Colour code for XK cylinder head

Disambiguation:

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Tom Haddock was the first person , that I’m aware of, that referred to that color as pumpkin, which is a pretty accurate description.
Bob

Pekka. My car was built Feb 19 1968 and dispatched March 12 1968 and shows it went to British Motor Cars in Santa Cruz CA 7/29/68. Sold to original owner there on Aug 17 1968. Chassis 1E35152, engine 7E16125-9. The data plate, engine block and Heritage Certificate from 2001 all match. No engine number stamped onto the front of the head like on most of the pure Series 1 I have seen. Only markings I see on head is DW875 stamped on the pad at the rear of the valley. Everything I see looks just like the other USA spec '68’s I have seen except for the old gold paint.

David
68 E-type FHC

Maybe for the colour blind Bob :grinning:

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Krylon Pumpkin paint vs BS361c-356 ‘Golden Yellow’. British Standard colour chart here: https://www.e-paint.co.uk/BS381%20Colourchart.asp

As you can see, Mike’s pumpkin pie is much closer in colour to the Golden Yellow than the Krylon Pumpkin Orange. The flesh of the pumpkin is typically more yellow than the skin which is more orange. So, if Haddock had named it “Pumpkin Flesh” or “Pumpkin Pie” we might not have all the “restored” early E-Types with head paint that is way too orange, rather than the more correct Golden Yellow…

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My car was built November 15, 1966 and had an unpainted original head. When I had my engine rebuilt they painted the head gold and I informed them it was originally unpainted. They told me “all Series 1 cars had gold heads.” Not so. Looking through XKEData the change to unpainted heads appears to have occurred in late June 1966. See engine photos of this car and those after it: http://www.xkedata.com/cars/detail/?car=1E33157. Also, this car was built 112 cars before mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky6Q3PB0rUc&t=66s

From all the available photos of original cars I have seen the change to unpainted heads was late June 1966. The engine color documentation should be adjusted.

–Drew

Ahh. Never seen inside a Pumpkin or indeed eaten Pumpkin pie. I though Mike was showing an Apricot (BS381C 568) sponge with cream for some reason!

This Golden Yellow is much closer to the color my friends had on 150Ss long before that awful “Pumpkin” color was offered and considered as correct. It also is close to an old “R” engine head I still have with some paint on it. Thanks for putting it out there.

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Only on Jag-Lovers…:joy:

Disambiguation. Apricot sponge:

Two nations separated by common food groups.

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Apricot sponge is hard to beat. But maybe add some Devon Cream?

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Ah yes - Apricot Sponge. The correct color for Mopar mid-1963 to mid-1969 Slant 6 truck engines… :smiley:

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Pumpkin, original:

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https://talkingofsportscars.com/f/the-adventures-of-875014

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The paint on the left looks to be Golden Yellow, but the paint on the right and in the middle seems to be Orange. Trick of the light?

Maybe we need to build up some hard evidence on when Jaguar stopped painting straight-port-heads GOLD (as a separate exercise to debating also the different colours of PUMPKIN ORANGE, YELLOW GOLD, and GOLD)…
And also note that it may have happened at a different demarcation point for UK and RoW cars relative to USA Market cars, given in this 1966/7 period of debate I think Canadian Market cars were simply LHD RoW spec cars, and not yet adopting certain USA market regulations.

But it would be useful if we could associate actual Date-of-Manufacture with both CAR No and ENGINE No. where possible, as such a ‘deliberate change’ of manufacturing practice is more likely to be Engine Number related, but Engine Numbers are not directly related to CAR No, nor DoM…

My UK market RHD OTS, 1E1605 and 7E9437-9 was built on 26 June 1966, a car I purchased privately in Wales in 1975 from the original owner with 18000 miles from new. The Head is/was 100% definitely painted GOLD from factory new…

Sadly I dont have any hard evidence, of anything later than 26 June 1966 / 7E9437-9 from the 1966/1967 period of interest… I will have to search my files, but nothing comes to mind where I may have hard evidence of a genuinely original/untouched E-type head… unfortunately the first thing that happens when a head is removed, it tends to get chemically stripped, and that’s the end of any proof one way or the other re original paint or not - and we are now talking about 53 year old engines/paint…, so we really want to find genuine one owner cars from new to have anything reliable…

There’s another photo in the linked article. I believe this is the most original early car in the US (OTS#14). It was bought from the original owner in the early 70’s and has been maintained, not restored, ever since. To me it looks more orange than yellow.

Difficult to tell from photos and also how your screen is calibrated. Bear in mind paint darkens with age and heat.

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About 30 years ago I saw a load of new heads for sate at a show and they were all unpainted. Apparently old new stock for military vehicles that used the engine. Wonder if they were usable for road vehicles?

Initial production FV101 Scorpion light tanks were powered by the Jaguar 4.2 engine from 1973 onwards. It was a standard engine however its power was down-rated from 265 hp to 195 hp for longer service life. This engine was chosen because it was commercially available and had high power-to-weight ratio. Later, in the 1990’s, it was replaced by a Perkins diesel engine, which had better fuel economy. Both engines had similar horsepower rating.
Scorpion003

I remember the MOD offering the engine heads for sale in their original crates but IIRC they were not suitable for replacement of E-Type heads.

Sure, like any factory engine actually produced 265 HP. 195 net HP is pretty decent. I think the most powerful factory XK was only 217 HP net.

Anyone try one of these?