Not sure if many of you have done this, but on a LHD car the through shoulder bolt securing the pedal cannot be removed without undoing and dropping the exhaust manifolds. Looking at the issue prior to starting I had thought to myself that if I cut the head off the bolt off then I can extract it by moving it out towards the frame, then feed the replacement in from the same side. After doing this and carefully cleaning, sanding and repainting the pedal, master cylinder mounting plate, master cylinder push rod, heat shield plate protecting the cylinder etc. (as one does!), I tackled refitting.
The replacement bolt proved to be just too long to allow fitment from the frame side (so much for my original assessment-see above). So, in order to fit the bolt from the engine side the exhaust pipe would have to be lowered. Unbolt manifolds in order to facilitate this, but whoa, the manifold hits the generator before it is lowered far enough. Off with the generator. Finally, pedal and ancillary pieces fitted, generator replaced and manifolds bolted up. A straight forward half hour job stretched to a multi-hour, curse inducing task (my wife commenting on the “observations” she heard emanating from the garage).
It is at times like this that it is important to keep uppermost in one’s mind the sound of the revs building as one winds it out in third on a sunny spring day! Now, to deal with that dragging LF brake shoe…
Best wishes to everyone for a pleasant holiday season.
The top has to be released so the bottom arm falls in order to take the tension off the torsion rod. The top’s much easier to deal with than the lower.
For non-E-Typers… the plate tying the rear of the torsion rods together (in lieu of a frame member) falls between the engine and bell housing. You MUST remove it to pull the engine, change the clutch, pull the trans. And THAT is why we no longer have a British car industry.
I can think of many reasons for the demise of the most of the British car industry but I’ve never heard it blamed on the reaction plate before. That’s definitely a first!
I was going to say something similar to Eric’s comment above - we lived through the demise of the British motor industry, and there was a bit more to it than maintenance time schedules…
As to poor assembly design, try removing the brake master cylinder from a Morris Minor. This ‘simple’ job requires dismantling of one side of the front suspension and detaching the offending torsion bar at its rearmost mount. At least on this job you can reassemble from the other side, making the job much easier next time around.
In 1965 a clutch swap could be done on a Detroit-built car in about two hours, without removing the engine, hoses, anti-freeze, front suspension and torsion bars, hood (bonnet),…
Who in their right minds would buy another British car after comparing bills with the guy at work? Nobody bought an E-Type anticipating that kind of repair bill. 75% of British sports cars went out of country begging cost comparisons for basic maintenance items.
Of course the difficulty in swapping a Jag’s clutch didn’t kill an industry, but it is one of the cocktail party annecdotes that sways the public’s general opinion. That and the Lucas Electrics jokes, another nail.
Til the arrival of the Hondas, Toyotas, etc., Americans had a fairly jaundiced view of imported cars, sometimes rightly deserved.
Sticking with Jaguars - I’m loathe to mention E Types again as this forum is for XKs - but in general, the cars were incredibly good value for money compared with vehicles of similar style and performance wherever made. And I think that makes some of these things excusable. As I pointed out on one of the modern classic forums, the cars were not and definitely are not now, designed for the DIY home mechanic.
I agree that the arrival of the Japanese products was a sea change in reliability and one to which the management of the British car industry could not readily respond. In fact, half the trouble was that for far too long they didn’t even see the need. I think it is generally accepted over here that our motor industry went to the wall because of poor management, a lack of investment and a workforce under the control of extreme left wing forces. The parts of our industry that have survived did not suffer so much as the majority from these issues. And as is often the case, the presence of one individual with enough vision and determination in the right place at the right time can make a crucial difference. In Jaguar’s case, this was John Egan who effectively saved the company. Unfortunately, most for the rest of our industry didn’t have a John Egan when they needed one.
On a different topic, I can’t let your remark about Lucas pass without comment. Yes, we’ve all heard the jokes about why the British like warm beer and so on but in my opinion, Lucas is very often unfairly maligned. Lucas products were cheap, simple and easy to maintain. You could buy almost every spare part for almost every product that that they ever made. I have Lucas parts on my cars that 65 years old and still working satisfactorily. Most of the issues that Lucas gets blamed for originate in old wiring with poor connections not the actual products (although they did make the wiring harness too). But my point is really that Lucas products did the job they were meant to for the right price and could be easily fixed if they did fail. So, I think they should be shown a great deal more respect than they commonly are.
