
















Protective decal on plinth for Boot/trunk. And on treadplates



Matching over-mats made in Wilton carpeting right down to correct heel protectors. Batch matched by Jon Skinner.

 

Couple of things.
Nuts and Bolts. I reused near enough every nut and bolt I took off the car as they were all in good condition apart from the small 1/8 nuts and bolts in the wheel arches that had rusted. I found the quality of the original nuts and bolts was far superior to any new ones you could buy now. Compare that to my Ford Anglia where I had to grind off nuts and bolts and replace every single one as they were completely rusted together.
There are so many parts that can be restored, polished, cleaned, minor repairs done which is so much better than just buying new. I got great satisfaction from getting the original parts back from the dead and reusing them. Easy if you have deep pockets just to buy new. Friend of mine is into his S type rebuild to the tune of £50k. Everything new. Some of the parts he has taken off and put in the throw away pile are better then the parts I have on my car. My restoration cost £6500 but it is still not shabby.

Only you can decide how much time and money you are willing to put into the project.



As I bought it July 2013

At the blasters being stripped of rust, paint and filler.

Shell in undercoat

Rolling chassis with final paint coat.

On the road October 2014

 

Many of my nuts & bolts were lost that I had neatly packed & labeled by my first restorer that I fired while on long overseas Expat assignment & we had to spray the car twice as a result & required one & a half donor cars to finish the job. I don't regret the second respray. As you can see Erens is a talented painter & metal worker. The donor cars cost a whole 357,89 Pounds sterling.

We did restore most things that were not rubber, & I never got a bad nut or bolt from Barratts ~ most were even correctly marked. We plated plenty of them from my donor cars. Plating is dirt cheap.

Yes ~ I did throw money at the thing right at the end to get it finished after 30 years. but loved restoring all the gauges, woodwork etc. etc. I never spent anywhere near £50k but your labour is expensive vs ours & Erens & I worked well together to finish it. It was his first Jag. He is a Studerbaker man. I accept that I'm not costing in my personal time but neither are you Rob. I think to a degree we are comparing apples with pears. You can get Jag spares a lot cheaper than I can when you add in courier costs on all items & especially items like radiators whereas your labour costs are far higher than ours.

Restored gauge example.

 

You are quite right Glyn it is the labour that puts the price up. You will not get a garage in the UK to look at a car today for less than £50 an hour labour plus we have the dreaded VAT tax which puts an extra 20% on everything. The only way to restore a car cheaply is to do all the work yourself. I hate to think how many hours I did on my car but it was a least 30 hours a week for 16 months so at £50 an hour I work that out in the region of £96k plus 20% £19.2k. Grand total in labour around £115k. Stupid money. I know people in the UK who are sending their classics to Poland to have them restored as labour costs are a lot cheaper.

 

All good info, thank you.

Poor cylinder now up to 110psi, so I think itll run once I get the ignition sorted. Maybe Sunday.

Can this car be hotwired? (like putting positive on the coil?) I have only TWO wires behind the dash where the ignition goes.

 

420 electrics are pretty simple. There is a wire from the alternator to the Solenoid on the bulk head. There is a wire from the solenoid to the Ammeter. From the Ammeter there is a wire to the ignition switch and then a wire from the switch back to the Solenoid via the fuse box. The solenoid is connected to the battery which also has a wire down to the starter motor. Hope this makes sense so far. When you turn the ignition switch on this connects all these wires in a circuit and your ignition warning light comes on and power goes to the coil. To start the car you have a button and by pushing the button you trigger a relay in the Solenoid which allows power from the battery to go to the starter motor and the car starts. You can turn the car over by pushing the button on the solenoid but without the ignition on (which also powers the coil) the engine will not start.
Attached is the wiring diagram for the S type Jaguar which is pretty similar to the 420 other than the 420 is Neg earth and the S type is Pos earth. You should have a copy of the 420 wiring diagram in the PDF file I sent you containing the 420 service manual.

 

My buddy from Dallas with his 43 car fully fledged & tooled garage hidden in his new house by some clever architecture has had many cars done in Poland. He has just bought an equal share in the business with the previous sole owner that he has now become close friends with.

They churn out magnificent work. The Poles are damn fine workers.

 

We have spark!

After plugging in some wires, it cranks, has compression and sparks. Next stop plugs, wires and hopefully vroom.

