Thorsen
It is a good plan to glue that soundproofing back up to the body above the blowers, while you have access. It looks a great job.

 

Short day in the garage today because I have Thanksgiving #1 tonight. I did modify the rear bracket that comes with the Gen II unit to fit the XJS. Here's the bracket as it comes with the kit.


Here is the bracket after cutting a wedge out and bending it to fit.


I thought I had a picture of it after welding and before paint, but I don't. Here it is mounted on the box after welding, cleanup, and paint.


I also decided that I should test the unit to make sure everything works. All the flappers move like they're supposed to when they're supposed to. I think I'm going to be pretty happy with this unit.

I ordered the pieces I need to get the heater and AC plumbed up. The heater and AC lines will exit from the stock location. I considered relocating the AC lines to exit in the passenger footwell but decided I didn't want to drill holes.

 

Thorsen
Please could you post clear photos, or a diagram, of how you run the tubes to the unit, when that time comes?

 

Got a bit more work done today. I took the fan off the left-hand side fresh/recirculation air box, removed the vacuum motor and bottom flap, and attached a linear actuator to the top flap. My plan here is to operate the driver and passenger side flaps independently. I can close the driver side and open the passenger side for heating/cooling of the interior. I can open both with then weather is nice for some extra air. I can close both when I need to run the heater or AC in "Max" mode.



I need to make a plastic cover to close off the hole left by the fan. That will direct the fresh air to my feet.


I also started working on the support for the passenger side scuttle support that I chopped out. I'm using CAD/CAM to do it. Here I am using a piece of cardboard to get the shape right.
Oh, you thought CAD/CAM was Computer aided design/manufacturing? Sorry, this is a low-budget operation. I have to use cardboard.


Once I got the right shape, I transferred it to a piece of metal. I'll cut it out later.


I also started planning on how I am going to plumb the heater and AC lines. I found some pre-formed 180° 5/8" heater hose that will let me easily hook up the hoses.


Dayco 87617 in case someone else goes down this path.


I need to build an extension to the air intake of the HVAC box so I can easily hook up the flexible hose from the fan. I'll make that from some ABS plastic. Once I get that done and the AC lines mapped out I can finish the support panel and start putting thing back together.

I finished up the day enjoying a little bit of sunlight with the dogs before we get cold again.

 

I LOVE those linear actuators. I think this is a very valuable thread, as the HVAC stuff is, in my view, the most difficult and problematic area to keep going on the car.

 

I used some 1/16" (1.5mm) thick ABS sheet to extend the air intake on the GenII box. This will make it easier to hook up the flexible hose from the fan - if you notice one of the copper heater pipes is right where I would need to hook up the flex hose. This will buy me a little breathing room.
I bent the ABS at a right angle by clamping it to my work bench and heating it up with a heat gun. I used Acetone to glue the pieces together then sealed the seams with silicone sealant.

 

I slipped out of work so I could relax in the garage a bit. In a couple posts above you saw how I used the 180° heater hose to point the hoses to where they needed to be. Today I got my #6 and #10 180° AC fittings that will do the same thing.



Back in the car, it looks like this is going to work quite well.



Which brings me to the next to-do: getting the AC and heater lines through the firewall. I bought a bulkhead fitting which is pretty neat but I think I can do a little better.


I took a 4"x6" by 1/8" thick piece of aluminum and marked two holes for the #10 fittings and one for the #6 fitting.


Drilled out the holes and this piece will cover the stock location where the AC lines went through the firewall. You can see the third #10 fitting in the top hole of the stock heater exit point.
I'll use a blanking plug to close off the bottom hole of the stock heater. That one was always 'fun' to get the heater hose on.

The fittings are just sitting in place - I need to permanently mount them soon.


A view from the engine side. I'll use 90° Ac fittings on the #6 and one of the #10 fittings. I'll use 90° #10 5/8" heater hose adapters to get the coolant in and out.

 

Thorsen
That looks a Rolls Royce job, congratulations. Really impressive.

 

After finishing up a couple of projects, I was able to spend some quality time in the garage today. The first thing was to address the heater vents on the Vintage Air box. This is the bottom of the box showing how the heater vents just kind of dump out. That would probably work out ok if the center console didn't come up as far towards the firewall. But the way the center console is designed - this is going to leave some cold feet.


Luckily Vintage Air makes a heater tube extension that takes a 2" flex hose - I can use this to get the hot air to where it needs to be.


My wife made a special guest appearance in the garage to help me with the firewall work today since that's a two-person job.


First up was preparing the firewall plate I made a few posts up. I powder-coated it and then put a layer of 1/4" thick high temperature weather stripping on the back.


