1952 Jaguar XK120 restoration

Thanks, found it, page 9.
Very interesting, I never knew such a thing existed, I'll have a look into them.
Tom

The wooden shrinking disc is fascinating and reminds us how strong oak can be. I needed to replicate an Alfa factory tool to unstick and pull the cylinder head from the block; the factory tool used a stonking piece of steel plate to push against the head studs. I didn’t have that kind of metal but did have an off-cut of oak … worked (and continues to work) great. Tough stuff! John

So today was supposed to be easy - put some goop on the gasket, wriggle the water pump over the 3 studs without mangling the radiator fins, get the 3 nuts on and tighten them up.
What could go wrong?
Well for starters, one of the nuts felt funny as it got to the point of tightening. We all know that feel.
Sure enough it wasn’t going to tighten. Just pulled the stud out of the block.
Great, I thought, stripped thread, probably in the block.
But the stud wasn’t full length.
Even better - broken off stud in the block. I started to mentally prepare to remove the radiator ( curse word ) and grille so I could get a straight shot at the front of the block.
This is the stud that came out.









It was held in with some sort of glue.











That’s the black stuff on the end that was stuck in the hole.I’d already cleaned off the threads to try and work out the pitch.

So I got a mirror to see what I could see.
I could see threads in a hole. No broken off stud. WTF?
I thought it looked like UNF. But threads into cast iron ( the block ) are usually UNC.

The people at The Healey Factory, where I bought pretty much all the parts I needed for the restoration have been very helpful, so I rang Chris in their workshop and he confirmed UNC.
I should add that that I have no affiliation, just a satisfied customer.

So I tried a UNC tap.












Was almost able to wind it in by hand. Cleaned out the thread beautifully.

Screwed in a bolt to check everything was hunky dory.










So I put that bolt in the lathe and turned down the head to the same diameter as the shank.











That way it would be long enough to cut the BSF thread to make it a replacement stud.












In position, with some sealant on the thread.












After that it was just mount the pump, refit the hoses, fill it with coolant and start it.

Except that it would start but not rev.

And some coolant, ( a tiny amount ) appeared at the head gasket.

Not happy.

But I took a deep breath and loosened the distributor to see if advancing or retarding would make it run.
Advancing made it better, but not completely cured.
So I must have been one tooth out when I replaced the distributor.
Lifted the dizzy just enough to advance the rotor one tooth. Button everything up for another try.
All good, runs normally.
Got it up to operating temp with no further coolant leakage. Did this several times over an hour or more. No problems.

I’m hoping it was just some residual coolant in the ( fibrous ) gasket that came out when it got hot.


Still baffled as to why the stud was glued into a hole with a good thread.
Couldn’t the bodger find a UNC bolt FFS?

That’s enough thread hijacking. Normal Jag service will ( hopefully ) be resumed shortly.

I did cut my own thread, just not the way you think. I happen to have a set of BSF dies.







I thought it was pretty cool being able to reuse the original nut!

But I’m still wondering about the scenario that lead to a broken stud being glued into a perfectly good EMPTY threaded hole.
Answers on a postcard to the address on screen…

Normal service has been resumed.

Some of the car, a fair bit of it really, is finished. We have some shiny surfaces!

Boot area:









And under the rear:










Under the front guards:












Under the dash:











I spent a day sanding/preparing all those areas. At the end of it I had no fingerprints and couldn’t pick up a hot cup of tea, but it’s good to have it done. There was a fair bit of exposed filler and bare metal so a full coat of epoxy was needed.

Today was quite a big effort. I didn’t want to sand it all again, so the colour had to go on within a few hours of the epoxy.
I was thinking it would only take a couple of hours for both coats, but it was four and a half before I was cleaning the second gun. It is a real hard thing to paint.

Close to half of this new shiny surface will be covered with upholstery, but you and I will know it’s nice underneath the carpet etc.

The outside bits - the stuff that matters most with a paint job - is well on the way to colour also.

It’s just about ready for the final coat of epoxy. Then it will be time for wet sanding. I wanted to get the colour on all the underside bits before they saw any water. Too many crevices to catch sanding slurry.

Rest assured it’s RED, not brown as it looks in these photos.

Now for the outside….

"Rest assured it’s RED, not brown as it looks in these photos."

Phew ! thank goodness for that !

lovely level of workmanship keep it up owen

Happy New Year everyone.


I’ve not been idle, just not been doing much that’s particularly photo worthy.

Mostly sanding and masking, seeing which brand of masking tape is the least worst.
This was a real cow to cover up.















And that is hopefully the final coat of primer on it. So after wet sanding, I’ll get to do it again…

Also did some more plating.
Lots of nuts, bolts and washers. The tedious but very necessary stuff.

The bonnet hinges had been on and off so many times they were starting to look pretty second hand so I pulled them apart and redid them. Along with the boot hinges, accelerator pedal and some other bits.










But the big news is the colour is on most of the removable body panels.

Bonnet done, other pieces covered to avoid overspray.










I painted one piece at a time, leaving the plastic over the yet to be painted ones. I’m not concerned about overspray on the bits once they’re done as they’ll be sanded and buffed.












Pretty chuffed with the finish though. Obligatory reflection photo:












Just to prove my amateur status, I had to get a run…











Bit of careful sanding should see that fixed. I’ll give it a week or more to harden then wet sand and polish.

That’s all for the moment.

Cheers.

Excellent work. Probably too late now, but I always find 3m tape to be the best. In general 3m stuff is excellent, if a bit expensive.
You've probably seen this or know about it but I've used the technique for runs and it worked pretty well: