Together again for the first time in 40 years

As the song goes, reunited and it feels so goood! :notes::heart::joy:

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Is that united, or untied? :wink: :clap:

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Cutting the rusty battery boxes out greatly improved the aesthetics.

Pictures of cars like yours cause flashbacks to fifty years ago to when we found our 1952 FHC. Like being a teenager, I would not want to start the rebuild odyssey again. Our car should be on the road in a year.

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Dude! It looks like you started with a complete car! I didn’t take this car apart, so I’ve never seen it in one piece. It came completely dismantled, and had probably been that way for at least 10 years. I bought piles of parts. Today is the first time in at least 35 years those body parts have sat on that frame. For 25 years, they were not even in the same postal code.

Lewis, So are you one of the kids in the pictures?

Sort of by way of a Y chromosome. The older one and father of our grandchildren, has his eye on the car. Much of what has been accomplished in the home stretch of completion, could not have been done without the people of this forum.

My car also came as a basket case, with dozens of boxes of used and (bonus) lots of new parts. Since I didn’t take it apart myself and never worked on an XK120 before (except for making interiors for them as an upholsterer) it is, without a doubt the largest puzzle I had to put together in my whole life. I had to learn a lot and identify dozens of parts with great help from this forum. In the end, it’s been a wonderful experience and very rewarding

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A benefit to have taken on a true basket case such as Mike has is that when he’s done and driving down the road with it, he’ll have a far more Zen-like intuitive knowledge of the inner workings of his car than many of the rest of us. His hands and eyes will have been up close and personal with the rear axle internals along with door pillar hinges, windshield wiper gearboxes, steering tie rods, etc. The benefit is that if something goes awry on the road he may be able to mentally diagnose the issue and fix before the car even rolls to a stop. That’s something to be proud of.

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Do I spy some upgrades? A new alternator, non-stock transmission and some rear suspension upgrades? The wheels I assume are temporary and the E-Type seats for a different car.

Guilty on all counts. The wheels and the E-Type seats stay. The wheels are 16x4-1/2" reproductions of the post-war Halibrand Kidney Bean wheels that were used on at least a couple of US competition XKs and lots period Kurtis and Cunningham racers. They do take tubeless tires. They came out of a one-man (Phil Smith) SoCal shop who reproduced wheels for the vintage racing crowd.

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Oh, the pressure is on now! At the moment I am marveling at the incredible number of Lego-like small metal stampings make up just one side of the scuttle! OMG. What is it, like 10 pieces on each side?

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Mike, Can you provide details of the rear suspension enhancements you are putting on the car? Are these welded on or bolt on?

Pretty simple anti-tramp rods. ChroMoly tube with threaded inserts for a Heim bearing on each end. Two brackets welded to the stock spring retainer plate. Double shear connection at both ends. I reinforced the spring eye box at the front. Bolt on/off, but there was a fair amount of welding involved. Car has a 4.27 Power Lok differential. The T5Z was an over-the-counter Ford Motorsport part with a 0.63 overdrive 5th gear.