...And a Series 1 is Reborn

It Lives! Here’s a short video of the Series 1 I’ve been working on for lo these many months 15 seconds after starting for the first time. This must be how parents feel when their kids are born but this one smells better and is way prettier :slight_smile: You might notice some smoke - that’s the exhaust manifold paint curing… this is literally just after first start up. Also there is a little squeak - it’s either an exhaust pipe or a mount. Gotta look at that later.

A big big THANK YOU to @Robert_Wilkinson for all of his invaluable help over the years regarding the Mk 10 Triple SU conversion. I think I started bugging him about the details of his conversion about 8 or 9 years ago and he’s been nothing but patient (not to mention incredibly helpful) with my incessant questioning the whole time.

Also a big big THANK YOU to @eng (Scott M) for crawling under and over his rare LHD Manual Series 1 to get me pics of the details of his clutch and transmission connections. There aren’t many images of real LHD Manuals to be found - his help was also invaluable.

72 XJ6 Triple SU’s starts for the first time

~Mike
72 XJ6 (x2)
73 XJ6
85 XJ6
84 XJS
60 Mk2

3 Likes

Nice! Well done! :blush:

Hi Mike

Sounds & looks beautiful and thanks for the kind words.Drive and enjoy it you certainly earned it.

Scott

Absolutely magnificent. You’ve assisted me far more than the other way 'round, Mike. In fact, I think all my advise has been “don’t do what I did.”

Very beautiful engine detail. I notice you still need air filtration and breather hookup. Don’t do what I did. :slight_smile:

Thank you for sharing Mike.
A great feeling no doubt. Restoration is very satisfying. Envious, what a dream.

Is this the car you put a manual gearbox into?

And what did you say that robust front sway bar was from again?

A bit longer vid and walk around whenever you think about it or photos would be really enjoyable if you wished to entertain the idea…would love to see rest of your car.
No stress of course…whatever you want.

All the best

PS. Watching again, man, does that idle rock steady smooth…

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Congratulations, Mike - apart from being beautiful it is also potentially the most powerful xk set-up…

Frank
xj6 85 Sov Europe (UK/NZ)
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@jahmiata Thank you very much!

@eng Thanks Scott! - I drove it today for the first time! Couldn’t drive it yesterday because the brakes needed to be bled but today, for the first time in my life, I drove a Jag XJ6 with a manual transmission. Clutch works perfect and it looks OEM!

@Robert_Wilkinson Thank you sir! You’re too modest - I still need to do something about getting the Mk10 Air Cleaner installed as you have at some point. The breather is an issue… at the moment I’m using 3 K&N’s so I’m thinking about drilling all three for a fitting so that all of the areas of the I.D. of them combined is the same area as the approximate 7/8" dia. connection on the back of the Mk 10 Air cleaner and then Tee-ing them together so that essentially each carb would pull 1/3 of the breather duties. Didn’t you just use the Mk10 air cleaner connection?

@Demian Thanks Paul! It is the car with the manual box. As I mentioned, I was super excited to drive it today for the first time! Got goose-bumps when I put it in reverse and released the clutch to back out of the driveway :slight_smile: Now that I got my phone issue sorted I can download stuff directly to my computer which makes it way easier for me to post images/videos so more coming. Sway bar is an Addco 1" bar for XJ and XJS. It fits but the mounting system is just a universal U-shaped bracket that can’t work without modification. I’m glad they make it but why couldn’t they just make a bracket that works out of the box? I’d pay more for that.

@Frank_Andersen Thanks Frank! I haven’t driven it very far yet because I live on a fairly busy 2 lane road on a mountain and there are a ton of Sunday-drivers out today… Just went about a block, but it does seem to have some serious get-up-and-go! It has a Series 3 Big Valve head and I had my distributor rebuilt and curved for an E-type with Triple HD8’s.

~Mike

Yes, I have fitted the spiffy-looking Mark X-Series 1 E-type crankcase vent, which has a little trap in it to minimize extraction of oil mist. It’s made for a 7/8 inch hose, as is the fitting on the bottom of the Mark X airbox. But I think that diameter is probably overkill–probably left over from the road draft tube days. I have a 7/8 ID aluminum corrugated flexible pipe that is indeed a road draft tube, sourced from SNG Barratt.

I was serious about your not doing what I did. The Mark X airbox requires a lot of modification. But it will be a lot of polished aluminum if I ever get 'round to it. I used to have pancakes, and should not have given them away. When I had them, I used only the centre one to draw air from the crankcase vent. All three would be fine, but IMO there is nothing sacred about the 7/8 inch equivalent cross-section. In fact, a PCV valve or orifice tube would probably be a good idea–as in the original US Series 1 design using Stranglebergs. Or even a road draft tube, though lacking in political correctness.

What needles have you decided on?

I would definitely rather only use one of the air cleaners for the breather line - Did you notice anything going on with the middle carb when you were only using that one for the breather?.. Rich, Lean, Roughness etc…?

