50 Years With a Mark V

Today is the 50th anniversary of the day I bought my Mark V, my first Jaguar, and first car I paid money for.

You’re all invited over to my garage tonight to help me blow out the candles on the cake on the bonnet.

It was $450, nearly everything I had in the world, but I did have a steady job and it got me there, to high school, college and everywhere for 3 years.

So I decided that to celebrate I would start the engine.
The good news is it started and ran pretty good.

The bad news is there was a leak on the float bowl of the rear carb.
I went to tighten it, seemed ok, then suddenly went easy to turn.
Oh, no. Stripped thread in the bottom of the float bowl.



This is the bowl that incorporates the starting carb all in one.

So what to do? I suppose this is a BSW thread. Is there a BSW helicoil or Keensert or other type threaded insert?

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Two part epoxy will work.

I was told that Recoils are better than Helicoils.
But I have seen them repaired by drilling and tapping right through , facing the under side and putting a longer stud with nuts and fibre washers each side [ top and bottom that is] A nut on the bottom of the bowl is sometime also dropped down over the stud to ensure the float can’t drop too far and get too great an angle on the lever and jam open and flood
Recoils come in Whit and BSF [ ad other thread types]

Rob, congrats on 50. If you send me an email at start of October, I can check my spares. Cheers!

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Hi Rob and Ed,

Wow, so I was less than one month old when you bought that MKV. :slight_smile:

And yes, I did once to an E-type float bowl exactly as Ed described, it never leaked one drop, we used a teflon seal for the dome nut on the bottom. It looked good too.

But glad you could start that engine again after a long project. I wish I could do the same for mine that’s been inactive since June (still waiting for the liners).

Cheers!

Very nice story. Wow.
How uncommon is that. Has me daydreaming and regretting…sigh.
You’re certainly modest as most, believe your story is not special, however you should contact Jaguar World, etc. Looking at your list of cars, wow…
People would enjoy such a read I assure you.

A couple pics old or recent would be neat to see. :wink:

Time sert (recoil) is the way to go imo. You can find on e bay / amazon.
Or take to a local machine shop if you have… Easy fix for them, and perhaps less expensive than a time sert kit?

In Texas where I am, the craftsmen are really good…though dwindling and not like it used to be.
Motorheads and car enthusiasts often times. Respect and appreciate such stuff.
They would probably restore it for free…

Performed a quick search too. Sent you a link within PM fwiw.

My .02
Kind regards and take care

Well, I cleaned off the stripped threads and found the stud threads were ok, and the thread is 1/4-20 BSW. Tried fitting it back in and felt about 2 threads remaining in the bottom of the bowl. I think I can get a few more threads.
Didn’t have a tapping drill chart for BSW but I figured it was about the same as 1/4-20 UNC which is .201" so I carefully drilled out the remaining junk in the hole. See why it is good to save grandpa’s old tools. :grin: It came out pink, must have been some old thread locker in there.


I have only one 1/4-20 BSW tap and it was a regular taper, so I took it to the grinder and ground the tip so it became a bottoming tap.
Tapped down so I got about 4 or 5 threads.

I used JB Weld 2-part epoxy and screwed in the stud.

Left it to cure 24 hours, put it together this morning, felt ok although I did not put as much torque on it. Fuel pump on and no leak. Started the engine again, fired right up! Wow, that’s a good feeling! :grinning:
I’m tentatively declaring it fixed.

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Awesome!
Well done.
Thanks for sharing.
Love the hand drill!