1968 Daimler 250 v8 - Moving on

Excellent project and its one of those cars where most of what you have can be repaired / refurbished - with Mk2 Jag prices now running the Daimler prices are now starting to tag along - not that this matters but its always nice when you don't have spend 3 x the physical value of the car to get it something like right - that said costs can easily escalate on any restoration - the interior leather can all be made supple / repaired with the right products - there are loads of videos / help available on how to sort / undertake you own veneer repairs etc - Much of the under bonnet stuff will refurb with more time than money spent on it etc - Hope it all goes well

I like!!

Thanks guys

@grumpynorthener As you mention I had seen that prices are on the up (as are most classics to be honest!) and one of the motivations to go for it was to get chance to own one before it got out of my reach. As you say, while it's not the specific aim of the restoration, it's nice that the money I'm spending now shouldn't be just money down the drain. Part of the experience for me is learning new things, so I've already started looking into the techniques I'll need to sort the veneers out, and likewise after the success of making a seat cover for my motorbike from scratch, I will be having a go at some of the retrimming that's required myself too.

peteh1969 Yes I had read about how much power these engines can be made to handle. I'm amassing quite a collection of scans of old magazine articles and things (a lot from Russ Carpenter) which details how to get the best from the engine. Crazy ideas around fuel injection and big superchargers have been banded about over drinks with my friends (they're all into Japanese performance stuff and it keeps them from thinking I've gone mad buying an old slow auto cruiser!) but all of that is a very long way up the road and not really worth worrying about right now. First things first, I want it presentable and on the road to be enjoyed.

So where was I... with the car safely home, and space made for it under the carport, there was nothing for it but to make a start! The first task was to start feeding the leather. Whilst dry and stiff, the only damage is to the rear drivers side seat where there's a small amount of stitching coming undone and where a small section on the lower edge of the seat is torn, so it's definitely going to be a case of trying to save the existing leather rather than replace it. It's now had several treatments and there's some definite improvement, so fingers crossed if I keep at it between now and when the car sees the road it will be good and supple.

I figured as good a place to start as any, would be to make sure I was happy with the engines health, I knew it ran, but as the oil pressure gauge is one of several that are currently not working... I wanted to make sure it was ok! When I'd driven the car off the flat bed and into the carport, it was clear that the engine wasn't on all 8 and that it was pretty rattly at the top end, so I was a little nervous. My first check was to pull some plugs and have a look, and this gave the first clue as to why it was running poorly. The plugs themselves were old and dirty and a mixture of Champion, Bosch and NGK... but this wasn't the issue. It was quickly apparent that the plug leads were broken and were just sort of resting in the distributer. Which isn't going ot be helping much!

While I was investigating, I thought it was worth popping the valve covers off and having a quick look underneath.




Hmmm! Not terrible, but not amazing. There's definitely some surface corrosion from when the car sat, but it's not too drastic. Generally there's not much oil staining, and the oil itself looked brand new. There's also evidence of a repair to both heads, which looks to have been done to a good standard, and is completely free from oil staining, so I don't think the car can have gone far since the repair was made. I've read these engines can suffer with corrosion in the heads which results in this kind of repair.

I have zero history with the car, just a car, a v5 and some keys, so there's a lot of automotive archeology to be done! There are some signs of a previous owner doing some restoration work (some to a good standard, other very dubious!) and I suspect that these heads were repaired sometime since the car has been off the road? Whether this means that the exhaust valves have been swapped for stainless that make it suitable for unleaded or not I have no way of telling.

With the covers off I checked the valve clearances and found them all to be pretty loose, so adjusted them all up to the spec from the workshop manual (my first purchase!), popped the valve covers on, bodged the plug leads and hooked up a cheap electronic oil pressure gauge and crossed my fingers....



Phew! That's good news indeed. Much less top end noise, and decent oil pressure. This is good news. As you can hear it's not running happily though, the carbs clearly needed work, who knows what fuel was in the tank and how long it had been there! Either way I thought it was worth checking the ignition timing.

Handily Daimler thought it was a good idea to put the ignition timing mark at about 7 O'clock on the front pulley. Deciding to jack the car up so I could check this, started a while chain of events that ultimate have set me on the path of a much bigger restoration!

Starting to jack up the car it was clear that the rubber front subframe mounts had become detached from their steel backings. So essentially the whole front suspension was just 'resting' under the front of the car.. eek! Nothing for it but to get the front of the car up in the air and get the subframe off so I could replace the mounts.



The subframe itself was, like all of the under bonnet and underside of the car, very very dirty and covered in seemingly inches of grime. But nothing looked too scary.



Having now removed the subframe, and jet washed it and the engine bay to remove some of the major dirt, it was clear that the right hand chassis rail was in a bad way.




After much swearing and grumbling, there was nothing for it to get on with fixing it. In the first of many painful times for my wallet I bit the bullet and bought a reproduction chassis leg. But before I could get on with welding it in, I realised I really needed to take the engine out to get access. Stripping it down didn't take too long, and hopefully my tried and tested method of buying a roll of sandwich bags to separate out groups of parts shan't fail me when it comes to putting it back together.




I had to be a little creative with the engine crane to get the engine out, now that the car was stranded without subframe under my fairly low carport... but with the help of a friend I did it and only minimal blood was shed in the process.



With the engine out I could see what a horrible mes the engine bay was, and just how much of it was surface rust under the dirt rather than paint.




It also revealed one of the previous 'repairs', it looks like someone was struggling with some of the exhaust downpipes nuts, so decided to go through the inner wing with some hideously blunt instrument in order to get to them. What a mess!




Let the weldathon commence!

Yes I have had first hand experience of getting a lot of power from these engines on carbs and injection, having be taught performance engine building by the late Ron Beaty of Forward Engineering.

The first thing I would say get done is while you do the frames and body get the heads off checked and new valves seats, springs, stem seals all the usual things and have them and the inlet manifold ported and polished that will help you in so many ways later on with getting it running right later, the engine has to be out so use the dead time to do the basics on the engine while it's al ready out.

I have a spread sheet with what I believe is all the different camshaft upgrades available past and present for the Daimler V8. I am currently building a 2.8 fuel incected fast road engine with pulse tuned intake and exhaust for my TVR. Currently aiming for more than 100 % volumetric efficiency 😁 A lot of info in the 'max overbore' thread on the dloc forum 👍

Ahhhhhh this is already so cool! Many many wants. Going to be an awesome bit of kit when done!

Chop chop with the rest of the updates!

Great work, engine and bay are looking great. (as are the metal repairs)

Just spotted this thread, I had wondered what had been going on with the Spitfire but this is even cooler, looks like good progress already

Yes sadly the Spitfire had to go in order to make room (physically and financially!) for the Daimler. Went to a young lad locally, and I've seen him out and about in it various times, so it's nice to know it's being enjoyed.

In hindsight while I'm glad to have had the Spitfire, and it introduced me to both the good and bad of British cars, I found that once the novelty of having another small raw 2 seater had worn off, it was leaving me wanting a bit. As I discussed on the Spitfire thread, I had all sorts of silly ideas involving v8 swaps and whatever, but I decided that was kinda going against the principles of the car, better to leave it a simple fun little car and for me to try something else.

Part of the problem was that it was competing with my motorbike for tha simple and raw and connected to the road experience, and nothing will beat 2 wheels for me in that regard. As a side note, I've now had my 1972 Suzuki T500 for 3.5 years, which is the longest Ive owned any vehicle! After 30+ vehicles in the past 10 years of driving/riding, maybe I've finally found a keeper!