Greetings from Australia, and my XJ40 project

Clive-R · November 16, 2022, 8:12am

Now that the bootlid is painted and the wing has been fitted, and I have almost knocked it over onto the concrete, which I am sure will not do the paint any favours. I fitted it to the car for now.

The sun was not in a good spot for this pic, it showed a bit of glare. It is not easy by some of these pictures to see the difference from the original racing green to the newer version.

You get a bit of an idea about the Commodore rear wing here, the rest of the body parts will appear later as I slowly make my way through the debris before repainting the whole thing.
Now for the next item on the list. Remove the wiring from the engine bay, (and the rest of the car.) and see what else needs to be replaced while I have it all out.

I was getting a little bit worried about getting the Windsor engine in the engine bay after reading about the early body XJ40’s were made so the Rover V8 wouldn’t fit.

But I can see that is not going to be an issue here now. I have to get in and start moving all the stuff from the interior next I think.

I am rather glad I took all the heater and air con out, the heater core is full of rus, and has a hole in the bottom, but the cooloing system has been empty for a few years, so it will probably only leak if I put coolant into it.Things will slow down quite a bit now that I have brought everyone up to speed so far, but there is a lot more to come.

awg · November 16, 2022, 8:59am

I did a stupid thing, had a “correct” XJ rear wing, but cause it offended my purist streak, when I was having a parts cleanout, I chucked it

saw one on Ebay for $300 the other day

Your repair panel fabrication skills are high

Rockhampton would be rust hell for cars, due to salt air and high rainfall, like here

They rust from the inside out, and top down, unlike US salt road cars

Clive-R · November 16, 2022, 12:51pm

I have a wild imagination at times, and If i like it, I will use it. like this car; I have never owned a Jaguar before, and I thought of restoring this one when I got it, then I noticed some people were changing things and I thought hell yeah. I often take a walk around our wrecking yards nowdays for some inspiration. Yes I have a Torana SLR bonnet scoop, VZ Commodore flutes in the front guards,BF XR6 Falcon Rebel sideskirts, and a VE Commodore wing on the boot, and looking into making fibreglass bumpers, but as far as the body kits go; that will just about do it for me. I am also taking to a lot of panels with a gold pinstripe, and it is making me feel good. I have seen plenty of cars I personally do not like, but that does not stop me from admiring a persons work.

Casso · November 16, 2022, 7:09pm

I love seeing XJ40’s brought back to life so I’m really enjoying this saga. My car is the Jaguarsport/ TWR version, it came with the front, rear and side skirts as standard from the TWR factory in Rugby but by the time they made mine they had deleted the boot spoiler/ wing. It also has a different induction manifold than standard XJ40’s, the steering rack was re-valved to give more feel so the steering feels heavier than standard cars, it has different cams too, thicker AR bars, different road springs and Bilstein shocks all round. Apparently only 450 with the boot spoiler were made and another 450 like mine without it so it’s quite a rare car now.

Clive-R · November 17, 2022, 1:30am

Yes! well I do have a funny thing about special vehicles, in Australia we have our Brock Commodores and Torana’s, our GT Falcons, nowdays HRT Commodores and XR6 turbo Falcons to name a few, these I would not be doing anything other than total restoration, Mine is a common garden variety XJ6, but I have a sovereign as a parts car, not that I can see anything really different between them, so with these I am happy to just make it up the way I would like to have it, and as time progresses you will see a Ford Windsor engine going into to it, I am thinking this will probably be my last rebuild. I love the sound of a V8 engine, and some cars look better with a body kit, yet on others it looks pretty bad, the last GT Falcon made here was quite an ugly vehicle to me but that is also just me.

Casso · November 17, 2022, 2:45pm

Yes but it definitely won’t be by the time you finish ! It’s looking great already, I too love the sound of a V8, I’m looking forward to seeing and HEARING it.

Clive-R · November 22, 2022, 8:37pm

Well yesterday was a scorcher here in Rockhampton, but I have finally started putting the finishing touches to my bonnet. I have reason to believe that we shouldn’t get any rain, however it will be overcast and could get quite hot and steamy non the less.

This will be my first coat of clear so I won’t bore you all to deathe by posting each coat. I may not have a chrome leaping jaguar on my bonnet, but it does still carry a leaping cat non the less.

Not a very good picture here so perhaps the next one will give you an idea.

I have to get back out there, I need to keep an eye on the paint. I do not want too much flash time.

davidsxj6 · November 22, 2022, 9:29pm

Good!
Bubbles or rain in tha last pic?

Rog · November 23, 2022, 1:15am

Looks like reflections of clouds

Clive-R · November 23, 2022, 2:36am

Neither, bugs, the little critters that like to ruin just about everything I am trying to make look good. Fortunately this is a sealing coat to get everything all sealed in case of rain.

Yes there are a few clouds out here today, I am kinda lucky to have a well ventilated area, hehehe (No shed.)

Clive-R · November 24, 2022, 2:21am

Well today I sanded all the bugs to the same level as the clearcoat, end result is the bugs don’t look quite as noticeable.

I will need to go to town and get some more sand paper, I ran out of 800 and 1000 grit and 3000 as well so I can’t quite finish it off tha way I would like.

Clive-R · November 24, 2022, 2:32am

I also don’t get many shots where the green can be seen with any sort of light in it, as you can see in most of the shots so far, it looks very much like a dark blue, bordering black, and a faint shade of green if you are lucky. I did however manage to get a bit of a shot of the green while I was anding our bugs flat.

Just so you can see that I am actually using a green paint here. (Sometimes I wonder too).

Rog · November 24, 2022, 2:22pm

Love that color! Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

HarryE30 · November 24, 2022, 2:25pm

Reminds me a bit of BMW Oxford Green

Clive-R · November 24, 2022, 9:59pm

I do like the colour as well, the car was originally racing green, and this is a 2020 Jaguar racing green. I have discovered that when side by side they actually look very similar.

