1953 Jowett Jupiter - Grumpy Northeners Farewell

I love to see a car on period tyres. If I ever get the early P6 I’ve promised myself (City Grey 2000TC with a red interior) I’d be on the phone to get a set of Pirelli Cinturatos pdq.

Recent progress includes



Rear quarter / rear wing reinforcement bracket being trial fitted



And with the quarter repair removed it could now be fully welded & dressed back



Then the repair panel could be refitted & the rear wing trial fitted



To allow the centres to be marked for the wing fixings which were duly drilled



Then the rear wing could be refitted / aligned / checked for fit etc



Which I am quite happy with



There is piping bead that goes between the wing joints once the car is painted and the wings refitted



Alignment with the repair section of the quarter panel is good



And the reinforcement panel does the job has intended



Away from the side of the vehicle - the bonnet hinge boxes are quite thin & weak and I would probably spend more time repairing them than making new ones - I have already patterned up & cut the steel - the hinge arms are also getting replaced - these break easily in fact one them has already been previously repaired - the Clubs spares department has supplied new ones



More tomorrow

The number of areas that need to line up and fit well are very numerous with this lower panel...all in relation and with equal importance of all the other panels you are having to deal with. The car is better than factory, but still in keeping with what Jowett probably intended for fit and finish/quality, ect.

I love the work you are doing and it continues to inspire!

great stuff Grumpy!

JP

Once I had flanged the sides & profiled the sections - I assembled & welded up the bonnet hinge boxes



Dressed back and the new hinge arms fitted



The area that the hinge boxes fasten to on the bulkhead is quite thin - on the early cars this leads to fractures in the bulkhead steel around the hinge box apertures - I have already welded the fractures up and dressed them back on the bulkhead



These are reinforcement plates in the making for the hinge boxes copied from factory originals which I shall complete & fit in the morning



Meanwhile I made a start on working the dents & scrapes out on the nearside rear wing & door





They still require more work but both panels are somewhat straighter



They have also had buzz over with the DA and P80's to clean them up



More tomorrow

Just a Q GN...

The rear shroud side panel you're making...

It looked like this originally:


And your repair like this:


Despite that the wing to panel joint looks pretty nice. Are you going to introduce the original step still?

So lots done and next to nothing to show for it (some days are like that)



Bonnet hinge reinforcement panels were completed and fastened insitu complete with the hinge boxes - the factory relied upon pop riveting the bottom of the reinforcement and the bolts for the hinge boxes secured the upper section - this was down to the fact that they were retrofitted after the cars left the factory when they discovered that they had a problem with the bulkheads fracturing around the hinge boxes



Quite a few repair sections / reinforcing sections made up & trial fitted to the alloy outer panels - and that was my day gone



Final shot - just a progress pic - I do a bi-monthly roundup of any restoration work happening on all Jowett models for the club magazine and my deadline is this Friday - I normally just forward a handful of various images that I have and let the editor use has he wishes



Long road trip tomorrow - so back to the work on this one on Friday

You mentioned "no detriment to the car either way"... I think it goes one step further to help protect the longevity of the car/repair area. I understand purity of restoration, but this type of improvement is, in my humble opinion, necessary.

If Jowett had to fix their hinge box area with reinforcements to stop fractures on a recall basis, then it makes sense to do this mod on the lower panel/piping/fender mating surfaces too!

the work on the body panels is extraordinary!

JP

Yep just like they attempt to score a Jupiter down if it has a Javelin engine fitted - they are identical / built of the same parts on the same production line in the same factory - 1 digit on the engine number identifies the engines has either Jupiter or Javelin - They built 800 Jupiter's & 25'000 Javelins - Surviving Jupiter's number low 400's - surviving Javelin's circa 1,000 - the engines can be fragile if mistreated - they suffer from corrosion in the water galleries & head studs to the point that renders them useless - Surviving Jupiter engines are quite rare - there are far more surviving Javelin engines and therefore quite a few Jupiter's have non original Javelin engines in them - (non original by ONE digit on the engine number) - when I discovered that the judges were scoring the cars down for this I took a different angle to it - the owner has retained a 70 year old rare car on the road by having no choice but fit an original Jowett engine type to the car therefore any scoring down on a engine number difference gets discounted - this is Jowett Jupiter - it survives and has important as a club concours event is - it's no 'Pebble Beach' either

Kevin - You could - but you would have to do both crankcase half's - its a lot trouble for the sake of a number - I suppose if the cars were worth mega bucks and all matching numbers made a significant difference to the value of the car then yes you would do it but 99.8% of owners accept the cars for what they are