The E-Type Forum - celebrating 52 years of the ultimate motoring icon

[redranch]

Well, the car is now officially mine. It's been dragged out of longterm storage and as you can see by the photos has a thick layer of dust. But no matter as it's being shipped to a friends place in Spain who will do the body work (he moved the family from the UK a few years ago and now has a body shop down in Southern Spain where the climate is a little warmer).

I'm going over in two weeks to start on the car with him (the things you do on a two week holiday), hopefully we will make good progress over the two weeks.

I'll update as and when I can, but these are the first of many photo of the resurrection of this V12 Jaguar.

[Moeregaard]

Outstanding! It's good to see another car coming out of a long hibernation. From the photos it appears to be a pretty straight tub. Best wishes for a straightforward restoration with few surprises.

[Car-Nut]

Just a little bit of dust.......

As youre gonna be there from the beginning on this restoration perhaps you could start a thread with a running restoration update, with pics and text. Im sure we'd all be interested in your experiences and problems you come up against

All the best and I look forward to seeing the finished item in the future

Have you thought what interior and exterior colours you are going with

[redranch]

It had a little wash before going to the transport guys, I'll add some new pics.

Yes I can start a thread with running restoration updates and pics as and when something happens. Hopefully no problems but you never know until you get into a project like this.

As for colour, I'm going to keep it white with the black as it's a low mileage one owner car (I have to check but I think it's a 60 or 80k car).

Spent most of it's life in Tunisia before going to Belgium and then the UK (stored both times).

The interior isn't that bad, just rusty and dusty in places...but I'll be able to report in a week or so when I start taking it apart.

Until then here are those photos just before shipping to Spain for the work to start.

Can't remember if I mentioned that the car had new door skins, sill and a boot floor put in about 8 or 9 years ago, so the black (or rusty brown) you see in the photos is still the primer on those new panels. It's a pretty rot free car to be restoring.

[redranch]

Well here goes....as mentioned in the earlier posts the car was transported to an English friend in Spain who has set up a classic car restoration workshop over there. I flew to Malaga and went back to the workshop to look over the car and decide what to tackle first.

Day 1: I was up early and eager to start (after a swim in the B&B pool which just happens to be next to the workshop). Another reason for the early start was that it was cooler to work in the morning as the afternoon temp was getting into the high 30's.

We started by stripping everything off the car, most of the interior came out, bonnet off, back seat out even the 'Clarion' speaker which must be the original ones I guess....by late afternoon the front frame was off and as the borrowed engine hoist didn't turn up we very carefully pulled out the engine and gearbox as one unit using a couple of trolley jacks.

The factory A/C that I was told was in the car turned out to be nothing more than a bodge job that was added later.

Day 2: I started taking the paint off the car using a heat gun (not great in that heat, but it worked. No blisters from the scraping, but lot's of muscles I've not used in a while were aching from the repetitive work. But by the end of the day most of the paint was off the car. The main body is very straight with very little sign of damage or repair, a couple of little dings in the rear quarters but nothing serious. The only rot we found was in the bottom channel of the rear door opening, if I remember correctly there is a repair section for this so it should be an easy fix.

The car had about 4 or 5 coats of paint in various areas, and various shades of Old English White. As I was scrapping the paint off I thought the car might look good in a dark silver/grey almost a gun metal grey. I know I said I'd keep it white, but the more I looked at it I might change the colour...who knows.

The mileage on the clock says 3,704k, so I'm guessing it's only done 103,704k which in old money is about 60,000 miles. Behind the dash there was a bit of masking tape with the body number and the words 'Swiss', which confirms the fact that I knew from the records it was first sent to Switzerland.

So was there a difference between car destined for Switzerland and those for Europe or the US. I mention this as it has US style rear lights (all red) but no reflectors or indicators on the side of the body.

I'm sure I've read somewhere about a Swiss exhaust system which quieter to get through the Swiss equivalent of the MOT so it could be road legal...anyone out there have any more information.

Day 3: My last day was spent on the huge bonnet, there must have been about 6-8 layers of paint and filler, some areas with no primer at all so the top two layers came off easily. The bonnet seems to have taken a whack at some time as the front right light cowl area was full of filler, the nose of the car too. Under the bonnet one of the supports has a crease where it took the impact. But apart from that it's all pretty sound with no real rot anywhere. Apart from that the rear door is the only other area with rot, nothing that can't be fixed but it all takes time and money. New doors are available but at a price

So not much was done on day 3 as I only had half a day before getting back to the airport to fly back home. But as you can see by the photos it's not bad for just over two days work...turning a whole car into a pile of parts.

I'm now going to make a list of things that need to be replaced, like rubber seals, hoses, maybe a new wiring harness, roof lining and so on...hope to go back to Spain in a few weeks to do more work, in the meantime my friend will be starting on the body work next week. So I should have more photos for another update soon.

I've also attached an image of the Tunisian logo book cover as I thought it might be of some interest

[Car-Nut]

Brilliant

Keep the pics and reports coming.....

Is the jensen yours as well

[redranch]

No the Jensen Ff is another customers, my friend is working on that FF and an Interceptor convertible as well.

Looking forward to getting back out there and doing some more work on the car. p

[Car-Nut]

P

Heuer (David) may shed some light on this

"I'm sure I've read somewhere about a Swiss exhaust system which quieter to get through the Swiss equivalent of the MOT so it could be road legal...anyone out there have any more information. "

[Heuer]

[MarkE]

Looks like the good work is underway...and a great way to lose a few kilos in the Spanish heat.

It surprises me that the Swiss exhaust is quieter that standard...the domestic one is way too quiet for a V12. Perhaps you can fit the standard one for any testing required, but then have a look at one of these systems once the car has passed the test:

http://www.jagweb.com/aj6eng/exhaust.php

They make the car sound like a V12 should and improve the mid range performance. Both aspects appeal to a hoon like me