Body building

With the car right way up, things have been progressing fairly well.
I tidied up the insides of the floorpans, primed, seam sealed and sprayed them with gravel stop. Once the inside of the shell gets a couple of coats of urethane in body colour, those floors will be bulletproof! The metal work in the interior of the cabin is done now, so once I spray inside pillars, floors and roof, it'll be masked off till I complete all the exterior bodywork, just to make cleanup of all the dust from paint removal etc much easier.

I've also cut the lower quarter panel extensions off, the LH side was very rusty, RH side had been replaced before at some stage (with a genuine Jaguar panel). My conclusion on seeing both these panels is the factory did a very poor job of ensuring no rust in this area. None of the seams were sealed, either inside or out. So water, whether from inside or outside, could wick into the seams. If your car isn't rusty there right now, spray as much anti corrosive treatment of your choice as you can into this area as frequently as you can.

 Not only does this area get moisture from the rear tyres flicking up water, but if your fuel filler, rear window or side windows leak, the water will work it's way down the inner wheel arches into this area. Also, those lovely big sail panels will form condensation and it will run down the panels into the lowest point.
 Jaguar should've also provided a drain at the lowest point, which is the front intersection of inner, outer lower quarterpanels and the wheelarch extension. Go ahead and drill a decent hole here on your cars.

This is the lower quarter removed and some primer splashed on. Note my heat shrinking of a dent above the seam line. These lower quarters aren't too hard to remove, I didn't drill the spotwelds, I cleaned all paint off the seams ( so I could see the welds) then ground down the spotwelds from the old lower panel side. This meant I kept the surrounding panels intact with no holes in the seams. I have a pair of fibreglass lower quarters that I will epoxy on, they are non structural panels and originals are expensive and hard to find. It also allows you to keep the front bumper extension brackets intact on the inside of the panels this way, keeping this point nice and strong for the replacement panel.

And this is a view up and inside the cavernous XJS quarter panels, looking up into the buttresses. Most of you will never see this! I am leaving the lower quarters off so I can thoroughly paint up into this area, especially so I can get paint and anticorrosives into the inner buttress/boot gutter seam and around the wheelwells and fuel filler. I'll also put a coat of acrylic stone guard on the panel to reduce drumming and condensation.

And here is where my bodywork is up to at the moment.

 I have repaired a rusty corner above the tail lights and filled the antenna hole. A great way to let water into a car is with an antenna, plus modern powered antennas do a better job and can be hidden inside the car.
I still have to repair the lower part of this tail light housing and a couple of smaller repairs (front of sill, lower boot gutter and a small coin size hole behind door), then I can start stripping paint and re fairing the body.

Notice the nice small heat affected zone, whoever says flux core MIG welding is no good for bodywork doesn't know how to weld, and this was me also doing deliberately hot welds to ensure strength.
 Ground up and awaiting some final dollying then filler.

Pipes etc.

 Some people hate the idea of plumbing hard lines, I don't mind it too much.
 The hardest part is deciding where to run the lines. I didn't like the way Jaguar ran the lines over the floorpans towards the rear of the car, I've seen too many damaged fluid lines on jags to know it's a dumb idea.
 So I decided to follow the recess in the transmission tunnel that the exhausts follow. I'll be adding heat shields to either the pipes themselves (most likely) or the floorpan to protect the hard lines from heat.
 I've left the ends open so I can finish them off to length later. The fuel lines are interesting, Jaguar used crush olives on the tank ends, which are super easy to use, so I'll use them again. The other lines will be double flared.
 I bought some really cool stainless steel line clamps:

  I didn't buy stainless for wank factor, it's just really, really hard to find cad plated or zinc plated clamps!
  I bought 3/16" for the brakes (will use a few in engine bay) as well as single 3/8" for fuel lines and the double 3/16-3/6" items for the long runs under the floor. I couldn't find a double clamp in a 1/4-3/8" size for the charcoal canister line, so I just opened up the 3/16" double ones I bought, which worked out great.
 Previously I wanted to use Cunifer line for the brakes, but I got a great deal on zinc coated steel lines for all three sizes so I went with it. The originals were zinc plated and lasted 36 years...
 So, here is the line you'll need to fully replace all hard lines on a Jaguar:

