I have begun the early stages of a general restoration of my series II XJ. What started out as a blown head gasket turned into a cracked block, with common sense left far behind I have decided to take it several steps further.

Having said that, I am guaging the interest of my fellow XJ friends here to see if anyone would follow me through the fun and pitfalls of the restoration adventure. I will be looking at posting detailed accounts and costs of:

-engine rebuilding and relining
-trans rebuild
-front suspension /brakes refurbish
-rear member suspension /brakes refurbish
-media blasting / priming / respray
-rechroming
-interior electrical
-general reassembly and finishing.

I will very likely have many questions regarding upgrades, shortcuts and the like so I will be leaning on the XJ team quite a bit here. I am going to document the whole thing anyway so I was curious if anyone would be interested.

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I'd be very interested in following your progress. Sounds like a fun project.

Cheers
DD

It would interest me to follow your project, My S1 will eventually need similar treatment.

clarke

I can be counted in, I very much enjoy reading others stories. Ive got a Series 1 XJ12l to restore sometime soon so its always interesting to see another jaglovers process.

Regards,
Jay

I'm in. Much rather you invent the wheel and I come along for the ride. I want to do a xk120 but not sure I have the tenacity to do one so will watch you with interest

Don't give up on the cracked block, quite yet. A lot depends on where the crack is and how bad it is. Cracks can be "stiched" or bore liners can do the job. But, expense might mean just finding a better core or an entire useable engine. As you mention "restore". I figure the same specie. If not that limited, an SBC works very nicely.

Organize. Make notes and take pictures.

Way back when, I rebuilt a couple of Corvair flat sixes. New architecture to me.
On disassembly, everything becomes a part. No engine block as such to be the focal point. So, I laid out a sheet of 4x8 plywood on saw horses. I put everything on it in the same order as it was, as close as possible. Clean and replace a small group at a time. Then, paint and replace same idea. Assembly was much more orderly. Few, if any parts left over!! both engines ran just great.

I have a derelict VW beetle dune buggy and it's partly seized flat four. If I strip the engine, I'll use the plywood system. although now, pictures are so much more handy. A phone and a couple of digitals.

When I did the jaguar reengine, I used the boot and the bonnet on the roof upside down on a blanket. That plus two pails. Oh, a few bins. Lotsa of leftovers, but intended. it worked out just slick.

Today, I'll wrestle up a scheme to organize my new 1/4 drive sockets in SAE and Metric. And errands, Coco's kibble amongst them. Might even get back to mow some more "meadow", way past lawn status.

Carl

I cheated. Mine (Series II) was already restored inside and out when I got it in September 2013.

However, that was done years ago and I've had to re-do several (many!) things due to deferred maintenance, neglect and the passage of time. I've had my hands in places in this car that I've never had to put my hands in any other car I've ever owned! It's truly a learning experience!

I'd be interested in following your progress.
(';')

i'm watching too, as I'll many of the same issues putting my 77XJC back on the street.

I'll be lurking about as well.

Keep in mind nothing is too trivial to ask about, or include in any of your posts.

Count me in. I am hopefully a few years away from needing to recondition my SIII but I always like to partake in armchair engineering :-)

I'm in.
As must of you guys know that I'm one + years in to my project with my series III.
Looking forward to follow you restoration.


Stig

Interesting thread I look forward to seeing the progress. Im just in the process of a very basic resto

Alrighty then.
I already started with the front clip dismantling - bagging tagging and photographing.
At this point I have to get the car to my shop to yank out the engine and transmission. I have a replacement short block but I was talked into resleeving my numbers matching block with top hat liners by a friend who did the same for his 3.8 E-type. He drives his car 10x harder than I ever will and he said his block was like mine - virtually cracked down the middle. He's 4 years on and no problems at all.
Anyway, I'll get started shortly on what I have done and the overall plan.

Thanks for the feedback, gang.

Allendorf:

I didn't want to try the handle and mess it up and offend you!!

I've owned a passel of old pickups in my decades of messing with cars.
at one time, my son, then living here got a 1 ton 48 Chevrolet with a blown engine. A replacement 235. Contrary o his usual operandi, returning it to the original 216 was his idea. He got a tired 216 from the local junkie. We freshened it up and cleaned it up and installed it. Kinda fun as it was too tall for the cherry picker. So, we put it on it's knees by removing the front wheels and letting it rest n the drums. A really clean old truck in reasonably fresh cream body with brown fenders. The PO had installed a "toilet paper" oil cleaner. Good in principle. But, needed cheap "hard" paper. The sofite stuff disintegrated and plugged the oil passages, whammo.

it was fun to drive. The granny four speed needed a double clutch most of the time. OK around town. Freeway speeds beyond the 216's ability.

