|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Feb 212012
Chris
Feb 192012
Two new fans for a Series 2 were ordered from SNG Barratt. However when they arrived they were too large to fit in the radiator cowling. The diameter of the supplied fans was approx. 1″ bigger than the originals. They had sent me fans for an XJS V12, which would explain the incorrect part number being moulded in the fan centre! They looked identical apart from the increased diameter.
So I called Barratts to explain and they said they simply trim them to the correct size. I could either send them back for Barratts to resize or do it myself. I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of sending them back so decided to do it myself.
It’s a well-known phenomenon that as soon as the dreaded ‘E’ word is mentioned the cost of parts rocket skyward, to whatever the vendor and, being of a cynical nature, the vendor community think they can get away with. The fans being a case in point. At the time, an XJS fan cost £15 while the E-Type fan cost over £30 – an eye-watering mark up! So it’s worth finding out if a part was common to other models/marques.
The plan to trim off the excess from the fans was to sandwich a fan between two plywood templates. Then run a router around the template so the smooth shaft section of the router bit would butt against the template and the cutting section cut through the excess fan blade below.
As luck would have it, the base of a garden birdfeeder had exactly the same diameter as the original fan. So this was used to cut out the templates, using the same method above.
It also became clear as work progressed that the plan was rather over-engineered. All that would be required was a correctly shaped upper template for a section a little wider than the fan blade. A blade could be positioned under this section and trimmed with the router.
The fan could then be rotated until the next blade was under the same section and process repeated until all the blades had been cut to the correct length and profile. The blade ends were then lightly sanded to remove any remaining swarf and were then ready for fitting.
Feb 182012
One of the great things I’ve found about the restoration of the various electrical components is that they were designed in an era before our ‘throw away’ society. Therefore overhauling the units is well within the capability of most enthusiasts. As with the fuel pump, the stripping down of the fan motors was very simple.
Having said that, the fans had been attached the wrong way round and no matter what I tried they would not come free. I tried using a small, hub puller type tool on the first fan. However all this achieved was to shear the nylon fan from its central metal fixing, which then had to be carefully cut off using a Dremel tool. So two new fans were added to the ever growing shopping list of parts required!
The fan motor casing consists of a square steel body clamped between two alloy end plates. After the two long screws have been withdrawn, the end plates can be prised from the body with a screw driver. These Lucas motors weren’t designed to be watertight as the rear end plates have openings for the electrical connections. So, over time, water ingress had taken its toll on the interior components.
|
Rear end plate |
Corrosion within! |
A rusted armature |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
As the fan was still attached, the rotor (or armature), the front end plate and fan had to be removed as one. The only other parts within the motor are a wound stator and the armature brushes mounted in a plastic holder. The holder can be withdrawn by removing the two screws on the underside of the motor body.
|
Wound stator removal |
Wound stator & brushes |
Stator is just a push fit |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
The stator can then be pushed out of the plastic holder. The brushes are loose fitting and can simply be pulled apart and lifted away from the holder. In the end neither fan blade could be removed intact. A Dremel with a cutting disc was needed to remove the metal fixing that remained stubbornly attached to the armature shaft. Once it had been removed the armature and front end plate could be separated.
A thrust washer sits between the front end plate and the armature. A similar washer isn’t necessary between the armature and the rear end plate. When the fan is operating, the fan blade produces a forward force on the armature pushing it towards the front end plate and away from the rear end plate. Therefore there is no load on against the rear end plate.
Feb 032012
The pump body and most of the other alloy parts were taken to Carb Clean to be ultrasonically cleaned. I thought this would be better than blasting with a lightly abrasive medium and was pleased with how the parts came out.
It became apparent that one of the common problems with this SU pump was the tendency for the points to stick, especially on cars stored over winter. After hearing stories of drivers having to use a hammer to whack the pump back into life, I decided it was probably a good idea to upgrade from points to electronic actuation with a kit supplied by Burlen Fuels.
A fuel pump repair kit was also ordered which contains all the various gaskets, non-return valves, diaphragms etc for a full rebuild. Whilst this was not exactly a cost effective choice, with the cost of the parts close to that of a new pump, it was done more out of interest to understand the inner workings of the pump. Most of the parts for the rebuild kit are shown in the picture along with the cleaned pump body and non-return valve clamping plate.
The rebuild of the pump body section was simply the reverse of the steps taken to strip the pump down. The only issue was the orientation of the domed diaphragm in the delivery chamber. I’d taken plenty of photos when dismantling the pump but none of them showed clearly whether the dome should face into the delivery chamber or the cover. The service manual suggested that it should face into the delivery chamber but the diagram also had additional springs and diaphragm plates which were not present on my pump. A quick call to the technical department at Burlen Fuels confirmed that this was the case.
| Delivery Chamber | Inlet Chamber | Pumping Chamber |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Stating the obvious but the only issue with the installation of the non-return values is to ensure their correct orientation. This can be checked by blowing backward and forwards through the value to determine from which side flow is possible. The only other difference between the two valve assemblies is the presence of a gauze filter on the inlet side.
The new armature guides supplied in the repair kit were 5 plastic figures of 8, as shown in the first photo above. The original guide was a single piece and the new guides seemed to be a backwards step rather than an improvement. So the original part was refitted and avoided having to hold five guides in place when refitting the armature/diaphragm into the coil housing.
Next the return spring is placed with the smaller circumference towards the armature. The pump body, armature/diaphragm and coil housing can then be reassembled and secured by 6 screws.
