Finishing rebuild of cylinder head of my 1964 3.8L E-type and I learned that the colour should be gold or light pumpkin. Can anyone give me the colour code or some idea of a paint colour that would be like the original?
Dick Maury of Coventry West told me he uses Duplicolor Universal
Gold # DE 1604.
After looking closely at the printing on the bottom of the can from one of the usuals (not Dick), it is apparent that they relabel the Duplicolor product, add a price premium, and charge postage. If you use it, buy the paint at your local auto parts store.
Looking at photos of the factory original OTS (and others) on the UK forum, I believe the original gold color was actually more toward yellow than the Duplicolor paint (greenish tint). So I initially tried a VHT gold flake engine paint (way too reflective). This is shown in the first photo below. I subsequently experimented on an old V12 cam carrier casting. The Duplicolor is on the right. The VHT with a light overspray of the Duplicolor is on the left side. This is what I ended up with on the head. Not exact, but more in the ball park to my eye than the Duplicolor or VHT by themselves. I read somewhere that there’s an old GM engine color that’s very close…think it was Oldsmobile. (EDIT: I just googled the Olds color, and it’s not even close).
The pumpkin flavor of “gold” was used only on the very earliest 1961 3.8s.
Jerry
Thanks for your help
Larry
Thanks for your help
Larry Atkins
Thanks for your help and the great pictures
Larry Atkins
Do I remember right that the 8:1 compression engines at that time did not have gold color heads ? Not sure I have ever seen a 8:1 engine in person but might be something to consider if that is by chance what Larry has and my memory is actually correct.
David
68 E-type FHC
No, compression-ratio has nothing to do with whether painted gold or not, and we certainly mostly received new 8:1 cr 3.8 E-types in Australia, with 9:1 only starting to dominate with 4.2 E-types.
Its ALL to do with being a ‘straight-port-head’ type, and the age of the particular head.
So all XK150S, Mark 10 and E-type (all receiving the same type of ‘straight-port-head’) got a nominally ‘OLD GOLD’ (factory term) painted head that subsequently has been referred to as physically appearing to be a “Pumpkin-Orange” colour for all XK150S and the earliest E-type and Mark 10 heads, and then changing to a more “Gold” colour thereafter, until about 1968, and there the debate starts – and this of course has nothing to do whether 8:1 or 9:1 cr pistons being fitted.
The exact shade of “Pumpkin-Orange” and indeed the later “Gold” is often debated, with to date only one factory reference known to a BRADITE colour reference, BRADITE being a long established UK paint company, albeit I have never been able to track down a formula and can’t just now locate the Bradite reference number so don’t know whether it is the pumpkin-orange or the gold colour, but indeed most scholars of this subject think there were more than just these two different colours, more likely maybe four shades of ‘gold’ over the 1959 to 1968 period.
This all got very difficult in XK-Lovers circles when we started debating the relative colours of USA Pumpkins versus Australian Pumpkins versus UK pumpkins (and surely UK pumpkins must be the ‘originals’) re a colour match, until someone solved the debate posting a picture of a USA Pumpkin with GREEN coloured flesh inside, not that I am saying that was an ‘optional’ colour!
But at the latter end there is similar debate about when Jaguar stopped painting E-type heads gold, and instead leaving them natural ‘as-cast’ aluminium – they were NEVER painted silver nor painted aluminium, again as some people contend.
I stand to be corrected, but I seem to recall USA market cars stopped having their head painted gold on the introduction of the twin-stromberg 1968MY emissions controlled Federal Regulation cars, with all triple-SU carburetter cars up to then, pre 1968MY Federal, being painted gold.
For the rest-of-the-world that did not get twin-stromberg USA spec engines, their triple-SU equipped heads continued to be painted gold for another few months into calendar-year 1968, maybe more, but at some time prior to the introduction of the Series 2 model, which never had a gold-painted head, whether USA Federal market or Rest-of-World still with triple-SU carburetters.
