New hood pivot bolts

The removal of the hood many years ago had been problematic to say the least. The threaded section of the pivot bolts is a much smaller diameter than the unthreaded section, which the hood sticks pivot around. The bolts wouldn’t come free even after applying penetrating fluid and adding an extension piece onto the ratchet handle. The force being applied was more likely to shear the threaded section, so I stopped to have a re-think.

However the problem wasn’t that the threaded sections had seized within the bracket’s captive nuts as I had thought. Small holes are provided in hood sticks for oiling the pivot joints. Unfortunately it’s doubtful they had ever been troubled during routing maintenance!

The result – the whole pivot joint had rusted, fusing the bolt to the hole in the frame. The hood no longer pivoted on the bolts. The bolts and frame just rotated in unison in the mounting brackets, as the hood was raised and lowered. The only way I could then remove the hood was complete with mounting brackets.

I couldn’t believe how solidly they had rusted in place. In a foolish fit of pique, I ground away the heads of the bolts, which were looking decidedly rounded by this time. Cutting through the threaded sections to finally free the hood from the brackets. The whole hood was left, as is, until now so I still had to overcome the issue of removing the remains of the bolts.

The remaining sections of the bolts wouldn’t budge even after soaking in Plus Gas penetrating fluid for several weeks, applying heat, attempting to press them out in a vice and, in a Cleese-esque manner, giving them a good thrashing with a club hammer!

The hood needed a full overhaul	Every hood fixture was heavily rusted	First, removal of the old canvas

The plan is to have the hood professionally fitted by Suffolk & Turley. Even though they will happily undertake all the work, including the renovation of the frame, I wanted to do as much as possible myself. So I set about removing the canvas and dismantling the frame into its components on order to have them powder coated.

First, the canvas was detached from the rear of the frame – by removing the side chrome trims, which clamp the canvas rearward of the drop glass and unpicking the webbing attaching it to the frame sticks. Removing the hollow, square-sectioned rubber seal, which makes the seal against the top of the windscreen, reveals the canvas and vinyl edges in the channel underneath. The canvas and vinyl could then be pealed off the canopy, while applying heat to soften the adhesive.

Main head/cantrail brackets attached to frame	Bonded edge of canvas/vinyl under screen seal	Vinyl removed revealing wood canopy bows

The detaching the cantrail and main head brackets also proved troublesome. The removal of the pivot bolt remains was soon joined by the need to remove half a dozen screw stubs. Some of the screws fixing the main head/cantrail brackets and hood clamps had sheared or had to be drilled out. Their slotted heads had become too damaged by attempts to unscrew them.

Latch covering trim under two canopy mounting bolts	Softening old adhesive with white spirit

The pivot bolts were removed by drilling a pilot hole down the centre of the bolt. It was more important to keep the pilot hole square on to the bolt than ensure it was precisely centred on the bolt. Progressively larger drill bits were used to enlarge the hole until a line of rust could just be seen running down the length of the hole. A pointed drift was then used to collapse the perimeter of the bolt inwards allowing the bolt remains to be pushed out.

The same approach was followed for the screw remains in the hood sticks. Although this time it was essential that the drill bit was centred on the bolt so the thread wasn’t damaged. They were then re-tapped to reinstate the thread.

Initially the canopy didn’t look too bad but it had clearly been worked on before as the whole frame had been hand-painted a light blue rather than the original light grey. The forward wood bow had a small section missing and it had started to delaminate. The edge of leading edge had rusted away along the entire length of the canopy although it should just be a matter of welding in some new metal.

The leading edge has rusted away	The wood bow was also delaminating	Re-tapping the frame after drilling out screw stubs

A second opinion was needed so it was taken up to Suffolk & Turley in Nuneaton. Their evaluation was not good, enquiring whether I’d found in it a canal! In addition to the problems I’d spotted, they pointed out that the lip where the two outer skins meet had been cut away at one end. It should be proud of the wooden bow by approx. 2cm as it forms the upper part of the channel for the rubber seal. Also, the front 6 inches across the full width of the canopy was largely filler.

Their preference is to re-use original parts rather than replace. The replacement wood bows are available but the quality is not great and it takes some work to get them to fit. Even so, their verdict was it wouldn’t be cost effective to repair the metal canopy and the front wood bow was unlikely to survive its removal. Only the rear wood bow was worth saving, as these are no longer available.

It was a long way to travel to learn that the canopy was junk and I was now resigned to inevitable fleecing that was coming my way! Both for a new metal canopy and a wood bow, which I believe is north of £300 from SNG Barratt!

As luck would have it Martin Robey had one S2 canopy left in stock so it was secured on the spot. A week or so later it hadn’t turned up so I gave them a call. It was ‘virtually’ in stock … they just had to make it first! Two months later it finally arrived.

In the meantime I’d found a Czechoslovakian subsidiary of the German company Slavik, which made all the wooden components for earlier Jaguars, and at a very reasonable cost of £75 for the wood bow. They were making a trip to the UK a few weeks later and suggested sorting out the payment and shipping once over here. Needless to say, I didn’t hear from them so I presume they forgot to bring it and I got no response from follow up emails.

Trial fitting the rear bow to the new canopy	Replacement canopy wood bow

Finally a piece of luck, a wood bow appeared on eBay. I’d lost so much time waiting for parts, I contacted the seller and agreed a private sale, rather than wait until the end of the auction. A trial fit of the bow with the new Robey canopy confirmed it will need a fair amount of fettling to get it to fit.

Now I had all the components, it was off to Nationwide Coatings”to have them powder coated in BS381C-694 ‘Dove Grey’. The advice from the E-Type forum was that this was the correct/nearest colour match. Typical …. the powder coating manufacturers no longer supply powder covering the old BS381C range!

Original paint allowed a colour match

Traditional paints do not adhere to powder coating. However new paints have been produced specifically for this purpose. So they recommended powder coating the hood components to the nearest light grey colour available and then over-coating with a colour-matched paint. A couple of parts had hidden surfaces that missed being hand painted in blue so they will be used to get an exact match to the original colour. The powder coating should provide the durability while maintaining the correct colour.

My aim had been to get the car ready for a trip to the Monaco Grand Prix at the end of May. This is now looking to be a very long shot, having lost two months waiting to just trial fit the hood. Also, in a nod to practicality, I’d decided to fit inertia seat belts rather than static seat belts. These have been on order since the New Year and there’s still no confirmed delivery date. The fitting 3-point Seat belts became mandatory from 1968, so I won’t be able to get an MOT until they do.