So it looks pretty conclusive that the dark color is from the dipping process and It looks to me like it is going through the area where they perform final bodywork. you can see what appears to be some sort of filler by the leaded joints at the rear fender/ tonneau panel and the rocker joints in front and back of the door. My guess is the worker is checking the fit of the bonnet to the firewall. It still has to be put on the Tip trolley for painting.
Clive’s pic above is interesting, the worker appears to be putting seam sealer on after the body was painted.
Per the original photo, it seems the bonnet was assembled before primer and paint. When painted, did the paint cover all the pieces, such as the interior flanges where the wings and the center bolt together. Is their primer under the bolt spacers?
Tom
And thank you for all thoughts and additions, I was sure this would stir a few pots.
That photo is almost certainly from early-mid 1961 just like the factory promotional film I have seen many times, where the MK2 is playing the lead, but the factory Carmen Red 3.8L demonstrator gets a nice part towards the end.
In that photo in addition to the older gent who is stroking some sealer with a brush I think you can see that the rear bulkhead does not yet have the dents added later to allow a bit more legroom through allowing the seat to travel one or two inches further back. (May 1962)
Back on original topic, that paint line photo is from a set of photos taken at the same as the June 22nd 1966 colour photo of the assembly line.
The photo above is from 1961 or very early 1962 as are all the shots in the promotional film.
I have not seen photos of E-type paint process from the 1970’s, but I think it’s obvious they were fine tuning the production process throughout the entire production 1961-1974.
Some changes were documented, but not everything, typically the service bulletins were released when it affected the spare parts and the spare parts numbers and regular maintenance.
I’ll try to sum up some changes I know took place to make the whole production more efficient, but I don’t know when exactly the changes occurred. Please feel free to fill in and correct any mistakes.
Only the early 3.8’s had the bonnets, front subframes and body painted separately.
This is part of the discussion about wheather the front subframe bolts and especially the bolts that attach the front subframe to the body (monocoque) should be painted or not.
By the time the 4.2L was in production in 1964 the E-type bodies had the subframe and bonnet attached when the car was painted, thus the bolts had paint on them and there was no paint, but only protective primer that had been applied before the car body was delivered to the paint shop at Browns Lane, under the front subframe mountings.
As we see in the 1966 photo(s) the car body, together with subframe and bonnet was phosphated, dipped and underbody (IRS tunnel, prop shaft tunnel, rear wheelwells) was treated with stone chipping preventation material, the insides of the body and doors received their sound deadening (bitumen matt, like “Mutocell” or similar) and then finally they say that only after that process it was mounted on the rotary transporter (which was new for Jaguar in 1952 at Browns Lane, the earlier (1932-1952) Foleshill plant had no such things and car bodies painted in there were painted horizontally on their bucks) and according to the photo above, the car bodies stayed on this after some post-paint inspection and treatment before being transported to their own assembly line.
The sound deadening is described in written above having been done after two coats of primer (and my ex 1966 2+2 confirmed this process as well) but i think the (sprayed on) material found under the paint in the IRS and prop shaft tunnel was either added later (after that description had been written in ca 1961) or they did not think it was worth mentioning.
Also after this stage the bonnet was removed from the car (and marked with a crayon, at least after they stopped stamping the body number onto the bonnet rear support brackets) and I have not seen in photos, but I suspect they must have also taken the doors loose at some point, how else would they have been able to install the channels and the door and window seals?
Also in 1961 the Browns Lane plant had two assembly lines, one for the new “E” type and one for all other models.
In 1966 they had at least three assembly lines, as the LWB E-type (XJ8) had it’s own assembly line and the SWB E-type it’s own and presumably all the Saloons were assembled on another assembly line. All the E-type bonnets traveled on one line, seen to the left edge of this photo:
And the Saloons assembly line can be seen, apparently going the opposite way on the right of that photo. In the unframed original vertical photo one can also see the painted car bodies (only Saloon photos in that pic) higher up on another level. Also in the far background can be seen that the painted and inspected E-type bodies arrived from a higher level to the main assembly hall.
I know a fellow enthusiast who spent almost one week at Browns Lane in October 1967, I should try to interview him again about some of this, although I know he, like other guests, did not get to see the paint shop (for safety and production reasons for sure.)
In 1971 and onwards with the Series 3 production there were a few changes, some of which may have happened earlier.