Converting the pump to electronic actuation requires a magnet carrier to be attached to the upper end of the armature spindle. First a plastic guide tube is pushed over the spindle down into the coil housing. This centralises the spindle movement within the coil housing. The magnet carrier is fully screwed onto the spindle before being backed off until it is aligned to be perpendicular to the line passing through the pedestal mounting holes. It is then secured in this position on the spindle by tightening an allen screw.
The bakelite pedestal is replace by a PCB which is mounted on spacers to raise it away from the coil housing. On one of the spacer mountings contains a ‘Hall Effect’ fork. The fork enables the electronic circuit to detect the travel of the magnet carrier and thereby control the energising of the coil.
The fuel pump operation can be ‘tuned’ by the rotational positioning of the Hall Effect fork. This is achieved by loosening the screw above the fork and slowly rotating the fork until the pump speed reaches its maximum. The fine tuning would wait until the final testing of the pump when flow rates would be checked.
Feb 022012
At some stage one of the cooling fan motors had been replaced with a round-bodied motor which I think must be from a Series 3, shown on the right. So the first task was to acquire a second motor which is correct for the Series 2. One of the vendors at the Jaguar International Spares day suggested that these occasionally came up on the eBay website.
I’d vaguely heard of eBay at the time and thought it was mainly used by people peddling tat and dodgy items. However needs must, so I logged on and started monitoring new Jaguar/E-Type ‘listings’. It took a while to get used to the ins and outs of their auction process. I’d soon lost count of the number of times I’d placed a bid days before the auction ended, only to find all the bidding happened within the last few seconds. I didn’t have time for that!
I must admit that subsequently I’ve been surprised how useful eBay has been, although I still think there’s a lot of tat on there – so buyer beware! Someone from the E-Type forum pointed me to an ‘auction sniper’ website which automatically makes bids for you, seconds before the auction ends, and so takes all the hassle away. Sure enough, someone listed two square bodied motors for sale but in need of complete overhaul.
Oddly, at the end of their advert, they mentioned they were looking to get hold of a boot lid. At some point my car had had a slight shunt at the rear which had twisted the frame under the boot lid’s skin, which is just about visible in the photo. The bodyshop suggested that, although it could be repaired, it would probably cost as much as a new one as the skin would have to be removed to repair the frame.
As luck would have it, I had already sourced a replacement and so had the other one spare. I mentioned its condition to the eBay seller and that it might not be economical to repair but they seemed keen on cutting a deal – so a straight swap was agreed, with the transaction taking place late at night in a layby just outside of Brockenhurst!
The motors were indeed in need of a complete overhaul and for some reason had the white fans mounted back to front. I’m sure this wouldn’t have helped in the efficiency of the cooling and it certainly didn’t help when I came to remove them! Funnily enough, a few days later, an advert appeared on eBay for a basket case restoration of a red roadster, with my blue boot lid! As I said – buyer beware.
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.
Jan 232012
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
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 |
Jan 142012
Below are a few photos when the restoration project first delivered:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dec 252011
With the body shell and engine sent away for restoration, attention turned to the refurbishment of the electrical components. The first was the fuel pump which was looking slightly worse for wear and somewhat corroded after 40 plus years.
The SU AUF 300 fuel pump used in the Series 2 E-Types is a fairly simple, displacement type pump, developing up to 2.7psi and a flow rate of 2.4 pints per minute. At its core is a pumping chamber sealed at one end by a flexible diaphragm. Movement of the diaphragm enables the volume of the chamber to be increased and decreased.
SU AUF300 Fuel Pump
When the diaphragm is drawn away from the pumping chamber, the volume of a chamber increases causing a decrease in pressure and fuel is drawn into the chamber. Conversely, when the diaphragm then returns to its original position, the chamber volume is decreased resulting in an increase in pressure, which expels fuel from the chamber.
The pump body actually comprises of three chambers: an inlet chamber, the pumping chamber and the delivery chamber. The inlet and delivery chambers are connected to the pumping chamber by non-return, inlet and outlet valve assemblies. Therefore the passage of fuel is restricted to flowing into the pumping chamber from the inlet chamber only and from the pumping chamber into the deliver chamber. A one-way street!
The inlet and delivery chambers also provide a secondary function of smoothing the flow of fuel.
The AUF300 pump uses a coil housing and sprung armature & spindle assembly to control the movement of the diaphragm. The coil housing is attached to the main pump body and, as the name suggests, contains a wire coil that can be energised when power is supplied.
In an energised state the coil produces a magnetic field which acts on the armature, pulling it and the attached diaphragm toward the coil housing, increasing the pumping chamber volume. Thus petrol is drawn from the fuel tank, via in inlet valve assembly into the pumping chamber.
However when the power is removed, the armature spring pushes the diaphragm back towards the pump body. This forces fuel from the pumping chamber, via the outlet valve assembly, into the delivery chamber and on to the engine bay.
It is worth noting that the pump pressure is dependent on the force applied to return the diaphragm to its original position. Therefore fuel pressure generated by the fuel pump is largely determined by the strength of the diaphragm return spring.
The armature spindle passes through the centre of the coil housing to a contact point assembly. It is the movement of the spindle and the connected contact points that controls the power supply to the coil. When the diaphragm is in its original position, the contact points are closed allowing current to flow to energise the coil. The armature is drawn into the coil housing until the attached spindle pushes the contact point rocker assembly to ‘throw over’, opening the points and removing the electrical current to the coil. As the coil is no longer energized, the magnetic field acting on the armature is lost and the armature spring returns the diaphragm to its original position. The cycle then repeats. The throwing over of the points gives the pump its characteristic ‘tick tick’ sound.