To anyone that has fitted a manual otter switch to their car where did you mount it? I have the wires ran but can't decide the best place for the switch mounting.

 

I mounted a push/pull switch just above the engine bonnet (hood?) release knob. It is unobtrusive, out of the way and does not require you to butcher your dash panel and under dash liners.
I have done this to several MK1s and MK2s.

 

left or right hand drive?

 

Sorry left

 

i was thinking about that just the other day...

i'd disconnect the panel light wires (the ones that control the lights for the gauges on the dashboard) in order to free up its toggle switch for use with the otter mechanism. then rewire the panel light wires to turn on in sync with the headlight switch. no great loss there, IMO. having a separate switch for panel lights and headlights is just asking for a dead battery when one forgets to turn off the panel lights when the ignition is turned off. it's bad enough that the headlights don't turn off with the ignition.

or maybe there's a fog light switch somewhere that i'm not aware of? if so, i don't have them and could possibly use THAT switch. IDK...

 

As you folk drive on the wrong side of the road. Go for Cass' elegant solution here. Post 7. But on the LHS.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/m...switch-261347/

 

My apologies for the previous post. I live in a RHD country and did not consider LHD.

 

Bill. It is amazing how the human mind works e.g. getting used to varifocal glasses. As you know I had a global job & traveled 230 days a year for decades. I used to endlessly jump from LHD to RHD cars & the mind just spontaneously accommodated it.

 

It's always good to find a job for the copilot!

 

Proud new owner of an XK 140, or one of the XK models.
Drove it home and the next morning the car refused to start, after calling the seller, he said "you have to activate the choke by pushing the cigar lighter in".

 

using a switch he wasn't using...clever. i suppose he disabled the lighter and it stays in once pressed. ...for the most part, better than my idea! but i can' use it, because in my case i use the 12v lighter socket for one of those ingenious bluetooth FM transmitters in order to play music from my smartphone over the, what i think is, the original am/fm stereo radio in my car.

 

That good old anti theft trick. Enjoy the new toy. I wish I had more garage space.

 

Sorry for the confusion, I should have said, "there was a proud new owner".
If I was going to buy another money pit, I would look for an S Type, or Cloud.

 

Congratulations all round for ingenuity! All the methods are better than the fall back of stop, open the bonnet, get out of the car, pull the lead off the switch, ....

 

Being the proud owner of an S type which I restored, I demand that you withdraw that remark. lol.

I think it depends on what you look for, what you find, what you are willing to put up with and your personal abilities to do the work. Mine was solid as 80% of the welding had been done prior to me buying it so with the purchase price and restoration which I did over 18 months, including full engine and gearbox rebuild, it owes me just £11,500. A friend of mine without my abilities is up to £50,000 rebuilding his S type but 80 to 90% of that is labour costs.