This came up again when Dick was asking about the chassis number on the car body of the Series 3 cars. Which is like also documented in Clausager’s book.
a) Not only was the front subframe and bonnet attached to the car body, BUT also the bonnet catches (not of course the locks and the locking mechanism) were already mounted on the car body when it was painted.
b) Possibly because of the dipping process, or some other reasons, like paint drip and overspray, many holes in the body received plastic plugs before the dipping, primer and body colour were applied. Some of these plugs were not removed, but they just “popped” into the cavities or dropped onto the shop floor when components were entered / mounted onto the car being assembled.
I have no idea when they started doing that, but it makes sense for assembly as you don’t want the dipping and paint overspray to be in the fittings with threads etc as it would make assembly slower or more difficult (less successful.)
I have four small plastic plugs and two large ones I found inside my 1972 V12 OTS #1S20183 when I removed the padding (for rust prevention) from the cavities in the rear bulkhead in 2013.
The two large ones had been in the holes for the IRS trailing arm mounts and had “popped” up as the trailing arms were fitted to the body, possibly by just entering the bolts and tightening them with a compressed air ratchet.
The four smaller ones are more hilarious, IMO. As they in many ways were unnecessary and they were still in the holes. I remember this well because at first I found it odd I could see daylight through one of them, it’s made of transparent plastic and did not have much paint on it. Then it made me realise that ALL V12 E-TYPES have two mounts on their bodies for the rear sway-bar, both with two attachment holes with threads, BUT NONE OF THE CARS ever had a rear sway-bar from the factory.
This was so fully I had to find Norman Dewis and ask him about it. He said: “It was better without one.” So Jaguar decided to leave out the rear sway-bar on the Series 3 cars, but I guess no-one told anyone at the bodyshop as they kept welding those brackets onto every single one of those 15.000 V12 bodies made at the factory.
Oh well, maybe the change might have cost more than was the cost of those brackets plus welding and the plastic plugs to cover the holes.
(That’s 30.000 unnecessary brackets and 120.000 unnecessary holes with plastic plugs in them)
So yes, this is a bit crazy, but I find it fascinating to find out more about the whole process of how they originally were made.
Just to show you what I am talking about, here are the details and the unrestored, factory original paint, primer, overspray and some glue, sealant and the two dark plastic plugs that were in the trainling arm mount holes on the body when the car body entered the paint shop in February 1972 at the Browns Lane plant.
A friend of mine likes to call this “car-arhceology”
And finally this is the RH side (unnecessary) rear sway-bar mounting from the inside, as it left the factory, you can see the red primer and the inner parts were not intended to be painted, they just got some overspray during the paint process. The semi-transparent plastic plugs are still in the holes, just like they were in February 1972 after someone put them in there.
Yes. I think the concensus now is that this photo was taken after the dipping and the worker there is prepping the body for the two coats of primer that will be sprayed onto it in the booth seen in the photo further down the paint line.
After the two coats of primer were cured, according to the Jaguar given description the body would have the sound deadening material applied (inside doors, the floors and rear bulkhead, inside of the trunk, spare wheel well area etc.) and possibly the stone chip / sound deadening material on the outside of the body and THEN the body would be mounted onto a rotary transporter for the final Paint Shop where “it is flatted and given a sealer coat followed by two final coats of synthetic enamel”.
After which it would be inspected and receive some treatment (the 1961 photo above) before being moved to the assembly line.
Awww, that’s very flattering, but I think there are may folks in the UK who know way more than I do.
I just like to analyze and try to understand why some things were the way they were.
One of my favorites is the Ser 2 2+2 and Ser 3 OTS & 2+2 (although the factory called it a FHC) dash top. I don’t think any car company on continental Europe would have made an extension to the old dash top. I know it perhaps made more sense when the Series 2 was in production as the SWB cars still had the short dash top and three wipers etc. and only the Ser 2 2+2 needed that extension, but it somehow (in my mind at least) describes the very English “well, we’ve got some of these” thinking, just like the JAGUAR badge on MKX and 420 / 420G was the same part as the MKV / XK120 hubcaps had, and the JAGUAR badge on the 1970-1978 XJ’s boot was the same part they made for the boot of the “Two-Point-Four” aka MK1, their first unitary steel body car without a separate chassis, back in 1955.
And although I have never lived in England my entire family did for over a year, ten years before I was born. I don’t know what they put in the drinking water in London those days, but I am sure it did something to my parents genes!
