1969 Jag S2 FHC, 4.2l Rebuild Story

I was timid to start the main interior removal. But the more I get into this the more I’m digging it! So far so good. I have not seen a single bit of evidence of any sort of body damage from the interior, but quite a few idiosyncrasies that may be original from the factory. like mismatched screws, missing screws (due to poor design and inability to reach them)

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That uuhhh… that can’t be a real E-Type. I mean there’s no real rust. Kit car? Ultralite all aluminum? Stainless steel reproduction???

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Is this piece glued in? I’m slowly removing the interior, and this piece has no hardware…

Yes, they are glued to thin foam and then to the wheel well metal. You will destroy them if you take them out. If they are in good shape and you are going back black, leave them alone.

What Jeff said. I’m curious as to why your fuel tank is white below the horizontal seam.

Put me down as guessing it has been fiberglassed.

Is it a custom racing fuel cell ?

Patrick
'66 fhc

The top of it appears to be a standard tank.

Safely removed the rear hatch and glass. You really notice the factory tinting on all the windows when they are laying on white fabric. The rear glass had the optional defroster and it shows to be intact. That’s exciting! I feel like this car had about all the options that were factory available in 1969.

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Does anyone know if the body tag under the rear bumper used to be painted with the body or was it a bare metal or was it black? It’s the stupidest of details but I wouldn’t mind getting it right. I’m trying to soak the original tag in something with no solvents. This seems to be softening the overspray from the recent paint job. But I can’t tell if the old paint job is underneath?

My S2 had its original paint when I got it and the tag was painted body colour:

It’s too early in the game to sweat over details. Keep the show moving along! You’ll still be doing this ten years from now if you get bogged down in minutiae. :smiley:

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Same on my SII. It was sprayed with original body color.

Body color on Tweety.

The back side of the tag was most likely left bare metal, and was riveted on to the body while the body was bare metal. If you look at the back of your tag, you will see some red oxide. After riveted on, the body was primered with red oxide and some probably seeped between the two, then, "some " original body color was sprayed on it when the body was painted. The under bumper, behind the stainless panel area, was not a priority to get coated well with body color paint. But was over sprayed when the final color was laid down on the body.

I know it’s sounds like minutia, but there is a method to the madness. I am looking for any of the alum rivets that need to come off before acid dipping (if I take that route). With the interior now totally removed, honestly it looks like the rust is only in the most common areas. Left sill, both foot wells, battery well.

Overall, it is looking far more hopeful, than I thought, back in March.

That’s a very bare tub. Ooooh I see you have the optional passenger footwell ventilation system installed! It’s fully optioned. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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I would get that carpet off of the crossmember and check it for rust. Mine had rusted at the bottom so I drilled the tunnel spot welds out, removed the tunnel and replaced the crossmember. I would also open up the passenger side sill and run a camera in there to check for rust at the bottom and the bottom of the braces. I would also clean the bottom of the floors underneath the car and check for rust through. My car was on a rotissere, so it was fairly easy. I did find a few small places with rust through that I could not see from the inside. You may want to remove the old tar mat that sits on top of the floors, it can hide a lot, too. Go back with modern, more efficient insulation.
I would consider having the car blasted inside and out with the new dustless blasting system, clean it with metal prep, and coat it with 2 part epoxy zinc chromate primer,

PS If you remove the blanking plates on the bulkhead ( which I would) , PB blaster on the nuts/studs underneath and be very careful not to break them off. They aren’t cheap.

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Parts to start the bodywork arrived. Need to pick some good welding equipment and practice my skills at metalwork.