 

There are some 420/S-type bumpers for sale on Craigslist. They may need rechroming. Here is the link.

https://portland.craigslist.org/wsc/...537791663.html

Then there is the Harrington Group that makes stainless steel bumpers in Vietnam. I believe they are thinner metal gauge than the original.

https://groupharrington.com/product/.../?currency=USD

I assume that your car was the one being sold by affordable classics San Diego. If so you got a good deal on it. I was watching it's price drop for a while. I'm looking for a 420 but I'm waiting for a 4spd OD, LHD. If you find one please let me know.

Hope this helps,

 

You assume correctly- I got it from San Diego place- I got it to "start" with starting fluid, ran about 5 seconds. No bad noises, sounded like every cylinder was firing.

One plug hole is stripped 3/4 down, so I will have to fix that sooner or later. Debating redoing the top end with a good used head when the time comes.

I will check out those bumpers- thank you!

Now I need to replace/rebuild the fuel pump(s) to see if I can make it run proper. Anybody holding one they want to sell me? I dont need a reliable one, just one that will get me by during initial testing/running.. I have carb rebuild kits, those are in the near future as well.

I'll keep an eye out for you in my travels for sure.

 

Working with the bumper guy now- THANK YOU BOB!!!

 

The stainless steel bumpers from The Harrington group are very good. I was the one that supplied them with the S type, 420 and 420G bumpers for them to copy as prior to that they only supplied the Mk2 bumpers. I wanted some bumpers for my S Type but they did not make them at the time so I sent them my good spare bumpers for them to copy along with bumpers from the 420 and the 420G.
The bumpers are identical to the originals, very good quality and cheaper than having old dented rusty chrome bumpers re chromed. I had a quote for my bumpers to be re chromed and the starting price was more than the Harrington group charged for a full set of bumpers, over rides, fittings and postage from Vietnam.
The thing with the stainless bumpers are that they are a lot harder than the standard chrome bumper so less likely to dent and will never rust. Any scratches that would normally damage a chrome bumpers allowing them to rust are easily buffed out of the stainless steel with wet and dry. The finish is as good as chrome if not better.
I am not associated with The Harrington group in anyway but highly recommend their bumpers. https://groupharrington.com/


The bumper kit for my S Type as it arrived. Bumpers, over riders, rubber seals and fixings.

 

Cass, Thank you for the info on Harrington. I think it will serve many of us well. Not too mention save us Mk2 owners a load of excess weight in the Armco!

 

I think your bumpers look great Rob. Your comments on minor repair & polishing are spot on. My Alfa's all had stainless bumpers. If I was to clout a bumper I would get one of yours. The bumper & over rider cost of re-chrome was high by SA standards.

Talking of clouting a bumper my damn electricians put a dent the size of a Dime in my LHS front wheelarch. I'm furious. The paint is fine so I think that Dent Magic will be able to rub/roll it out. But our Jag bodies are made of heavy gauge steel compared with modern cars. So may be difficult.

 

I hope they are paying for the repair Glyn and it is a good job it happened after you had the concourse inspection.
I have a tiny dent in my boot. I was at the garage filling up with unleaded petrol, filled up the nearside and then went over to the other tank with the hose. The unleaded hose went under the handle of the diesel handle and flipped it off its holder landing on the boot lid causing a small dent. I have got most of it out with suction pullers but in the wrong light you can still see a small dent. I was the only one who knew it was there until I wrote this.

 

Oh no! Bad luck for both of us!.

 

dsnyder586
Those stainless-steel bumpers are really good. An acquaintance put a set on a MK2 about a decade ago and they are still bright and shiny.
Unless you are going for concourse, I suggest you ditch the SU fuel pumps and replace them with facet style pumps rated around 2 to 3 PSI.
The old SUs pumps are expensive to buy and repair and unreliable when compared to modern fuel pumps.
I know that will probably draw the originality crabs, but I have been using facet pumps for 20 years and have not had one failure

 

Don't worry Bill. I fitted Hardi pumps from Germany. If they were good enough for pre fuel injection Porsche's they are good enough for me. Make the right noise & you can't see them ~ 3psi. Identical mounting & fittings ~ plug & play. Not polarity sensitive. As an oil company man let me assure you that SU pumps are the least reliable in the world. We know these things. If they can't blame the OEM then they try & blame us.

Don't some Facet pumps have aircraft certification?