Jag 6 Cylinder Project

About a year ago, a friend of mine offered me a free Jaguar 6 cylinder motor, and about a month ago said motor was finally obtained.  My 87 year old friend had earmarked it for an MG TD special that he was building, but opted for an MGB drivetrain.  I phoned him on a Friday, to see if I could grab it Saturday, and he said sure.  The GF and I arrived expecting to load the truck (his truck that he kindly leant us), but he had loaded all of the motor parts, plus 3 or 4 carb set ups, at least 2 gearboxes in various states of completeness, and a mess of other bits.  I still can't understand how or why he did all the heavy lifting, but I hope I'm in as good of shape as he is if I ever hit 87.

Picture of the haul in his truck:

We spent at least 2 hours unloading and briefly going through it all, it looks like there's at least a complete engine, plus a spare cylinder head.  Unfortunately it only came with one polished cam cover, but a second one has since been found:

Now to digress slightly, in August I treated the GF to a two week trip to Scotland for her birthday.  Most of the itintery was based around what she wanted to do, but I did manage to persuade her to let me visit the Moray Motor Museum in Elgin.  In their collection they have a Tojeiro Jaguar, which I had wanted to see in person since chatting with my friend about the motor.  Tom, one of the owners of the collection, kindly took us down to the workshop to see the Toj while they were prepping it for Goodwood:

Here's a shot of what it looks like assembled (not my photo):

Now back to the main story/build log, when we returned I started on collecting parts and creating a CAD file for the car.  The CAD rendering looks like this so far:

And the one major bit I've collected so far, a Jag IRS setup mainly to harvest the diff and rear brakes:

The goal for the next four to six months is getting the Elan finished (it's currently off at paint), source all the needed "critical" parts so that I can finalize the chassis design, then hopefully start on the chassis and basic panels by this time next year.  I have posted a wanted ad for a T5 as I'm unsure if there is enough bits in the boxes to build up the Jag Mk2 gearbox, plus it's tailshaft is just way too long.  There is some bits to an Overdrive gearbox for a Mk2, but again I don't think it's complete.  

I'll keep this thread updated as the design process continues and when I get various bits and pieces tidied up.

Sign me up for another RoddyMac build thread! This looks fun.

That is the prettiest car, and best designed chassis John Tojiero ever did. On paper it should out  perform the Listers, it is stiffer and the front suspension has a little better geometery. What size and C/R is the heavy part? E Type gearboxes are shorter, but a T5 is smarter. Good luck, I'm following. 

TurnerX19,

The heavy part is the least desirable one of the lot (unless you compare it to the very odd 2.8), it's a 2.4 out of a Mk 1 so has the A-type head, and I think no rear main seal.  It came with a spare B-type head from a 3.8 which I'll most likely use.  C/R is shown as 8:1, which I'm assuming it still is.  I'm not totally up to speed on what I can do with it in terms of upping the C/R, but as it's not really going to be a race car power isn't really that big of a deal (I know this is a race car forum, so please don't hate me for the last statement).  

As for gearboxes, an E-type box would be preferred, but they're commanding quite a hefty price these days.  The T5 looks like a better option on paper and pocket book.  

Hell yeah! Totally in to watch this take shape.

maschinenbau said:

Sign me up for another RoddyMac build thread! This looks fun.

+1

Short stroke 2.4 is a pretty good option. It is markedly lighter, lower, and revs much better. The 2.8 is this crankshaft with 3.8 liter pistons, not the 3.4 you have. This crank in a special block is how the factory got under the FIA 3 liter limit in 1960 for E2A, and spawned the 4.2 liter that came in 65 with the offset bores and no water between bores. Don't over carburate it. It may be a little more of a challenge than the common XJ6 4.2, but worth it for the revs. 

TurnerX19,

That's what my friend was saying about it, lighter and likes to rev.  I do like the fact it's roughly 2 5/8" shorter than the larger displacement versions.  The lower height will hopefully allow for a lower bonnet line.  As for carbs, the motor came with the original set of downdraft Solex's, plus two complete HD6 set-ups for I think the 3.4 or 3.8, as well as a full Stromberg setup for an E-type (or possibly XJ6) and a nicely polished manifold for a pair of either HD6's or HD8's.  But only the HD6 and Solex manifolds fit the heads I have, the Stromberg and polished manifold are for a straight port head.  The plan at the moment is to run the HD6 manifold, minus the starting carb, and swap the HD6's for a pair of HS6's.  

Out of curiosity, what is the planned production method for the bodywork?

It looks like an awesome project 

Looking forward to updates on this!!!

Out of curiosity, what is the planned production method for the bodywork?

That's going to be the hardest part of the project.  The center section should be relatively easy in aluminum, it's all single curvature, but the front and back are going to be difficult.  The end goal is to do them in aluminum, but I may end up making them in fiberglass first to act as a buck and to get the car "finished" for the road.  I'm envisioning a lot of foam carving, fiberglass itch, and other unpleasantness.  I did build an english wheel a few years ago, and have used it for some test samples, but I have yet to make any large panels. 

