Dash Mock-up

The gauges and switches went into the dash today. This is by no means finished. The wood panel gets covered in leather. All of the gauges need to be rebuilt, and the tach may not be the original type. Notice the difference in the number size and thickness. I think all the others are original and generally they work but need to be freshened up. Notice on the back side of the tach there are two holes presumably for lights that have been stuffed with cork.

Wood Dash

Sometime back in this car's history, the leather center dash was removed along with about 3/8" of the original birch ply backing and in its place a mahogany face was glued to the remaining plywood behind. Aside from the facts that it was not original, not attractive wood, and the new holes cut through the mahogany were not centered on the gauges behind, it was pretty good. So I scrapped all that stuff and carved an entire new face out of Baltic Birch ply. It was a bit of a challenge since the old dash was so buggered and since the holes were not properly located, and the metal backing plate that you can see in the background that I took all of the measurements off of was also filed out to fit the misplaced gauges. In other words, the old wood dash had misplaced holes drilled into it and rather than start over with a new piece of wood, the backing plate was filed out to fit the poorly made wood face. You can't make this stuff up. Usually the holes in the backing plate were enlarged in one direction only and I was able to get enough dimensions off of the undamaged side to draw the correct pattern. Then you get out the router and a few bits and go to town. The last shot is a little hard to see, but that shows the new wood dash located on the aluminum dash panel. Eventually this all gets covered with leather.

Heater

This car is currently without a heater. Since I have all sorts of time on my hands currently, I drug out of my TR-3a stash a spare heater that I was saving for parts. It's not the same as the XK120 heater ( it's taller but it also mounts higher) but once installed, other than the identification plate which is visable under the dash, should be virtually visually identical.

So I disassembled it to check for problems. It is actually in pretty good shape. The motor was froze up but a little WD-40 and a little time and it came loose. It took a little longer to get it to run free but it now does and it runs under its own power. The core looks very good but it needs to be checked under pressure for leaks. Beyond that it needs blasting and painting, and the top mounting plate needs to have new holes drilled to align with the holes in the heater box mounted in the firewall. Piece of cake.

Wheel Trim

Look what I have been reduced to. Without the 120 in the car cave, my life has become a challenge to find meaning. And frankly, the parts left here that need work are getting scarse. Not that lots and lots of parts are not still required, it's just that there are few old parts left here that are worth redoing. So the wheel trim rings got some attention. They are stainless steel and were pretty rough with dings and scrapes. So the dings got somewhat pinged out, then sanded, then buffed. Now they are merely rough.


Also, in my boredom I drilled out all of the stainless rivets from the top structure and then took the convertible top bows and parts to the chromer.

Air Cleaners

These are an original set of air cleaners for a TR-3a that is also a 1-3/4" S.U. carb set up. These were set aside because they had a couple cracks on the back side where they are attached to the carbs. They have since been welded and sanded, primed, and painted. I think these are an exact match for the Jag. They are supposed to have a couple of decals installed that say what the service requirements are. Maybe later. I've never liked these things. The wire mesh is designed to be wetted with oil and that is supposed to trap the dust that is headed for the intake. They drip. Or the oil and the captured dust is headed into the intake. Generally, everyone runs these dry then they are good for keeping out the shop rag, rogue chicken, or tree branch and not much more.

More Convertible Top

More before shots.

Then the canvas top is removed and the wood front rails are removed. It took most of this afternoon, but all the bent rails have been straightened. The next step for this assembly is to completely disassemble all the rails from each other. For the most part all the seperate pieces are held together and pivot on 1/4" stainless steel rivets. So all these need to be drilled out and the pieces go off to the chromer. They get chromed, then new rivets get hammered back in. I'm getting ahead of myself here because I want to fit the frame to the car that is still away at camp, make sure the straightened bits fit before the rivets get drilled out.

In other news the windshield frame, the rear lights, the bonnet prop rod, the crash rail plugs, and some other odds and ends are off at the chromers. I brought several other pieces along that the chromer didn't want to do because he thought that they were too far gone. He could fix them but the cost would be too much.

Convertible Top

Since I don't have a whole car to play with, I'm playing with the parts that I have. The convertible top frame is pretty rough. It's bent in quite a few places and missing a couple small parts and it is supposed to be chrome. These are before shots so I can remember how all this goes back together.

Battery Cover

The battery cover for this car was very rusted away, but there was enough of it left to get dimensions from to make this one. The original is steel and since it sits directly over the batteries it has no good option but to rust away. This is stainless. The exposed surfaces are eventually covered with vinyl. It is stretched around and tacked to the nailing strips on the inside. No stainless except the dzus fastener brackets will be exposed.

Exhaust manifold-porcelain

These just arrived back from Tom Sparrow of Prairie City Porcelain. The original castings were pretty crude with fins and bumps all over. I did a lot of grinding and porting and generally smoothing inside and out prior to sending them off, and I replaced the studs with stainless steel, but it seems like it was all worth it now that they are done. There is one rather sizeable casting flaw in the number six ( that's the one in engine front or the far right in the top shot) right at the top of the manifold. If you try to weld this to fill it, the porcelain generally won't stick to the repair. The porcelain actually goes on pretty thick and covered a fair amount of the problem. I didn't want to risk cutting too much away at that point and Tom agreed that I shouldn't go any further. You can't see it here but the inside is also coated. If I had a car I could put these on.

Fairfield Concours

Dee and I went to the Fairfield County, Ct. Concours in Westport, CT. on Sunday. It was a really good show. If any of you want to view a bunch of snapshots of a bunch of really fine cars, you can see them on the web album- Dee Welding photos 2011-8-18-Fairfield Concours. This is the first time I've tried this so let me know if it doesn't work.

Try picassaweb.google.com/102163592810391998508/20110918fairfieldconcours

Horns Finished

The wrinkle finish paint was cured in the kitchen oven and then the horns were reassembled. The passenger side horn required a bit of straightening since it was hit pretty good at one time. It is not perfect, but the horns are mounted to the inside of each of the front wheels are are generally not visible anyway. But they now work and it is more important that they be heard.