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On the road at last! Car was inspected for registration yesterday and the inspector was most complimentary remarking that it drives beautifully.
Looking back I started this in December 2016 - about the time I joined this forum. The car has been off road for over 18 years and while in storage suffered a bit with rats eating wiring under the bonnet, brakes seizing up, rubbers disintegrating etc, etc.
The car has been thoroughly overhauled mechanically - this car is not a paint job as can be seen from the photos. Paint is the last thing I will do.
Many thanks to all on this forum who have helped solve various problems along the way thereby encouraging me to finish it.
Last edited by GGG; Oct 19, 2019 at 05:51 AM.
Reason: Thread title edit requested by OP
Congratulations,
No doubt about it, a Series I really looks the part both coming at you with that bold grill or from the wheelhouse with those big gauges and row of switch gear. It looks great as is.
I have just got my Double Six going after years of on again, off again work but it is still a long way from registration.
I see it is on full registration, you weren't tempted to put it on club rego?
Anyway, enjoy friving it.Al
That is surely a great looking car. Paint needed??? Loos durn nice to me. My compliments. You;ve earned the joy that comes...
Back on the road. that applies to me, in a way. got my eyes fixed so that DMV was satisfied and I got my driving license renewed. Sans having to do a driving test. I've been on a temporary license.
Now on an interim, til the real one comes in the mail...
Hello, Carl, thank you for asking.
We were without power for 2 days while the wind positively Howled!
Well, not REALLY without power, there was the light plant connected to the house wiring through the Frankenstein switch, but if someone didn't have such a power plant handy, they were In The DARK!
(';')
Great t see it on the road John, another S1 put back where it belongs.
Maybe I'll make it down to NSW in the S1 next trip and we catch up with Jim. Last trip was in the Jeep since the S1 blew a brake hose the night before we were to head off.
Glad you both had a back up!! I got lucky Not in the outage area. But durn close. put line was two blocks away...
But, I could not get my little HF generator to fire up!! Failed to drain the od gas after it's last "use". Only a test run then...
But, I sure am glad that in our part of the state we avoided the horrible fires the last season. Minor ones, yes. No one got hurt or worse, and little if any property gone.
But, in SOCAL, not so fortunate. Really bad. The scenes on Tv familiar. Before we came north in 75, we lived near to that firestorm area.
Great t see it on the road John, another S1 put back where it belongs.
Maybe I'll make it down to NSW in the S1 next trip and we catch up with Jim. Last trip was in the Jeep since the S1 blew a brake hose the night before we were to head off.
Thanks Clarke,
If you are ever down this way in your XJ , give some notice and I will try to get the two old cats together. Your help has been terrific in the past couple of years.
Today I hope to fit the "powerspark" distributer I bought over two years ago, which was the start point for this whole project (my original has a broken vacuum advance).
Well done. Ive been down a similar path with my toy car, not sure though I would have the perseverance to take on an old Jag and the hundreds of little jobs you find as you dig into it. Great work!
I will continue on this thread rather than start a new one. I would like to change the header to “Series 1 back on the road” but cannot worked out how to do this. There may well be some information here that is useful for other series 1 owners who have similar problems.
In getting this car on the road, one of my aims is to get everything on the car working as it should. I have had the car 36 years and in all that time the Kienzle clock has never worked.Before the car was laid up for 18 years the battery indicator (it is not an ammeter) also gave up.So I decided to investigate.In doing so, I pulled the 7 pin plug that connects to the primitive printed circuit board that the Series 1 has behind the instrument panel.Had a look, could not see anything obvious.Result on plugging back in that none of the gauges or the panel lights worked!
After much investigation, it was determined that the printed circuit connections to the 7 pins plug had all failed – if you look closely at the photo you can see cracks in the copper “fingers”. This can occur when the plug is pulled in and out a number of times.I strongly suspect that my 7 pin plug had been worked on prior to my ownership, perhaps to try to get the clock working.
With the connections being so damaged, I firstly tried to just solder them up. Big mistake – my soldering iron was too hot and made a mess of the whole affair.Second attempt was to cut thin brass shim into fingers using a finer soldering iron and solder them on.On checking continuity this failed when the tab was folded over.Final attempt was made with the circuit board tab folded into position, just enough solder to ensure a good connection.
Amazing that this approach worked. All my gauges are working now, including the clock!This clock is over 250 pounds to replace!I will say that this job has taken many days to get this result.
Next job was the bonnet release. After tapping in the “keeper plate” behind the release handle, I thought I had solved this one.No way.After working well for a few days the outer Bowden cable pulled through again.Fix on this one was to drill a small hole in the keeper plate and insert self tapping screw.Hopefully no more issues.In pulling the release handle out, I had to remove the pivot pin.If you do this you will never get it locked again with the lock washer.I think Jaguar built the whole car around this pin such is the accessibility.Easy fix, I replaced the pin with a ¼” bolt and nyloc.
Finally, the windscreen washer. Thanks to Grant Francis from South Australia who had a repair kit for the Trico pump, my washer is now sending huge squirtsof water over the windscreen and onto the roof!I shall have to tweak the washer jets. In the photo, you can see the difference between the old and new impellers.
Last edited by The Mekon; Oct 19, 2019 at 03:20 AM.
Hi John, there is no option to change the name of a thread by members. But if you send "GGG" (Supermod) a private message he may be able to do it for you. He has moved posts and changed things for me before that I couldn't do.
Series 1 on the road at last