A minor update, I picked up an MGB front crossmember this past weekend to harvest the kingpins.  The one side that I cleaned up slightly so that I could measure it had no real wear in the bushings, it will most likely just need either a new thrust washer or some shims (it has vertical play).  I'll have a better look at the other side next weekend.

I also found out that I can lift the complete crossmeber out of the trunk of the daily driver without really hurting my back.

On to the motor, I found an intake side cam cover which arrived late last week, it was placed on the motor which made things look much better (to me at least):

I didn't take any pictures, but I did pull the head off the block on Sunday and found that there was about 1/16" of crud on the block face and bores.  I wiped most of it off of the bores and it looks like they'll just need honing and they should be ok to use.  From what I've been told about the motor, it sat under a workbench at my friend's friends shop, which is where the crud came from.  I'm hoping to get it onto an engine stand next weekend to get a look at the bottom end.  Fingers crossed the crank doesn't need turning.

And in other news, I've place an order for the wheels.  I just hope SWMBO doesn't mind them sitting in the apartment for a number of months.

With three or 4 wheels all you need is the right piece of glass and you can give her a new living room table. Glad you got mgB king pins. Listers and Devin SSs use MGA. They bend at the bottom too easily by far. Make your control arms disposable, save the hard to build parts from minor driver miss-ques. 

Time for an update, the cylinder head and crank are currently at the machine shop.  It turns out there was another jag cylinder head booked in, so they're going to build both at the same time.  Hopefully I'll get it back sometime in January.  I've also finalized the chassis design,  sent the CAD files out for quoting on laser cutting, and received a quote that was very reasonable.  I'm hoping to hit "print" on the chassis in early January.  I also picked up a T5 transmission, thanks to Jesse Ransom for the transmission, iansane for picking it up, and Trent for getting the whole deal started. I made a CAD file for the transmission to bellhousing adapter plate and sent it off to Xometry, they gave me a ridiculous quote (very very cheap) for machining plus a discount for a first time user, which I quickly agreed to.  Currently the adapter is with Fedex and should be in my hands by next week.  

Other than that, I went a little spend happy over the last few weeks, the wheels I ordered were finally back in stock in the UK and arrived here in Vancouver two weeks ago.  The QA inspector gave them her seal of approval:

And I went ahead and ordered a pair of TR6 rear hubs from Goodparts, along with some male and female slip yokes to make up the read half shafts:

I will need to get some 1/8" spacers for the wire wheel hub to hub flange to account for the drum that will be missing from the TR6 set up (I'm using inboard brakes that come with a Jag diff).  The outer U Joints are stock TR6 size (1300) and inners are 1310s which required a new yoke for the diff.  Those arrived about half an hour ago, so fingers crossed I should have everything needed for the rear axle minus the tube and plates for the De Dion tube.  

I've also ordered all the rod ends I'll need for the rear supension, but they have yet to arrive.  My apartment is starting to look like a parts department, luckily the GF doesn't seem to mind (for now).

That's pretty much it for now, I'll post some updates when things actualy start going together.

Bing!

Q.C still has a little "skeptical" in the expression. I like the double shear watts link a lot.

The gearbox adapter plate arrived on Friday, and I spend most of Saturday making it fit. 

The plate fouled the input shaft housing screws, so they were swapped out for countersunk screws:

Luckily I had picked up a box of both M6 and M8 CSK screws when I was building the BGT Zetec, and it turns out the T5 uses M8 screws for the housing.  The countersinking allowed the plate to sit flush with the face of the gearbox, but I did have to turn the OD of the housing down ever so slightly to match the adapter.  I didn't supply a proper drawing to Xometry only an .stp file, so tolerances were +/- .005".  The bellhousing side was a perfect fit, but the gearbox side was out by .002". 

I also messed up a bit on the bellhousing side, the snout on the adapter was .020" too tall, luckily the problem was fixed with a bit of time using a belt sander.  In the end it all went together surprisingly well:

All I need now is to find some 7/16 NC/NF studs to properly attach the bellhousing to the the plate.  Currently all but one hole are just center drilled, and one is drilled out to fit a temporary 5/16 NC bolt.

Nice idea for a project! Can't wait to see it become a car. 

Things have been slowly progressing over the past month and a bit.  I hit print on the tube cutting in mid January, and received the mostly complete chassis yesterday.  I say "mostly" as I still need to sort out the front body mount and rad mount.

I'm quite pleased with the work, they even etched/engraved the pieces with the numbers I assigned to them from a bill of materials that I provided:

I also received a fairly large order from Send Cut Send, QA decided they should check the material hardness, though I have no idea what scale she was using (don't worry, I stopped her from doing real damage to the steel):

A radiator has been purchased, it's an ally copy of the stock Mk1/2 Jag radiator, but it will end up getting carved up a bit.  And yes, QA thinks everything that arrives at home is hers or someplace for her to sit.