Durn, I wanted first dibs. No, a collector in SOCAL offered way too much. he sent a young couple up by air to get it. They drove it back, the scenic route, 1 and 101. Must've been fun. They made it just fine and the collector was more than pleased.

Next up was a mid Forties Dodge heavy 1/2. Its furniture store flat bed was gone. Some of it's many coats of paint partly stripped. It's 215 Dodge engine replaced by a Chrysler 254. Bad starter. Reason for it's PO selling cheap. We "rebuilt" the starter and it was just barely good enough to fire the "big" six.
I could've had that one. But, I had just embarked on entrepreneurship and spare time aside form work was limited. so, it left.

Mebbe still on the "bucket" list.

Carl

Ok, lets get this started. I will begin with a bit of background and the general plan.

The car was my daily driver in Australia and I brought it back with me once my contract was up. I've had it 8 years now. I didn't do much to the car overseas but when I got it home I did a minor refresh in the engine bay, reconditioned the leather and installed a new carpet kit.
The car saw limited duty over the last few years but recently I had a head gasket failure and suffered a cracked block as well.

So, I figured since the engine has to come out anyway, it's time to go all the way with the car. I have a spare 4.2 block but I decided to keep the car original.

The Plan:

Engine:
Rebuild the factory 4.2 and resleeve it with top hat liners. Perhaps a minor overbore. I considered a power adder like a supercharger and I've 3D modeled a custom intake for it. Might still do it.

Transmission:
Open to suggestions here. I may just rebuild the model 65 BW but I'd like to see lower rpm on the freeway. Someone elsewhere mentioned an XJ40 trans - I'll look into that...

Suspension:
All stock, front and rear - just new bushings and blast and powder coat all of the parts.

Interior:
New door panels, recondition my dash. Chase up a bunch of electrical sniggles like interior lights, power window and lock switch issues. I'll remove the seats and use the carpet plastic adhesive to keep my new carpet safe during the whole operation.

Body:
I'm leaving the doors and decklid on but I plan on stripping the body with walnut shell to bare metal. Engine bay will be blasted with garnet. There is no rust but lots of little parking lot dings. The respray will be back to factory Greensand with several coats of clear.

Chrome:
Although not too bad I am sending my shiny bits to Big D's chrome in The Los Angeles area. A rough estimate is about $1000 for the bumpers and grill alone.

I expect to see completion by spring of 2015, in time for the All British Field Meet. Stay tuned.

A few pictures of the engine clean up where I blasted, coated and painted all of the parts I could remove. I made my own wire looms and custom cut my plug wires so the laser etched leaper on the cam cover isn't hidden.

I'd love to see how that the motor takes to a supercharger. It is definitely a route I've been exploring a little. Love how clean the motor looks too. Very classy.

AFAIK, the cracks only extend down to the first coolant cross passage. Two of these were machined where the bores are siamesed to let coolant pass across the block. It was a disastrous modification, and very much too late in the day was changed to a vertical slot.

Top-hat liners are the best way of fixing the problem as told to me by a chap that rebuilt Jaguar engines in Hinckley, Leicestershire. The majority of 7L and 8L blocks crack, 8L being the worst. The vertical slots cure the cracking, but even so, a head gasket is normally only good for 80k miles, but this is normally OK for cars not in daily use.

At this point I have disassembled the entire front clip, removed the fuel tank covers and removed the old exhaust system.
I have custom designed an engine stand and a body dolly for the car once I drop out the rear assembly and front cross member. I have a friend who has built several XK engines and we agreed to swap media blasting time for his overseeing my rebuild.
The first mission will be to tear down that engine and inspect the internals. As money permits I'll start the rebuild.

I have to bring my XJ to my shop and my '64 cutlass to my house. There is a little more elbow room at the shop...

Here's a pic of the coolant passages revealed when the cylinder liners are removed. See if you can see the crack ! The bore to the right still has its liner in. I don't have a pic of the later vertical slotted block; does anybody ?