Part 17 - Dawn of a New Era........

"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now...We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."



Congratulations my friend, this is one of the happiest days of my life, the others? The day Cath said "yes" the day I first held Miles, and the day I first held Cameron.

This is the first day of the rest of our lives........


Love as always, Dad x

Part 16 - Cadaver secured...get my scalpel

Well, Happy New Year everyone! After the lovely weather gets a bit easier, I will go and collect my new "score". I ended up getting the 86' XJ6 for $675.00 !!! A harvest that will provide a taller Diff, spare rear end, Front suspension with Much bigger front brakes that will accept Wilwood Calipers ( Go fast, but stop fast also) 5 stud hubs, a host of donor parts for my fuel injection experiment AND more importantly a fairly fresh 4.2 engine, the last in a series of developments providing the strongest of Jag engines - That way I can swap engines, keep the matching number engine to rebuild at my leisure (or not) then I'll shitcan the rest of it, like Jack the ripper with a sixpenny trick in Whitechapel. SO I'm feeling pretty excited right now...........

Part 15 - Heart and Lung Transplant.......

So Tis the night before thanksgiving, a good time to be reflective...........


As is usual things have a funny way of happening. The oil pressure thing has been bugging me latley - should I pull the motor and replace the oil pump?

If I do what else will I find?

Supposing she has crabs?

Well during a Craigslist scour & search I found an 86 XJ6 series III - has 130,000 miles but engine was completley rebuilt 10,500 ago - and the price is right..... it would yield a front suspension upgrade, a motor, the 86 IS the best of engines, best power/torque figures least prone to block cracks , rear differential and 5 stud front and rear hubs to go with the 4 spiffy alloys

I bought off EBay for $150 - YES $150!!! ( You have to love a mispelled listing - no other bidders!!!) anyway - I'm going to pop off and see the car tomorrow...... you never know I may have to get it into the lab, Stay Tuned......







Look for pictures of the car next time....and my new steering wheel............

Part 14 - The fun begins.......

After not blogging for a long time because my Fekin Laptop burned a hard drive, I'm back!!!
Operation weber has been a success, but crazy work schedule has kept me from installing them.
Things went fairly smoothly, except a few stubborn jets that had fuel residue which glued them in Like Epoxy! Its funny because this is a cathartic experience, when I write about it, it makes me want to work on the car, when I work on the car it makes me want to write in the blog!



Am I hot? - This is what I'm shooting for........

I'm doing a bit of experimentation here, with some jet sizes which combined with a certain size of venturi recommended by another e-type guru, should yield acceleration faster than shit through a goose - again my mandate is : scare factor required when stepping on the loud pedal!
Im going to change all the inlet and thermostat gaskets as well so the bastard doesnt start leaking on the first test drive.

We will see how it goes............

Part 13 - so many parts so little time........

So after opening the boxes there were approximately 220+ parts on my Dining room table - this is going to take a while.........
I started of stripping down the carbs and removing the internals-there was a lot of shite in there, lots of the jets were stuck fast, there must be some incredibly filthy fuel being sold in gas stations!

Like anything else, it gets quicker as you learn to do it - I had all 3 carbs torn down in about 3 hours, and the jets back in them in about 5 hours.
The next part will be to put all the new jets in, zip them back up and get them mounted - I think when I do it Ill change over the oil filters also - with the old carbs off it will give me wide open access to whole side of the engine..........

Part 12 - Operation Weber Begins

Finally, in a confluence of tiresome events, UPS got their shit together (ran out of excuses) and delivered the parts for the long awaited Extreme Weber Makeover...........
I got home expecting a no show, and there was a box - FINALLY!!!!! I think the UPS plane had burst a tire, and they used my package to land on, but it was here!
60 or 70 bright shiny brass parts, and about 100 gaskets and seals - I'm ready to begin......

get my carbs, manifolds, tools and spread everything out on the dining table (This is sure to make Caterina De Sucero Happy!!) Such a task should only be executed in comfort, if I did it in our bed there is a danger I would crash out when I got tired.
I go into the kitchen, turn on the sink and scrub my hands in a surgeon like manner and begin........

Part 11 - Walking across the US.....

So Pierce Manifolds is a great company to do business with. UPS is not. UPS are cloth eared sloth's. UPS is an acronym for Untimely Parcel Service. Pierce Manifolds pulled a rabbit out of a hat, got all the parts for my Weber carb makeover together from stock even though they were moving most of their inventory to a vintage race meeting over a 3 day weekend. They got my order out by UPS 9 hours after I ordered - amazing. Why? because I needed it in a hurry.
Then mighty Brown sent all their hard work down the shitter 3-5 day shipping is 3-5 BUSINESS days, oh and it doesn't include the day it shipped out, oh yes.... it doesn't include weekends, OH or holidays, oh or the day they are catching up after the holidays, in fact its called 3-5 days and we will probably lose the shipment along the way........ Turns out one of their employees is walking from California with it in a satchel.....that's how it feels anyway.
This is an uplifting blog, I wasted an entry - if you need anything in a reasonable amount of time ( NOT 11 days) DON'T ship UPS - in fact - just don't ship UPS, they suck!

Ill be back with the blog WHEN the stuff gets here..........