The "carved up" bit Is the upper hose connection(s) and filler cap.  The thought is to remove them from their current locations and double up the upper hose connections and relocate the rad cap to an expansion/remote header tank:

The stock Jag D-type and the Toj I viewed in August have the double upper hose connection, but use a vertically mounted rad.  Ideally I would prefer to use what I have as it was ridiculously cheap, but if it doesn't work properly I will explore other avenues.

Other than that, I've been steadily draining my "fun money" account this year, Vredestein Sprint Classic tires have been purchased, along with some rear dampers from GAZ.  I'm hoping that those two purchases will the last "big money" items for a few months.

Now all I have to do is get the Elan back looking like a car.....

Awesome chassis design there, and I'm sure you QA department is making sure it's up to snuff. 

Would you mind sharing the rough cost of hitting the "print to metal" button? I am familiar with SCS costs but haven't done any personal tube cutting. I used to work for a company that did production laser tube cutting, so I can design for it, but I hadn't considered finding a supplier for personal use after leaving. 

maschinenbau,

Landed in Vancouver, well Coquitlam if you want to be pedantic, it was roughly $1700 Canadian. That included material, programming, laser cutting and shipping.  I couldn't find anyone local to me, so used a shop in Alberta.  I was very surprised at the initial quote, so didn't shop around.  I had contacted VR3 last fall about an order of magnitude quote, which didn't seem that unreasonable, but the laser cutting came in well under half of the lower end of the quote.  I had even looked at buying material from the usual suppliers (metal supermarket etc) but for some reason the price of steel is akin to gold here in Vancouver if you buy it in small quantities (the online quotes came back around $1k).   

This is incredibly cool; thanks for sharing both the project and the thoughts and resources you're using to make it happen. Inspirational and useful!

Things have been slowly progressing, I've managed a few hours of work on the rear hubs in between working on the Elan, which reminds me I should update the build log on that.  Anyways, in one of my Send Cut Send orders I had them laser cut some flanges for the rear hub to bolt to, these were chucked up in the lathe to get them within a thou or two of being flat, then the ID was bored out to create almost a "slip on flange", then it was welded to some 4" tube that makes up the hub portion of the de dion rear axle.  Here's the flange, tube, hub, ww adapter and plates that link the hub to the main tube (plates aren't welded yet, I'm waiting for some jig parts):  

Here's the a screenshot of how it should all look when it's completed:

I've also received another order from SCS, I didn't realize they could also do wood.  I was trying to figure out a jig/fixture for the front suspension pick-up points, and decided to have SCS cut a bunch of MDF with tabs and slots, which when assembled, should locate everything in the correct location:

As I'm using archaic front uprights (MGB), the only way to set caster is to rotate the suspension pick-up points about the axle centerline.  The jig/design I've come up with has 5 degrees, hence why the jig is tipped.

Other than that, I ordered some tires, and had them mounted.  They're massive when compared to the Europa wheel(s) that are still sitting in the apartment:

I'm hoping to put the body back on the Elan either this weekend or next, so that I can actually start building the chassis for this car at the end of the month.

Time for a major update, I managed to book this past week off work to start on the chassis.  Things started on Saturday the 23rd with constructing a build table:

Which allowed chassis fabrication the next day.  I started with the cockpit sides, then the front top section:

All the pieces were tacked together so if things needed adjusting it was just grinding out a tack.  Luckily very little needed rework, the laser cutting of the tubes made things very easy.

End of day Sunday, things looked like this:

Most of the chassis was just "taped" together to see how well things fit.  

Monday/Tuesday saw the diff mounted into the chassis, as well as a bunch of final welding:

The diff weighs a ton, it wasn't pleasent lifting it into place.

Wednesday/Thursday was spent making suspension parts, and various spacers for aligning parts while welding.  The trailing links, and watts link pieces were very easy to fabricate, but the front suspension pieces took a bit more effort.

Friday was spent building the de dion tube, and more suspension welding:

Saturday was spent mounting the front suspension brackets/pick-ups.  I wish I could say it was easy and only took one go, but then I'd be lying.  It was a pain in the bahookie.  It took nearly all day to get things right.  

And then there was todays work, the front suspension was loosely bolted in place:

The De Dion and rear hubs were also loosely bolted in:

The pedal box was tacked in, which has lead to one interference in the design.  The clutch pedal pivot tube interferes with a chassis tube.  The chassis tube is most likely going to be massaged a bit, rather than redesign the pedal box:

This is how things were left at EOD today:

Luckily I still have tomorrow off work, so the plan is to lift the chassis off the build table, and stuff the motor and gearbox in just to make sure things fit.

There is still a metric s^%$ ton of work to be done, but I'm quite pleased with how quickly and easily this build has gone together (so far).

Beautiful work.