  Each coil is 7.5m. The brakes will use all of a 7.5m coil, fuel likes almost all of a 7.5m coil  and the charcoal canister line about 4m.
 I found bending the 3/16' and 1/4" lines easy enough, they can be bent around your thumb with hand pressure, only using a bender for tight or compound curves. The 3/8" steel line, well, it's very easy to kink in the bender for some reason. If I was to do it again, I'd buy aluminium line without hesitation. The steel is too stiff and prone to crushing in this size.
 So anyway, the lines took about a half day to bend up:

 I used a pair of powerful disc magnets I have to help hold the lines in place when bending.
 And here are the finished lines, with the pretty stainless clamps:

  So now the car can go back onto it's "wheels"!
  The inside floors, trans tunnel etc will now be finish ground, primed, seam sealed and coated in body deadener, then I'll start stripping paint and doing cosmetic body work.
 A couple of weeks ago I bought a complete interior minus headliner, C pillar covers and roof rail covers, so all I need for the interior now is those parts and an instrument panel.
 And yesterday I found a complete rear end at a very good price:

 It's everything I was after, 3.31 ratio, LSD AND a factory rear swaybar. This has saved me quite a bit of time and money hunting those parts. I was considering going with a slightly higher diff ratio, but I'll see how the 3.31's go with the TH700 ratios. 
 With a combined ratio of 10.1 in low gear using the TH700/3.31's as compared to the combined 6.896 of the stock XJS/V12, I think I should see some significant acceleration improvements, and that doesn't even factor in the increased low end torque of the Holden 5 litre.

Still on it's side.

Things are progressing on the XJS, it may not look like much, but all this underfloor work is important.
I've final coated the new floor pans after a process of red oxide primer, seam sealer then an acrylic stone guard.

I used the acrylic stone guard because I had new panels to work with, it won't go over the old tar based stone guard.
 The acrylic is a stronger product as far as abrasion resistance goes and doesn't suffer from drying out over time as the tar based stone guards do. Those of you with experience driving Jaguars in the real world will know how they like to drag the floorpans first when ground clearance gets low, I am confident that with my combination of heavy coating of acrylic stone guard, two coats of red oxide primer and the zinc coated replacement panels, my floorpans will be fine for years!
 My next step is go apply another coat or two over the existing tar gravel stop to ensure lasting corrosion and abrasion protection for another 30 years!
 An important warning here: Jaguar confirm they used asbestos fibres in their factory sound proofing/ stone guard, probably as a thickening agent. So please make as little dust as possible when removing or working with it and wear a proper mask.
After the gravel stop is on I'll bend up 4 new underfloor lines. The old ones were mangled on my car after the previous owner dragged it around on it's floorpan and they were old and rusty anyway. I'll be using Cunifer for the brake lines and plain old galvanised steel for fuel pressure and return lines, plus tank to charcoal canister vent. I also didn't like the way the stock lines ran in a few spots, than and the new engine needs the lines in different positions means it'll work out nicely bending new lines up.
 The beaver panel was annoying me as well on the car, it had a few reasonable sized dents, plus a random rust out patch right in the middle. After staring at it and thinking about it for months, I decided to cut out most of the panel and replace it.

I was pretty happy with how little rust there was in the inner beaver panel. Some time with the wire wheel and some red oxide primer sorted it out nicely. The cavity will be thoroughly rust proofed once the car is done of course.

 The beaver panel was a pretty simple shape to duplicate, it just needed a bit of a curve at the top and a 45 degree or so bend at the bottom.

Of course I couldn't help myself and splashed on some red oxide primer, yes it's galvanized sheet, but the primer makes a good surface for paint and helps hide the zinc flake pattern.

 Next installment should find the car all stone guarded and new lines made. I have to order the bits and pieces for the lines soon, now I know where they'll run.

Getting sideways.

  I have finally been earning enough money to start spending a little on the Jag. I bought some great flux core wire, it puts the CIG junk to shame. Beautiful spatter free welds and easy slag removal.
Anyway, I strapped the body down to the frame and lifted it with my engine hoist a couple of weeks ago, it's made working on the underbody so easy!

I've been tidying up the weld areas around the edges of the new floors and patches to be welded from underneath. This gives me double welded floor panel seams all round, overkill maybe, but allows for any less than perfect welds and looks much neater.