The wife helped install the firewall plate, the single #10 bulkhead fitting in the top left, and helped me put bolts with sealing washers through the remaining holes.


Here is the #10 to 5/8" heater hose fitting. This is how I'll get coolant through the bulkhead fittings.


I crimped up the AC lines for the inside of the car.


This is the first iteration of the HVAC lines. The two coolant lines are pointing to the top right and the two AC lines are pointing to the lower left. I'll get a better picture later of the final configuration but all the hoses ended up pointing to the right.


I ended the day putting the dashboard in to see how things line up. I need to tweak the right side of the HVAC box towards the firewall just a bit, but things are looking good.


With the dashboard in, here's a shot looking towards the center of the dash from where the instrument cluster would be.


With the dashboard removed, here is the right hand side of the unit.

 

I'm hoping this will be the final picture of the HVAC box out of the car.



And one last view of the coolant and AC fittings coming through the firewall. I took this picture for my own sanity

Top left is coolant return, Top middle is coolant supply. Top right is AC suction. Bottom center #6 fitting is AC pressure.


I spent some time with the center vent panel, a ruler, and a couple of catalogs trying to find vents that fit. I think I found something that will work - more to come later.

 

Thorsen
Could you post a pic of the engine bay side of that firewall fitting, please, so we can see what that side looks like?

 

From left to right - #10 AC suction, #6 AC pressure, #10 coolant supply. Then on the right side is the #10 coolant return.

 

Thanks, and very professional looking job too.

 

Incredible skills.... !!!!

 

Doncha just Love it when someone has the ability to merely Look at a problem and not only visualize the solution, but to carry it out in such a Fine manner as this!
(';')

 

I think I have a solution for the center vents on the dash. For reference, here are the stock vents:


The two outer vents swivel and pivot, but the large center vent just blows air straight back. This is a well documented problem, but with switching to the Vintage Air unit it's difficult to hook up the two 2.5" hoses to the stock unit.

Enter Nostalgic AC Rectangular Pro Series in Dash Vent #5024. It measures 2" x 5-3/4" and has a connector on the back for a 2.5" hose. I need to do a slight bit of trimming but they should easily fit in the stock location.


Here's the backside showing the connection for the 2.5" hose.


And with the hose connected:


They have a different aesthetic to them than the stock ones so I need to decide if it's worth the change, but for right now I think I am going to try them out. I don't have to make any permanent modifications to use these.

 

Thorsen
Won't you have to hook up two hoses if you use these though, one to each?

 

Correct. The Vintage Air box has a total of 4 connections for the dash vents; they are the 4 D-shaped ports along the front edge. There are two for each corner vent and two for the center vents.
To use the stock vent I'd have to make a plenum on the back to connect the air hoses to. I think this might be an easier way to solve that and give me better vent control at the same time.

 

While the exterior of my Jaguar is overall in very good shape, the wheels were kind of a let down. The Collection Rouge cars have these really cool basket weave wheels with a red-painted and machined aluminum faces, edges, and center. It's a very snazzy look:



The primary issue with my wheels is corrosion of the machined areas. The secondary issue is fading of the red paint.


If this was any other car, I would take the wheels to my powdercoater where he would remove the tires, sandblast the wheels, and powder-coat them in the color of my choice - which is historically a graphite grey with some light flake in it. Here are the wheels from my XKR.



But the XJS wheels are too special and need the contrast of the red paint and the machined aluminum. I took a wheel to my normal powdercoater and asked if he could do a two-tone powder coat job and he didn't want to do it. More accurately, I didn't want to pay the price for what it would cost to mask it.

By a weird coincidence, someone in my Jeep club told me about a powder coater they used that did two-tone wheel powder coating. When I showed that powder coater what I had and wanted to do, he got really excited. They wanted to powder coat the entire wheel red, then put it on the lathe and machine down the areas that are normally machined aluminum. We talked it over and I took my my spare wheel 2 weeks ago. Here's one last picture of the old wheel, showing the corrosion.


Today, he emailed me this picture of the spare wheel fresh out of the powder coating oven. They sand-blasted the wheel, powder coated the whole thing red, machined the areas that aren't supposed to be red, and followed it up with a gloss clear coat powder. The rims look correct and will last a very long time. The red areas won't fade and with the clear coat - the machined aluminum won't corrode.
The red is a very close match to the color of the body and is the same color that I powder coated the front calipers a few months back.


I'm going to pick it up this weekend and if it looks as good as the picture - I'll be leaving my 4 other wheels there for the same treatment.