Guys
I am not that fussed about bodywork and paint perfection provided that there is no rust. But one thing I do pride myself on is the bonnet shutting properly.
For those who have never had to worry about it, pre facelift bonnets need careful adjustment to get reasonable shutlines around the headlights, wing tops and scuttle. This involves very careful positioning of the hinges, of the catches on the bulkhead, the tension of the operating cable, and the positioning and angle of the rods bolted onto the bonnet rear edge which the catches catch, and the rubber-topped captive bolts which the bonnet rear edge shuts against.
I confess I spent two or three days getting it to my satisfaction, years ago.
Imagine my distress, therefore, when having done a bit of maintenance under the bonnet, nowhere near the hinges, shutlines or anything else likely to affect the bonnet, I came to close it, only to find it was jamming on the RHS towards the front. Ah, I thought, as many times before, i have left a tool on the engine or radiator.
Pushed up the bonnet, and nothing! Spent an hour looking carefully, disconnected the struts, dabs of grease as a tellltale on possible projections, etc etc nothing.
During the night my subconscious woke me up saying "something in the RHS hinge". Took a look first thing, nothing could be felt.
Nothing else for it but to remove the RHS headlight plastic chrome surround, the grille, and shine a light up the bonnet inside. Nothing to explain it. Then, I noticed a tiny object right in the LHS of the lower arm of the hinge:

Tiny nut blocking the hinge edge where it overlaps the fixed part bolted to the car

Moved to be more visible

general view

Here it is
Devotees of the XJS will recognise this as the tiny 8mm domed nut that fixes the rear edge of the windscreen wiper grille to those two rubber mounted thingies. These horrible items I have long since done away with, with no adverse effects. Just how this nut, which must have been rattling around the engine bay/chassis rails for at least 5 years, got to where it did is one of life's abiding mysteries!

 

The size of the problem is infinitely proportional to the trouble it causes - you're not too far gone, you know this because you didn't actually get up and go look when the thought occured ....

 

I confess it did cross my mind!

 

ET, phone home, you need to vacate Greg's Jaguar, NOW.

 

Short story; sorry for the hijack, but in light of your remarks I must tell it !

Decades ago I bought an old MG. It hadn't run in years....after the PO took it to a shop for a "tune up". Nobody could figure out why, including me.

At 2:30 AM an epiphany woke me from dead sleep. What if the nylon insulator was installed on the wrong wide of the wire going to the points?

I dashed to the garage in my pajamas, changed the insulator location, and hit the key. The engine roared to life! Joy! Happy dance!

I looked up to see my wife and two young daughters staring at me in disbelief, with a "Daddy has finally gone mad" look on their faces

Cheers
DD

 

Mine only give me that look on days that end in 'y'...

 

Hi Greg

So what did you replace those Domed Nuts with?

 

Greg,

Funny I was just thinking this weekend that I still need to do some fine adjusting to my hood. After it got painted, I was only left with about week to put it all back together before it was being used at my daughter's wedding. I got it close then had to move on the remainder of the assembly list.

Currently the bonnet lines are great on the sides, but it sits a tad forward by a small amount. I noticed that it takes a little more effort to pull the handle closed, and I don't want to stretch or snap the cable. Does having it properly aligned make a difference in how much effort it takes to fully close, or is there a way to adjust the cable?

Thanks

 

For a long time nothing. Then I inserted 8mm diameter clinch nuts (4mm or 5mm threads, I forget) into the chassis bracket - it needed drilling out a touch - put some foam on the rear lip of the bodywork that the grille sits on, and screwed in black 8mm hex headed bolts.
In my opinion, the clinch nut is an absolute life saver!

 

If the bonnet is too far forward (ie a larger than desirable gap to the scuttle) then the hinges have to be moved rearwards. This is a pain; the bottom leg of the hinge is bolted to the chassis, and it has a fixing that allows movement fore and aft and, i think. side to side. The fixing bolts may well be seized, if not they can be loosened and the bonnet shifted a bit.
The clamping effort depends upon:

• the up/down position of the closing clamps (this is adjustable, but some of the four huge pozi screws on each clamp are hard to get to)
• The hooks on the bonnet rear that the clamps clamp. These are often bent and often misplaced side to side or front to back. If you loosen the retaining bolts they can be moved, or even removed and adjusted if the hook is bent.
• There are two cables to close the clamps: one from the cabin lever to the LHS clamp, and another from the LHS clamp across the bulkhead to activate the RHS clamp. These are adjustable as they have screw nipple attachments. The first thing is to close the clamps with the bonnet up, to see if they move easily without the bonnet hooks. If they do, then maybe the hooks are wrongly adjusted or the clamp one or both sides too low, OR:
• There are two stops (one each side) to prevent the bonnet closing too low, and the give the rear edge of the bonnet a fixed point to close against when the lever is pulled to close it. These are 1/2 AF headed bolts, with rubber stoppers over the heads, going into captive nuts in the scuttle and with a locknut that acts against the scuttle. If these are too high it can cause hard clamping. if so, loosen the locknut, remove the rubber bung, and adjust the height of the bolt to give the desired nice clamping load on the lever.

Hours of fun ahead! But note Facelifters, your system is completely different.

 

great story.

 

Interesting thread. One of my domed nut thingies broke at the threaded part not the nut. Gravity keeps it there and like schrodinger's cat it is both broken and fixed at the same time until I look at it.

Hood/bonnet doesn't close well on the driver side and sits up half an inch. Driver side chrome light bezel cracked due to tightness with the hood.

I can't see how to move the light bezel over they need another 1/8th gap both sides. Its all held together with superglue for now.

 

You have to move the bonnet by adjusting the hinges, if needed using flat packing "washers" under the two hinge bolts into the bodywork. half an inch out anywhere would drive me nuts!

 

Guess I have something interesting to look forward to when I put the hood back on.....probably next spring lol