The floors are finished with now, have applied my favourite primer and then seam sealer once that is well dried.

The next step from here is to remove any flaking and poorly attached body deadener, rake out all body seams and prime/seam seal the seams. As I've mentioned before, Jaguar didn't use seam sealer on these cars, which is why so many rust badly.
 Once that is done, I need to repair some rust in the lower quarter panels and look at repairing/ modifying the beaver panel for sedan chrome bumpers (series 1 or 2 bumpers, I am going for a factory prototype look and hate the 5 mph bumpers). I also have to do a final tidy up of the boot floor and get that all straight, much easier as it is at the moment and I can have someone hold a dolly whilst I hammer on the other side.
I also have to run new fluid lines and will grab them from a series 3 sedan donor car when I find one. It'll be a lot easier to run the lines now whilst the car is on it's side. I'd even like to run new exhaust pipes when it's still easy to work on, I'm not sure if I'll go stock XJS dual exhaust or work out another way to get past the rear suspension cage. At the very least, the mid pipes and front mufflers can go in now.

Back from a break

 So I've been "between" full time work for a few months, so XJS work pretty much stopped in an effort to conserve money.
 However, in that time I started making up patch panels for the few major rust repair areas that the new floor pans didn't eradicate. mainly rear parcel shelf, floor under rear seat and the rear seat bulkhead. There are a few other small rust repairs remaining, but they are small coin sized repairs that won't take much effort at all.
 The process I developed for shaping the rust repair panels was largely borrowed from my time as a marine trimmer/sailmaker. I made patterns up out of paper and simply transferred the paper onto sheet steel. The paper allows you to quickly and accurately form the template in situ, ensuring the paper lays flat, and is quick and easy to trim to fit well in position as well.
 Then I used a cheap craft glue to tack down the templates onto my sheet metal and cut them all out with a combination of a 100mm grinder with fine cutting disc and tin snips. The grinder is perfect for doing long, straight cuts.
 Once the panels are cut out, any flanges needed are bent in on the vise and then a trial fit is done to do any further fine shaping. I haven't welded the panels in yet, but they will be offered in place, marked and the rusted panels behind trimmed out before welding into place.
 Here's how I laid out the repair templates. You can see the advantages of this method; it allows efficient use of the materials and allows you to set up and cut multiple panels at the same time, a real time saver. No one said home car restoration had to be slow and painful, lack of specialised tools merely means thinking harder before starting something!

This is the rear seat vertical bulkhead patch trial fitted. The floorpan welds need grinding smooth for  a nice flush fit, but very close. The paper template allows very close fitting straight off the template, only very minor trimming required in corners for a great fit:

This is the floor below the rear seat, where it rusted out due to rear window leakage. The vertical bulkhead will be cut back for the patch panel before this panel is cut back and welded in, then the vertical bulkhead patch panel welded in. This way, I get brand new floor welded to brand new vertical bulkhead, very strong and an easy fit:

  The other side isn't nearly as bad, a much smaller rectangular patch is all that is needed to the floor and the vertical bulkhead has not been affected by rust.
 Only a small strip is needed for where the bulkhead meets the floor:

 Also the passenger side seat box needed a patch:

 I also have the panels cut for the parcel tray but don't seem to have photos of that.
Once the patch panels are welded in, they will be wire brushed to remove the adhesive and paper, then I'll flip the car on it's side and finish weld the floors and rust repair patches from underneath. Then I can do any other underfloor work as needed (, prime and seam sealer to new weld seams, repair existing failing sealer), and chip back any bad bitumen coating, reprime/seal and replace coating.
 By having the dolly frame I made wider than the car, I can strap the shell down to the frame and lift one side with my engine hoist, the frame simply pivots on the floor. This will make work on the floors easy and when time comes to fit fluid lines etc, will also make that job simple. Rotisseries are a trendy fad, totally overpriced and unnecessary! Just think about the problem and devise the simplest solution.

