Hi folks,

Newbie here in the process of building a Daimler Corsica, albeit a long wheelbase version, with four doors, and no roof whatsoever.



Aiming for this:





Mostly because we can, partly for weddings and euro road-trips, partly as an exercise in coach-building.

Started with a 1997 (pre VIN change) LWB XJ8 4.0 Sov bought sight unseen as a non-runner at auction for 650. FSH but 175k on the clock (on the original nikasil engine) and felt about that loose with clunks from the suspension, but with a nice gearchange and no horrible engine noises. Pile of receipts in the glovebox totalled 10k over the past 5 years, incl a rebuilt gearbox and timing chain tensioners - result!

Still totally unroadworthy mind - tyres (x3 illegal), suspension (both bottom balljoints utterly utterly shot), brakes (one hard pipe actually holed, three about to get holes in, no working handbrake, and two lefthand calipers fitted on the front with associated stretched hose), and general rot (no front chassis legs left, and no front sills left). If you need a bent MOT centre or a garage that is otherwise happy to send you home with a dangerous car, there appears to be a fantastic Jaguar independent specialist in the southeast. I'll name them once VOSA are happy. Spent a week fixing this little lot.

Car is stripped, gearbox tunnel has been re-inforced, there's two new crossmembers inside it to turn that into more of a box-section than an n-section, and there's a new crossmember underneath the front bulkhead/firewall that links the two chassis legs there.

Sills still need replacing (w/150x150x5 mm box section), A/B/C pillars plating up (3 mm mild steel plate), and crossmembers adding inside the car (one under the front seats replacing the existing sat mounts, one re-inforcing the crossmember under the rear seat) before the roof comes off - working on it again in Feb.

Will have a few daft questions for y'all and a few equally daft photographs in due course.

 

Welcome to the forum Mark,

I'll look forward to hearing and seeing your progress.

 

Welcome, that's a rare project indeed
Have a good job

 

Welcome to the forum Mark, sounds like a heck of a project.

Please post up a full pictorial as you go' write up in the X300 section.

Look forward to your daft questions and even more so the dafter photos.

 

Welcome! Sounds like a great project. Keep us posted. Do you have a business that does this type of work? (I'm always looking for resources in the UK.)

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

[quote=markocosic;297216]Hi folks,


Aiming for this:





Very cool idea. "Aiming for this:" might be a poor choice of words when the reference picture is JFK in an open air Lincoln...I'm just sayin'

 

Cheers all. No running photo diary I'm afraid but I'll be sure to put some bits together in lumps.


Consulting engineering business Mike. Will design or make anything for a price. ;-)

This is very much a prototype - not something we've done before. If it works well there could certainly be more. Lots of man hours though so you'd have to really want an XJ rather than an XK.

A lightweighted (most of the weight is in silly toys and trim) manual/stick-shift 5.0 X350 (use the diesel S-type manual box with some new ratios) would be of interest. Not inexpensive enough to hack about without a commission yet though.

 

Only a minor detail, but I think you should look at redesigning the rear head rest arrangement they look clumsy and will almost certainly whistle.

Maybe look into a double camel hump solid type design.

Look forward to your updates in the X300 section.

 

welcome aboard one of the friendliest sites around, good to have you with us

Please check out the relevant section for your car, maybe the regional section too to see who's who in your area?
The Off topic section is a MUST to catch up with off the wall stuff, jokes etc......maybe post a pic into the Mug shot thread too?

I've manually upgraded you too full forum access so you can better view the site