Back on the road again after spending a little time under the E-type.
Replaced the rear engine mount, which is actually a transmission
mount, and also looks nothing like the one in the workshop manual.
Fortunately Welsh Jaguar knew somehow to give me the right one,
it was just worrying when I undid the old one wondering if it was
going to fall on my head or not. All was ok, and now one more source of
squeaks and rattles is eliminated.
In the process I took off the exhaust system - always easy now that
I have a stainless system. This time I finally got round to replacing the
manifold to downpipe brass nuts with stainless nuts. Much better, no more
frustration with threads stripping.
The steering column U-joints got replaced too - removing yet another
rattle!
It was a good time to finally get at the speedo cable with the transmission
dangling down like that. With that fixed I can actually read my speed now
without the needle bouncing plus minus 20mph. But now comparing it with
engine revs I think it is reading too fast.
Which brings me to the subject of drive ratios. Why is it that all the US
E-Types have such low ratio diffs? Mine is 3.54:1 whereas the British
cars are closer to 3:1. Hey I'll never get to 155mph now! Was it because
Americans were imposing a speed limit, or did someone think the acceleration
was going to be better?
Poking around the transmission made me also wonder why there was never an
overdrive available on the E-Type as on other Jaguars. There is "almost"
enough room at the end of the gearbox for one. I think it would be a great
addition for highway cruising. Anyone ever seen one?
Changing out the diff for a higher ratio one would be an expensive option,
but just in the December issue of Hemmings I saw an ad for a 2.88 diff
that a company was promoting for Jaguar owners doing V8 conversions
(perish the thought) for just $700. Thats cheap for an exchange diff!
I gave them a call but he seemed to think that their diff would not fit
a Series I E, but he is sending me the catalog all the same.
I am still procrastinating about the paint job. Part of the problem is
decidng on the right colour. The original, now very faded, colour is
Sand, which is pretty awful. Painting it the traditional BRG had occured
to me, but I hadn't planned on removing the engine and everything else
to paint the frame and interior in the same colour. The idea of leaving
it in two colours, inside and out, is not aesthetic so then I considered
something called Golden Sand, supposedly a metallic version that came on
models a year later than my '66 model. Anyone ever seen one? Its hard to
get an impression from just a paint chip.
In the meantime I have ordered some Connolly leather seats from British
Auto USA for $660 the pair. At least the inside is going to look good.
Whatever happened to the argument I tried to start about synthetic engine
oils. Castrol sells one for 4 times the price of XL.
Is it worth it? Is it SOL endorsed?
True Blue.
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