I’d really like to use a PCV system but there aren’t any extra vacuum ports. I was thinking about Tee-ing off that vac port next to the heater hose line on the back of the manifold and then sucking through a PCV valve installed in the front breather cover. Then I thought it might be interesting to modify the oil filler cap to accept a breather filter although I think it might be too close to where I’d put the PCV valve… trying to avoid drilling any holes in the valve covers but that may be unavoidable in this case.

I have a very early Series 1 XJ6 breather cover (probably UK spec) that has the 7/8" connection pointing right for a tube into the back of the air cleaner - probably gonna do the draft tube for now.

I’m sure they are standard Mk10 which I think are UM IIRC. The carbs were a problem because way back when I bought them (around the time I first asked you about this) I made the mistake of paying someone to rebuild them. Normally I would’ve done it myself but I didn’t have a garage at the time and all my carb stuff was in storage. So this guy did some things okay and they looked pretty but mostly he just did a completely half-a$$ed negligent job of it and re-used whatever old junk he had around it seems and threw em together. Leaky brass floats, tissue paper jammed in the manifold with the carbs installed over it so I couldn’t see it, he even cleaned and plated totally scored and scratched fuel banjos that couldn’t possibly seal etc, etc… Didn’t bother to tell me either. And these things were shipped installed on the manifold supposedly “ready to install”. So there’s no way he changed the needles - they’re the originals right now.

~Mike

Hi Mike,

No, it seemed to work fine–not even much oil mist. But, I ran that for only a short time. For quite a while, the breather was open like yours is now. But that breather, and the tubing, were a lot less than 7/8. Where it entered the air filter it was perhaps 3/8. So to be honest I would say that the air filter didn’t suffer, but the venting probably wasn’t adequate. It was similar to a factory S1 setup w/respect to tubing diameter to the air filter, but that setup also fed into the intake manifold and mine did not.

I have that port split three ways. If I ever have the manifold off, I will fit a couple of small vacuum ports into the bottom, like the S2 manifold.

We all want more photos!!

Hi Bob, What’s interesting about the size of the tube is that when I look at the parts manual, page 22-20 it shows both the 2.8 and 4.2 versions of the tube to aircleaner breather. It looks like the 2.8 has a smaller diameter tube and conical adapters at either end to reduce the fitting. That’s kind of why I was thinking I might have to get enough surface area in the aircleaners to approximately equal the size of the tube on the Mk10 air cleaner… If I go tube style I may have to split it up amongst the 3. Finding fittings that weren’t in the way of something is a whole other issue with this solution.

That’s what I shoulda done and had planned to but I got in a rush to get it together and blew it off. That carb issue made me mad and cost me time… at least that’s my excuse :slight_smile:

More coming - I have some pics of how I did the carb linkage that may be helpful to someone in the future. Very little fabrication. Biggest thing was making a new arm for the original S1 linkage and welding it on.

~Mike

Excellent!

I will later start a separate thread, as I have a S2 XJ6 engine, with twin manual choke HS8 ( in my 420G)

The throttle linkage connection has a basic engineering defect that means I have to change it

will add pictures etc.

final intention is triple HS8, full manual choke, on a 420G manifold, on the rebuilt S2 motor.

My questions mainly relate to XJ throttle cable setup

Hi Tony - IIRC Australian market cars may be a little different than our as far as linkage is concerned. When you mention the engineering defect are you talking about that rubber bushing? I actually used the S2 main rod (not necessary - it’s a standard 5/16 throttle rod) but mine is supported by a bronze bushing instead of rubber.

I’ll definitely post some pics later. What I did works well - only downside is that it is a little bit tricky to install because you have to tighten a nut from underneath by raising the car but no big deal.

~Mike

No, the defect is in the way I connected things together. Even though I have been driving it this way for about 1 year

its a bit hard to explain (hence a new thread with pics) essentially I need to covert the 420G lever & rod system to an XJ cable

Q1…aprrox how long is the XJ throttle cable ?

Beautiful engine @RustfreeMike. I like to think I’ll go the route of triple SUs some day, but for now I have too many other projects to deal with before I improve something that isn’t broken…

Thanks Justin - You can certainly have a great running car with the normal induction system. I know this can be an unpopular concept but even an XJ6 with a set of Strombergs can run really well as long as their in good order.

~Mike

Hi Mike
Sorry for hijacking iny uor post, but would you still have a RHD manual pedal box for XJ
Im doing a getrag265 conversion on my series 3 and have everything except the pedal box
Cheers
Willie

Hi Willie.
I have one but wouldn’t sell it cause I’m using it for another project.

Also a S1 manual pedal box is completely different than S2-3. It is separate from the brake pedal. You would need a S1 brake box as well and need to change the S3 hole in the firewall.

BTW any one piece S2-S3 pedal box can be converted to manual with some machine work. The castings are the same for manual and automatic. People sell kits for about $400.

cheers mike, yes I may end up converting my existing pedal box, I have a xjs manual pedal box there to rob the parts of that I need but was hoping to pick up a manual box and sell on the xjs one.
Have an 88 xjs 3.6 manual donor for the swap so everything is there
Cheers again