More front suspension. The hubs are on and the brake cylinders are fitted.

Front suspension going on for good now. First is the left side, the remainder are of the right side. Not a lot to say here- just going together as it should. Note the new stub axle on the right side. Bearings are all greased and packed. All bearings and seals are new. The torsion bars are linked up. I need to snip and fold over the cotter pins on most of this assembly yet. I held off until I was sure that I didn't install something out of order or backwards and at this point it's looking proper. Castle nuts and cotter pins are a huge pain. It is so much easier and faster with modern nylock nuts. Also, in the top photo you can see the brake cylinders poking through the brake back plate

Moss Gearbox cont'd

More on the Moss 4 speed- Top shot is of the rear of the box showing the long mainshaft and the distance piece. Second and third shots are of the assembled mainshaft and the constant motion shaft. Last is of the front of the box with the bearing housing installed. This has to come apart again as the end float of the constant motion shaft is excessive and needs to have shim washers added.


Other news: the new crankshaft and connecting rods have arrived and been delivered to the machinist. I'm going to have the lower end balanced. My current task is to locate new pistons, rings, wrist pins and clips. Also, I need to order a new rear crankshaft seal assembly. This requires machining the crankshaft. The original rear main bearing on the xk 120 did not have a real seal. It had an oil thrower that prevented oil loss when under power, but leaked like lots of British stuff when parked.

Josh asked some time back about the Triumph- It is a ' 58 TR-3A. The 3B came out for one year ( I think it was '61) and one of the major differences from the 3A was the use of a fully syncronized Moss 4-speed. I have installed a TR-4 fully syncro-ed box into the 3A so it's kinda like a B. The old non-syncro-ed box is where I am gaining parts to fix the Jag's.

Moss Gearbox

This the original type JH Moss 4 speed gear box. Not the original number box but a proper long mainshaft type box. First shot is of the empty clean case. Then the reverse gear and selector are installed. Then the counter shaft is installed. The assembly actually had to stop here because the end float for the counter shaft was 0.009 over correct fit and a new bronze bushing had to be ordered. The counter shaft is not actually in place as it needs to sit below where it will ultimately reside in order to allow the constant motion shaft to clear. Then after the mainshaft, which is shown installed in the last shot, and the constant motion shaft, which sticks out the front of the box and slides into the flywheel, are installed, then the counter shaft is raised into the proper location and the actual shaft is installed from the back. Most of the parts here have been scrounged from the 4 Moss gearboxes that I have laying about. So far the gears are all pretty good, and I was able to dig up a used mainshaft, but the front case bearing has 0.012 too much end float.

Steering box

Disassembled the steering box and found a bit of a mess. Box type is called a recirculating ball, worm and nut. The nut is sitting atop the worm gear and is in fairly good shape. The balls in the race on the column side are just visable. Typical in that there is very little oil and a half inch of sludge on the bottom. The balls on the opposite side were essentially flattened. Notice in the last shot the flattened balls and the bottom shim plate that was damaged as a result. I will need to replace the races and the balls, gaskets and seals. The worm gear should be polished as well. There are tracks of the recirculating balls on the worm that need to go away. The third shot is of the fork shaft that rides with the nut and is attached to the drop arm. Its in good shape.

Trans housing cleaned and painted.

A few more bits attached to the frame.

Front suspension

The red thingy is the torsion bar adjustment bracket that mounts to the middle crosbar of the frame. The hole through the frame is for the exhaust pipe after it leaves the muffler.

The front suspension on the left is starting to look like it might actually function someday. It is actually not assembled. It is merely sitting in position as I await the lower ball joint shims and the rubber boots that cover the ball joints called gaitors.

Other news: the block flunked its pressure test after being hot tanked. There is a small crack on the right upper center adjacent to the top freeze plug. It is not bad, and can be plugged. There were no other cracks or porosity problems. So now I need to track down a new crankshaft and rods and pistons. I am trying to get a newer matched set crank and rods. and will be looking for a new set of pistons. Rather than the standard 8 to 1 compression ratio, I think that I will get a set of at least 9 to 1. Gas is better these days than it was back in 1950. Also the block will need to be decked, which will increase the compression some as well.

I also got the steering column back and will start to tear it down. It needs gaskets and seals at a minimum.

Lower A-frame

The first of the lower a-frame is mounted to the frame. The polished brass sleeves are for the polyurethane bushings. The bushings had a very loose fit to the shafts so I mixed up a bit of epoxy to make a solid fit, then bolted them tight to set. The only difference with the shots is flash.

Rear brakes

The rear brakes went on today along with the axle getting greased and filled with gear lube. These were the shoes that I found on the car. The cylinders had to be completely rebuilt as the inner seals and springs were removed for some strange reason and replaced with a rubber square edge o-ring. Could not have worked as modified in a hundred years. Perhaps that is why the rear shoes show almost no wear. Note the screw head type brake adjustment adjacent to the cylinder. This is all manual adjustment. Old school tech.



Next shot shows the drum mounted over this brake assembly. Note the hole in the drum which lines up with the brake adjuster. So to adjust the brakes, one needs to jack up the car remove the wheels, then turn the drum until the hole lines up to the adjuster, adjust the adjuster, then put it all back toigether again. Only the very early xk120's have this antique system.


The last shot is of the left side brakes. Again note the printing on the shoe.