I’ve been a Jag-Lover since it was a single list, and have given and received a lot of advice during those decades, and now I find myself needing the wisdom of those of you who are familiar with these “Big Cats”. My newest acquisition came from BAT, and you can see some pictures here. Take a look and then come back for “The Rest of the Story”
As you can see, this car has a lot of nice features, but there are things that can’t be photographed or even detected with a quick inspection. For example, this is what greeted me when I opened the brake fluid reservoir:
It turns out that this car was formerly in a museum, so it was a “Show” car rather than a driver, and all the mechanical systems have been neglected. I am now going through the various systems to make it safe and reliable, but have found some puzzling things that require the knowledge of those of you who own one of these beasts. A lot of things seem to have been slapped together to make it look good but are basically non-functional. Very little of the electrical system works, and I am capable of tracking down the problems, but first I need to know what it is supposed to do under what circumstances. A wiring diagram is on order, but first I wanted to take a look. Here is the instrument panel:
It appears that the tach and speedo have been exchanged, and they didn’t even provide a hole in the kick panel for the odometer reset knob to go through.
The speedo cable goes through the scuttle on the left side, behind the speedo. Where is it supposed to go?
The owner’s manual labels the red jewel to the right of the ammeter as a “Flasher Warning Light”. Mine has the jewel, but there isn’t even a light socket behind it.
My car is a Daimler 250 so obviously a bit different but I the way the interior lights work is that they are always powered and the switch is in the ground wire
Congrats to a great example of this cool model. I have one too.
Leather and wood has cost a PO a lot, as well as the paintwork, which is hard to judge from the photos. Perfect compression readings. Who did an engine rebuild, and when.
I have never seen a car with tacho and speedo in the correct position for a LHD car. Sir William was to stingy to waste time on that.
How old are the diagonal tyres? I love the white walls, but my car handles so much better on radials. I bought Pirelli Cinturato about 5 yrs ago.
Well done on this purchase!
Peder
I’m still going through everything and trying to discover what I have here. The tires are Coker Classic radials that were just installed by the selling dealer and have a date code of 12-22 (last month!). The spare, however, is an old 6-ply rated truck tire that I will need to replace. I found the wheel brace and I assume the (missing) jack ratchet clips to the shelf between the spare tire and the fuel tank? I think I have a spare around here somewhere. I discovered water in the boot, so I’ll order new weather stripping. These are the kind of things you can’t see in the pictures.
However, I figure the leather, wood and paint alone were worth the price of admission, and were probably done by the museum. The car was formerly in the “Klairmont Kollection” museum in Chicago, which appears to be worth a look if anyone is in the area. My car appears at 17:40 in this video:
I’ve found the “pull, twist and pull again” switch for the interior lights and the switch that controls that pesky map light. I also made an interesting discovery that would surprise people like myself who are not familiar with this car: there are no panel lights to illuminate the gauges. Instead there are 4 little lights under the screen rail next to the map light that light up the gauges from the front. I don’t know how effective that is, but it can’t be worse than the feeble background illumination in my other cars.
I’m working on the carbs now, but I’ll be back with more questions later. Thanks for all your help!
My brother had a Mk VII and it had the same external instrument illumination. It may have started with the Mk V. Each had a hemispherical lens with a bluish colour that gave an ultraviolet type glow. From memory it was quite effective.
Yes, and the instruments originally had some kind of glowing white paint, MKV had the same, at first four bulbs, then later models, like mine (1950 MKV DHC) only two, then back to four on the MKVII-MKIX.
The wiring diagram is very similar on the XK120 and even the last E-types, Series 3 V12’s.
The festoon bulb ”map light” in also live on all E-types, it lights up by getting the ground connection either via one of the front door switches or the interior light switch that has the twist for ”map” and ”interior” lights.
Also my MKV did not have any horns, any instrument lights, any interior light, nor were there any wires to the reverse light switch nor reverse lights, when it came to me back in 2002. That and the non functional brakes slowed down the MOT / registration process some six years.
Good luck with your great looking Big Cat project!
Just a note to be careful with the blueish glass bulbs, as they can crack if roughly handled. I don’t know how rare they are; I was lucky enough to have a spare from a parts car.
Ok Disclaimer time! I’m only going what is in my MKV, cannot guarantee that it’s the same in the IX but I would think so…
Maybe blueish is incorrect…
I just went and checked mine and the globe filament glows purpley-red through it.