 Got stuck into the car today and cut out the rusted parts plus cleaned up the metal around them for welding. Looks pretty scary, but it is all under control. This is looking down through where the back seat should be, you can see the ground and the large soundproofing/heat pad under the floor. Once I have welded the panels from above, the car will be tilted on it's side, the soundproofing will be removed and the underside finish welded, painted etc. Not sure if I will try and reuse the soundproofing pad or use the modern self adhesive bitumen/aluminium pads:

I've finally gotten some decent work done. Bought some more welding wire (which is far better than the junk CIG sells in it's retail packs. Way less spatter and much easier slag removal), and replaced the microswitch in the handle of my MIG welder. It was not making contact all the time and causing bad welds.
 Anyway, I have the floors under the rear seats welded up and the bulkheads in front of that:

I've brushed some red primer over the repair, not that it really matters, I'll be turning the car on it's side and welding the patch from underneath as well, which will burn some paint off. Plus the top piece will be welded over it and seam sealed properly, so the floor will never see water ever again.
Front seat bulkhead came out well with the new floor patch welded into the back of it.

And I've welded the two corner patches into the parcel tray. Welded top and bottom. Probably stronger than the original panel, but the parcel tray carries the boot hinge loads and the two child restraint anchorage points, so I don't mind it being a bit overbuilt. I found it surprising that a car built in 1977 had child restraint anchorage points, but there they are. Correct thread and position. They are the steel standoff towers that the parcel tray fasteners push in to, so if you ever need to fit child points to your XJS it's easy.:

Footwell fun

Rust repairs are the worst part of any big restoration. They take forever if done properly and it looks like you haven't achieved anything. All you have is a slightly less rusty car. Nothing shiny or cool happens at this stage, and it can be demoralising!
 I've been fairly busy reconstructing the passenger footwell area and it's nearly done. I just need to finish weld some areas and repair the false foowtwell.
 It took me some time to come up with this final shape:

Also had to repair some rust around the forward end of the transmission tunnel, that patch took some time:

As you can see, I pulled the false footwell panel well up and out of the way for access, this was made easier by the fact it had rusted away from the floor at it's base, and the sill damage had also pulled it away.
 I also straightened the inner sill where it had bent in the impact, and cut a new piece to weld over it. This makes it nice and strong, and straight! Now the inner sill and floor are repaired, that whole area is very strong and I can finish the repairs to the outer sill with a good reference point. Panel repairs are all about doing a layer at a time, ensuring things are kept as they were:

I've also managed to find a good used radiator crossmember and weld that in. For some reason, the crossmember in this car had been removed, it looks like for another vehicle. I guess rust is common in these pieces, at least this one is rust free:

Floored

The replacement floor panels arrived last week, so I got to work and cut the old floors out. I left the seat boxes in place by drilling out their spot welds and cutting through the floors underneath them. pretty easy work.

There was a small area on the passenger's side seat box that will be replaced, I cut that section out whilst the floor was out, much easier at that time. The section will be replaced after the floor is in.
 Some photos trial fitting the floors. The support frame with casters I made is proving itself invaluable, allowing fast, easy access to all parts of the car. Floors were replaced without having to support or jack up the car at all, just sitting on the frame.
  The floor replacement panels are nicely made, very accurate reproductions and in a galvanised finish. I have to repair a small section at the corner of the driver's side where the rear seat bulkhead drops down, but that side is done apart from that.

The passenger's side needs more work. The front floor around the jack point is very rusty and the impact the sill took also caused some damage, so the jack point and front wheel well bulkhead/floor transition area will be rebuilt. I'm going to delete the jack point, they are ridiculously flimsy, I'll take some photos when I have it all apart to prove my point. Basically, all the jack point consists of is the floor sheet, a double angled bracket inside and the angled filler piece in the footwell. The sill is much stronger in this area and I'll be reinforcing both sills in this area to use as jack points on my car.
 I've also opened up the floor under the rear seat. I knew there was rust in there, but it's pretty easy to fix if it hasn't gone too far, all the panels in this area are either flat or have gentle curves, so it's simply a matter of cutting some well fitting cardboard patterns, transferring it to sheet and welding them in. I'll detail that in the next installment. I'll also attack the small amount of parcel shelf rust shown below as well. Again, a fairly easy repair. Both these areas rust on XJS and S1/2/3 sedans when the rear window leaks. The area below the seat rusts badly because water can get in but not out. All Jaguar had to do is use seam sealer on the floor in this area and provide a water drain hole (and seal the windscreens better!).