Now, I realise I have rambled a very long way off topic as is often the way on this forum. But it’s Christmas, so, Mitchell, I wish you and everyone else on this forum the compliments of the season. I hope your stockings are stuffed with XK goodies and everyone has healthy and prosperous New Year.
I guess I see things a little differently on those two points, Eric. I’ve been a home mechanic and LBV owner for several decades and never felt maintenance requirements of my British cars, including E-type clutch changes, were insurmountable. Oftentimes a royal PITA, yes, but always do-able with the right tools and religiously following the manual. As for the quality of Japanese cars on first arrival, my experience (with a 1972 Toyota Celica ST) was that they were not well made and broke down as much or more than others of the same era. Granted, though, the Japanese auto industry figured out not too many years later how to build very reliable cars with exceptional fit and finish.
As a car consumer in Britain in the seventies, I would agree that it’s true that we had huge issues in our industry - but maintenance and repair times had very little indeed to do with the home market’s choices. Comparable service times, and bills, between US and UK products were completely irrelevant over here as there were no American cars - their industry was not interested in supplying us, and spotting an American car was a very rare event which was usually confined to the roads around the local USAF bases here in East Anglia. Home market competition came from Europe, and increasingly the far east, neither of which was known for building cars that were easy to service compared with our own. Ask any Citroen owner, Alfa owner etc. and they’ll prefer the service bills for a Maxi or Marina any day. I’d say by then our exports to the US were dropping off quite markedly too, as the British industry increasingly tried to sell into Europe. The British industry also had powerful influence in Japan in the early days, providing drawings, machine tools and patented technology to Nissan in the fifties, who produced cars that were virtually indistinguishable from Austins.
We’ve wandered from the original subject. Most cars are designed to be assembled easily on the line, bringing the parts in a certain order, but servicing is a game in trying to guess what is most likely to need servicing under warranty. The brake pedal bearing wasn’t high on the list.
Its a part of the hobby that you often have to take off parts to get to the part you want to get to. Try replacing the AC fan motor on a Volvo 240 the day before your advance scheduled 2-week family vacation. I think they start with the motor and build the rest of the car around it.
I once had a Datsun 1600 roadster. It was very similar to an MGB.
The British cars make us happy. I love all 5 of my Jaguars, and wish I could find and buy back the only one I ever sold, an E-Type S2. (Alright, I’m a bit angry with the Ford transmission in my modern S-Type, a design flaw, needs a servo for the second time in only 233,000 miles)
No American or Japanese or Swedish or German or Italian or French car I ever owned ever did that for me.
No one in my family has ever expressed a desire to own an Italian or French car ever again.
There’s the beauty and variety of this hobby, right there. As far as my wife is concerned, despite relative values, the one car I am not allowed to even consider selling is the '68 Mustang fastback. She absolutely loves it. They’re pretty rare over here, but it draws the biggest crowds and gets more photographs taken than all the others put together.
Yes, I did not mean to start something that denigrated the British car industry, merely recount a somewhat frustrating account of an episode I experienced. I also love my Jaguar and, after living with it for 56 years, still enjoy walking out to the garage and simply looking at it sitting there. In addition, my ego is such that I relish the attention it gets every time I drive it.
Getting back to your original post, I did this same job about a month ago on our XK120 FHC LHD. I didn’t disconnect the manifolds from the engine, but rather removed the exhaust downpipes from the manifolds (and also removed the muffler and the tailpiece). I’d used the wide clamp types on the exhaust system so that it was relatively easy to pull apart.
Toughest job was getting at one of the rear nuts on the manifold/downpipe connection. Once the exhaust system was off it was a relatively straightforward job.
Just replied to your question regarding lifting the motor to replace mounts, had not read this response to my post about the brake pedal removal.
I opted for the manifolds as I figured I could get away with not having to worry about replacing the gaskets. This turned out to be the case as a subsequent road test proved (the weather cooperated last weekend with rain followed by a sunny day with temperatures above freezing here in southern Ontario). I have the same wide clamps so could have split the system relatively easily, still it all worked out, finally!