I have a Daimler V8-250, which has a scuttle vent that will not seal when closed. The hinge is free and the seal is new, but the panel doesn’t close all of the way. It actually looks like it has a slight curve to the leading edge, and the rear of the cover is closed, but the front is still a 1/4" or so open, even with the seal removed.
I tried adjusting the tension on the torsion bar, but that had minimal effect, and until I can figure out why the panel is misaligned, I am at a loss as to how to proceed.
Any thoughts? Are the hinges or some other part of the mechanism adjustable?
Nope! I took the mesh out while trying to solve this issue. It’s not a big deal during the summer, but during the colder months it’s nice to be able to have effective recirculation heat.
I don’t think so. It looks pretty clean in there and what you are seeing is contact cement left over from when I took the seal out. The seal has been removed in all of these pictures, just to simplify fitting.
IIRC, opening the scuttle vent closes the recirculation vent and vice versa,
so the mechanism is not as simple as might be thought. To me, your symptom
looks like someone may have pried the vent up from the outside when the
inside handle didn’t work. Look for distortion in the arms leading to the
vent cover. Things like scuttle vents don’t simply get out of adjustment.
Mike Eck
New Jersey, USA www.jaguarclock.com
'51 XK120 OTS, '62 3.8 MK2 MOD, '72 SIII E-Type 2+2
Sorry , it looks like green moss on the rubber in the pic !
I would start by taking the vent cover off , and see what position the fixing points are in ,
There should be a fair bit of spring in the action , opening and closing .
Mine shuts with a solid thud !
2 pictures of mine , fully open and closed , may give you a idea what it should look like open !
The Mk2 has a fully mechanical mechanism, no vacuum mechanism involved. After investigating. Further, I think that shimming the cover up a bit may help, as currently the back bottoms out before the mechanism can fully rotate through to a flat position.
I can’t remember if there is an angle on the land where the cover fits to the arms, and it anyways looks like someone has bent what is currently the front edge on yours. At any rate, yours is already bottomed at the back so all is definitely not well.
If you’re lucky, then it’s just the cover which is bent, otherwise Mike is quite right about the double flap nature of the mechanism.
The bad news is that it’s a whole lot of hurt to get into the internal flap if that is where your problem is - even with the whole dash and loom removed (at least on the S Type) the flap is really hard to get to, and the hinge is spotwelded in place so you can’t even take it to the bench.
When we disassembled and re-sprayed our MK2, I spent quite a bit of time shimming the cover to establish uniform flushness around the entire perimeter of the vent. I ended up creating wedged shims to elevate the leading edge of the cover as ours sat too low relative to the cowl (opposite fitting issue that you’re having). I placed a couple nylon spacers over the cover studs. I ground the spacers into a tapered/wedge shape and sandwiched them between the hinge tabs and the cover. After a few iterations of removing the cover, grinding the shims and re- installing the cover…I was able to achieve a nice fit.
Just finished this project by replacing the scuttle vent rubber. There are some fiddly tiny nuts and screws best handled by someone with tiny hands. I found two washers between the vent and the brackets and two more washers plus a small lock washer and then the nut to secure everything together. It would be a bad day if any of these parts get dropped into the abyss of the scuttle vent drain hole. We semi tightened the hold down nuts and then adjusted the vent back and forth until we got somewhat of a factory look. Our end result was not as neat as the pictures from above show but I believe it will be water tight. One huge tip when replacing the vent seal is to apply the 3m black sealant to half of the rubber and half of the metal and wait until tacky and then hold in place. We let it dry over night and then glued the other side to make the seal stretch all the way to the edges of the recessed area. It is a project that takes longer than one would expect. I have no idea how the factory workers could have accomplished these tasks while working on an assembly line, not scratching the fresh paint and without major frustration; I encounter that a lot when working on my MK2!!
I know that the original seals were of a very particular shape, whereby the outer edge was like a crocodile jaw, which closed together when the lid slammed down on top. The thin jaws were soft, and the whole seal was fairly soft. This enabled the lid to sit flush with the body.
About 20 yrs ago, when I replaced it on either my S-type or 420G, the seals available from the usual suspects were of a very stiff rubber, with a thin edge to seat it within the aperture. It was also a bit too big, which I solved by cutting out 2 mm on both long sides. But the main problem was the thickness of the rubber which prevented a flush mounting of the lid, and while the rear (towards the windscreen was sort of OK, the front edge would peak up a bit. Not that water would enter, but it didn´t look good when closed.
What do the current seals look like, with regards to the ones available 20 yrs ago?
I agree fully on the fiddly bit with the screws and washers and the metal grille. The screws need to have thin heads, otherwise they interfere with the rubber seal, causing it to creep up as you open the lid.
I had the same problem refitting the vent seal and aligning the vent on my 420 restoration. The seals available today are too thick and too firm, so, you many need to thin the seal and use angle changing shims to get a satisfactory fit. Probably spent 8 hours fiddling and shimming to get mine where I wanted it to go. You are not alone. I even used and replated the original screws and spacers, and resigned myself that it must be the rubber.
Regards,
Allen
While you’ve got it apart, replace the original mesh with Stainless - I found stainless mesh with exactly the right mesh pattern and size at a local metalmart type place.
