I am in process of replacing the "Manette" in my xk120. Is the manette supposed to turn with the steering wheel? if not, what am i doing wrong?

Rod

 

So what is a "manette" ? I've never heard the word, but I am in England so may not be up-to-speed on all US auto descriptions. It seems to be some sort of lever

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/di...nglish/manette

 

Fraser, see photo. It resides in the center of the steering wheel and has the turn signal switch at the top. In this instance I am talking about a 1952 Jaguar XK120 FHC

Rod


Manette (turn signal switch) Jaguar XK120

 

Interesting ! As far as I know the switch assembly rotates with the wheel. Lots of pre-war cars had controls like this, especially things like ignition advance/retard and they rotated with the wheel.

 

The manette does not rotate. It is held by a pinch bolt. You do not show the tube that runs through the steering column. DO you have that?

 

Never heard of Manette and you're in England where these cars were made? Interesting because it's a word from the ENLAND factory.

 

Older thread but worth replying to, had the manette on my '52 XK120 decide to start turning with the steering wheel(pinch bolt failed), shorting out the turn signals and horn from twisting the wires all to heck & back, and blowing the fuse asunder for the whole circuit including brake lights. I have since removed the manette and will save it to repair the shorted/damaged wires for later use. If you run across one that is in good shape, grab it at all costs because a new repop is about $1k to $1.6k USD these days. OUCH!!
I have since went to a Moto-Lita wood grain steering wheel and just use the horn button in it as a grounding circuit for the horns, works fine. Turn signals? The good Lord gave me 2 arms, using the left arm to signal, perfectly legal because of the age of the car.

 

I hope you don't mind me jumping into this thread. I completely rebuilt the steering box for dad's Xk120 roadster and got it back in the car. All seemed fine. When I went to install the manette after the wheel was installed, I could not get it to engage the slot on the stator tube. The manual makes it look pretty straight forward: Make sure the stator tube slot is to the top, feed the wires through, wiggle the manatee assembly until it seats in the stator tube slot. I pulled the manette back out and took it apart and did not find any sort of key that would engage the slot on the stator tube. It's just s smooth tube so there is nothing to keep it from turning with the steering wheel. There is no evidence that there ever was a key, tab or anything that did engage the stator tube slot. Nor is there any indication that something was sheered off or worn off. Any ideas?
The turn signals have been operated by a toggle switch under the dash for as long as I can remember so neither of us remembers if the manette turned with the steering wheel before I did the rebuild. My guess is no.