Jan 312012
 

The hardest part of the process was actually the removal the fuel pump! It’s located in the boot space above the offside wheel arch. The pump is attached to the body via three rubber mountings to an L-shaped bracket bolted to the pump body and a circular bracket clamped around the pump’s coil housing.

Each rubber mounting is comprised of two threaded studs joined by a rubber section, which reduces the transmission of vibrations to the chassis when the pump is running. The problem was that, even with a period of soaking with penetrating oil, any rotation of a nut would simply be taken up by the rubber section deforming and not undoing the nut from the stud. Finally, after much cursing, I gave up and resorted to a bolt splitter.

Once removed from the car, the dismantling of the pump is a fairly straight forward process. I started by removing the six screws around the base of the coil housing which allowed the pump body and coil housing to be separated, revealing the diaphragm and pumping chamber.

The inlet and outlet value assemblies are retained under a clamping plate secured by two screws, as shown in the photo. Once the clamping plate was withdrawn, the valve assemblies, inlet gauze filter and gaskets could be removed. The valves had to be prized out which resulted in their destruction however they were to be replaced as a matter of course.

The dismantling of the pump body section was completed by removing the inlet and delivery chamber covers. The inlet cover is simply a cork gasket and cover retained by a central bolt and washer. As far as I can tell the inlet chamber smooths the flow of fuel by having an air pocket which can expand or contract according to the pressure in the chamber. Four screws retain the delivery chamber cover under which is an ‘O’ ring, diaphragm and plastic gasket, see photo. Again the chamber provides smoothing of the flow of fuel due to the flexing of the diaphragm.

The disassembly of the coil housing section was also a simple process. The black plastic end cover was withdrawn once the terminal nut had been undone and the tape sealing the end cover/coil housing join removed. Underneath the cover is the contact point assembly, which consists of a Bakelite pedestal holding the sprung upper contact points and a rocker mechanism holding the lower contact points. A small capacitor is connected between the upper and lower contacts to suppress arching across the points gap as arching causes premature deterioration of the contact points.

After the two screws had been removed the pedestal could be rotated away from the rocker mechanism. Both the upper and lower contact points were badly corroded. Finally the rocker mechanism and armature & spindle were removed. This can be achieved by disconnecting the leads to the rocker mechanism and then rotating it until free from the spindle. Alternatively the armature/diaphragm can be rotated anticlockwise until the spindle is free of the rocker mechanism.

When the pump was first removed what appears to be a capacitor (see the photo on the left) was connected across the positive terminal and earth. This part doesn’t appear on the Jaguar parts list so I assume this must have been added at a later stage. As previously mentioned capacitors were used to suppress electrical arching but I’m not sure whether this capacitor was added for this reason or possibly to suppress electrical interference produced when the pump is in operation.

 Posted by at 7:06 pm
Jan 142012
 

Tracing the history of NNF 10H
The first task was to obtain a heritage certificate from the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, which contains details from the original hand-written records taken by Jaguar during the production of the vehicle. The purpose was mainly to confirm the original numbers for the body, engine, gearbox etc but it also includes other useful information such the selling dealer, first keeper and colour scheme.

The JDHT Certificate duly arrived and, on a positive note, confirmed that all the numbers matched. Due to the passage of time and the corrosive nature of our UK climate, the chassis plate had deteriorated to such an extent that it was not feasible to put back on the car. However I didn’t want to lose this identity of the car so decided the best solution was to mount the plate in a picture frame. The best replacement chassis plates I could source were from Classic Jaguar in the USA as the font and spacing were identical to the original Jaguar plates. Two new plates were ordered, one for the car and the second to be mounted in a frame with the original plate and the JDHT certificate.


Original chassis plate


Mounted Certificate & Plates

The next exercise was to attempt to piece together the history of the car from its registration date on 1st January 1970. Details of the previous owners can be obtained from the DVLA by submitting a V888 form and paying a nominal sum of £5.

The DVLA are able to provide copies of the historical V5 vehicle registration documents and notifications of sale or transfer. However the DVLA records were only computerised onto a centralised system in 1974. The ‘old-type’ logbooks were recalled from the de-centralised Local Council and Registration Offices for conversion to the new DVLA system. Unfortunately only a continuation logbook was received for NNF 10H in 1976 so they were unable to fully account for the period from 1970 to 1975. The first and second owner names appear on the JDHT Certificate. Hopefully, this may account for the whole or majority of this period.

The JDHT Certificate shows that the car was first registered in Manchester and so the vehicle registration would have been allocated to the Manchester County Borough Council. Unfortunately the Manchester Archives department, in their infinite wisdom, apprasied their archive collection covering 1968-1974 and decided to destroy them and there are no other surviving vehicle registration records known to be held elsewhere. I think the tracing of the car’s history will be an on-going process when time and enthusiasm permit.

I have been able to trace several of the early owners thanks to Google and other internet search engines, without which it would have been a pointless exercise. One of the early keepers still had a picture, taken in the 70s, and it was interesting to note that it had solid wheels at this point in time. I’m not sure if the factory supplied it with solid wheels. However they had subsequently reverted back to wire wheels. This would explain why the rear hub carriers are not correct for the E-Type.

From what I can ascertain, the car fell into being passed around the ‘used car’ dealer network as early as the late 70’s, by which time it had covered the majority of the current 64,160 registered miles. Much of its latter life seems to have been spent languishing in car dealers’ stock with little mileage added, assuming nothing untoward in the clocking department!

Registered Keeper Area Acquired Vehicle Comments
Mr F A Welch Hale Barns, Cheshire 1st January 1970
Mr A E R Alton Derby Not known
Derek Morris Oxford 25th July 1975 Owner traced

16th July 1976
Steve Malins Dunmow, Essex 22nd April 1977 Owner traced

28th July 1977

28th July 1978
Thomas Atkinson Ingatestone, Essex 14th August 1978 Car dealer

22nd March 1980
Robert MacLoughlin London, N21 1st December 1984 Possibly Robert
MacLoughlin Automobiles
Classic Auto of London London, SW18 2nd September 1985 Car dealer

9th Nov 1985
Steve Butler Loughton, Essex 31st May 1991

10th June 1991
Charles Leigh London, SW7 28th August 1991

11th June 1992

8th January 1994
Chris Vine Windsor, Berkshire 17th August 1995 Current owner
 Posted by at 11:39 am