Not sure where Canada fits in with this, as I get conflicting advice over whether Canada ever got 1968MY Federal spec cars or not, but am aware they did get 1969MY Federal spec cars (Series 2), as I think some cars were shipped direct factory to Canada with triple-carburetter engines, and some were transferred from New York USA Federal compliant stock.
Steve Kennedy produced an excellent wall-chart showing all the various cylinder-head colours, and he shows four different versions of “Gold” covering XK150S and E-type period and attributes 1968MY Federal engines as being “Natural Aluminium”, albeit he uses the now meaningless/wrong term Series 1-1/2 which has totally different meaning in JCNA circles as it does in UK and Australia and rest of world, thus I always say now ”USA 1968MY Federal” cars, which is not ambiguous.
Roger
My March, '67, US delivery, came with an unpainted head, 9:1 CR, triple SU’s.
Wow, March 1967 for an unpainted head.
My memory is failing, I should have checked.
Roger,
I think you’ll find that the debate about painted and unpainted is actually during '66. No documentation known to exist but evidence is '66. Jan, '67 build here no paint.
pauls
My November 15 build date E-Type had an unpainted head. The change from gold to unpainted was sometime before that. I’ve seen cars around 500 chassis numbers prior to mine that had unpainted heads.
–Drew
I can’t immediately do any better, but 1E1605, my RHD OTS is a 20 June 1966 build and it is and always has been painted ‘Old Gold’
Don’t think I know of any local Series 1 built later that are reliably original/unrestored.
Next trip to Melbourne there are a few likelies, I can possibly check, but got to say in a RHD environment (as not in USA) I have always thought well into end 1967/early 1968 was painted, so merely associated USA situation as being 1968MY Federal related, where engine was significantly detuned, thus no longer warranting the GOLD top!
Maybe it wasn’t engine-tune related, just an age-related save some Pounds/Dollars
Roger
many cost cutting measures took place when jaguar was taken over by british leyland. anybody know when british leyland was in charge. also was british leyland being run by the british govt?
ed
Hi Roger,
I think there are lots of evidence that they stopped painting the heads gold as early as summer of 1966, at first only on automatic or LWB E-types, then all models. Today the problem is that pretty much all cars get their heads painted gold as owners think that’s the way they should be, or even deliberate “back-dating” like fitting winged spinners, curly hub wheels, fabric hoods, covered headlamps etc. etc. on cars that never had any of those when they left the factory. As you know, even all those Ser. 1 2+2’s made from July 1966 all the way to July 1967 had triple SU’s and the earlier style dash etc. At first went the separate door locks on 2+2’s, then covered headlamps, but only on US models until July/August 1967 when also Euro spec and other than US export models lost those as well.
The dual-Zenith-Stromberg smog version together with the revised dash and cooling system is the well documented big change, but the 3-5 smaller changes are often confused as some effected all cars and some were market specific (German spinners, US uncovered headlamps, etc.) and of course AFAIK the ending of the use of the gold paint on the straight port head was not at all documented. The only evidence is really contemporary colour photos and unrestored cars.
Cheers,
Pekka T. - 1S20183
Fin.
Hi all,
I’m traveling so I can not easily check, but wasn’t the summer of 1966 also the time of the first merger? The BMH, British Motor Holdings for which Sir William was the chairman of the board. The BL (British Leyland) merger was done in 1968 IIRC.
Cheers from Austria,
Pekka T. - 1S20183
Fin.
I took a look at XKEdata for FHCs and the change appears to start happening right around 1E33095 (built around mid-July 1966). Both 1E33134 http://www.xkedata.com/gallery/zoom/?id=378901 and 1e33095 http://www.xkedata.com/gallery/zoom/?id=441223 appear to have original have unpainted heads, but others in that range have what appears to be original gold painted heads: http://www.xkedata.com/gallery/zoom/?id=329800
–Drew