Clive-R · November 24, 2022, 10:11pm

The car was originally a Jaguar racing green in 1988, and now it is about to get an updated version of Jaguar racing green which is a blend with metallic and pearl I believe.
20211231_094224

Casso · November 25, 2022, 12:54am

I really like the colour, it reminds me of a Mitsubishi I once had

Clive-R · December 7, 2022, 8:53pm

Today is a really hot day, and I hate the heat. I have to get out there non the less and get a bit more done on the car. In this segment I am going to be replacing the interior of the boot. I need to point out that I have already removed the floor of the boot before when I was rebuilding the gold car, so now I have to cut it out of the gold car and put it all back into the green car. I will be making a few changes as I go here because I have intentions of fitting a different tail pipe to the car.

I got into it a bit too quickly I never thought of taking a picture of how it looked before I started, but then again many of you know all to well what this looks like anyway. This the main area I need to modify the floor in the boot. I need to shift the walls on the boot inwards to acommodate the new exhaust. I want to install a twinn outlet on each side of the car, and going outwards I think will not look very good simply because this pipe is already right on the corner. So I need to make the cutouts before I re install it into the car.

Here is the cutout i am talking about, it is almost 300mm long so I have a bit of room to move, If you are not sure, the while sheetmetal is the cutout welded into place.

This side has not had the sheetmetal put in place just yet but it will be the next thing I will be doing. The other thing worth noting, when I put the floor into this car I had only got around to welding the inside so with the whole boot area out of the car I have welded the underside up while I had it all out. I drilled out as many spotwelds as I could see, and I used a 5 inch angl grinder with a 1mm cutting disk, these disks are great for sheetmetal, just dont force them to cut, they will simply break off at the flange very quickly, so care needs to be taken when using them.
boot 7

Here you will see I have used a bitumastic type of paint to seal everything ut before I install it into the green carI have left all the areas needed to be welded free of sealing paint, simply because it will burn off and I will not have a seal in that area. This will all be sealed when the welding is done.

All ready to go into the car, however the car now needs to be prepped for the new modified boot to be installed.

All the walls you see here need to come out as I have drilled out the spotwelds that hold it all together, there will be a paintline that I can use as a guide to how high up I need to bring the new boot into position. The front part of the boot is not a simple drill out the spotwelds, this part of the boots’s interiot goes right up and forms part of the cross member for the rear supension I think, so I had to cut it with the disk cutter.

Here you can see the join on the sides, these have to come out also, but they are all spotwelded and take very little to get them out. The work on the green car will start sometime next week, as I have a few commitments to voluntary organisations such as Lions club and SES.

Clive-R · December 10, 2022, 4:02am

Hi everyone, today is get that boot fiited day, The first job I really needed to get done was remove what was not needed before I went about fitting the boot floor into place, so I got my trusty 5 inch grinder and got into it, I got everything out that I wanted out and a bit of a clean up and then slid the part into place.

with the boot area all cleaned up and polished wit a flapper disk, I got it all ready to start raising the floor up to the car, I am not planning on doing much today, the weather is certainly not on my side, it keeps on raining and I am not that interested in welding in the rain.

I slowly positioned the floor to where it needed to be before I started lifting it into place, using a brick and a scissor jack, and would you believe the spare wheel carrier to hold it into place.

I decided to take a slightly longer approach to the welding inside here, I had to dril;l some fairlu large holes when I removed it from the car, so I decided to grind away the spotwelds and leave myself some metal to weld to through the holes I had drill in the last car. These will also make a good anchor point as I get it into place and will use self drilling screws to hold it in place when I do start welding. Now it is time to lift this thing into place.

Now that is in place, I have used 1 screw for now as I position the rest of it before I tapp it back inti shape, I will put a few screws in there, it should hold my fat arse up while I weld it, and when I work my way around the boot I will remove the screws and weld up the holes, even the screw holes will be filled.

It is all sitting where it should be, and I have put a few screws into place, this thing is now ready to be welded.

Here you can see where I have made the cutouts for the exhaust towards the rear making the area where the exhaust was originally, just now I have room to fit a twin pipe end on the car, I am hoping it will look as good as it does in my imagination. There is a couple of plates made to cover these cutouts, but they are going to have to wait until the weather fines up, I got a little damp while standing in the rain trying to get this floor in, hehehe the bootlid is keeping the floor area dry. Well that is me done for today, going inside for a nice warm shower then chill out for a while.

Clive-R · December 15, 2022, 5:02am

Today is a good day, I have welded the cover plates in the boot, and I have started on a surround for the exhaust to come through. It looks a little bit on the nig side, but that will change once the exhaust ends comes through. The tail pipes has a 2.5 inch inlet and twin 3 inch outlet. I made these to give a bit of unique look about it. then they are cut back and given a bit of shape, then they will be filled with body filler, (mud) and if all goes well it will get a lick of paint.

This is where the customisation of the boot is seen, this will also get a good licking of bitumen based paint to ensure it will be water and dust proof to a point.
boot 32

I have started to weld this all in place, then it can be trimmed up quite a bit. With the outlets being 3 inches each, I got some 4 inch pipe to make these things up, and once they are filled with the tailpipe, it will only have about 1/2 inch clearance all the way around.
boot 33

This is where the opening gets to hang out of the rear of the car, it should allow me to have just the twin ends poking out, I will also weld a filler panel in place, and once it is all done I am considering making up a boot skirt to go around the rear of the car from wheel arch to wheel arch.
boot40

I will need to make up another filler panel for the outside part of the guard comes right into the cover, and once it is all painted it should have a nice one of a kind appearance. There is still a lot of work to be done here.