Last summer, at the Carolina Jaguar Club concours, I ran into a fellow, Brad Merlie, who informed me that he was marketing a stash of new old stock Jaguar parts. One thing that caught my interest was that he said he had some, but not all, of the items that made up the Tool Roll. … Continue reading
Months ago, I started thinking about having the body shell media blasted. That led to me thinking about what to do right after it was blasted. In general, the car was in stable condition with original paint or newish primer (that I applied 15 years ago). I knew that as soon as I had the … Continue reading
Today was a big day. The mobile media blasters showed up and cleaned up all the important pieces back to bare metal. Media blasting is the modern term for what used to be called just “sand blasting”. Sand has fallen out of favor, mostly because the silica in real sand was causing lung damage to … Continue reading
I put the body shell on my rotiserrie today. What! Did you think I was roasting chickens? I have a rotiserrie left over from my 67 2+2 restoration. It is made up from engine stands. The main advantage of engine stands is that they provide a stable base and have a built in connection that … Continue reading
Well, enough with the Evaluation and Planning. I want to restore something! So what better than a little bit of cosmetic surgery on the body. As I noted in a previous post, the footwells, bulkheads, and sill plates did not appear to be stock. For my concours build, this situation needed to be corrected. The … Continue reading
A phrase you will hear bandied about at classic car auctions and web sites is “matching numbers”. In it’s simplest terms, this means that the identification numbers of the car’s key components match the ones it was “born” with. Collectors of “original” or “unrestored” cars place a lot of stock in Matching Numbers to help … Continue reading
As discussed in my last article, I spent some time with my boxes of parts, looking for any significant missing or heavily damaged items that might prove to be time consuming or difficult to replace. All though I found some missing smaller items, there was nothing that didn’t come up as available in the SNG … Continue reading
One of my first actions on the 63 FHC was to clear out my shop space in anticipation of the restoration. I culled through a lot of existing stuff left over from my 67 2+2 restoration, keeping a fews things and trashing some items. A few of my items will go to Vintage Jaguar Parts. … Continue reading
Every good project needs a Project Plan. In my life in nuclear power, these plans were very complex and a pain in the neck to develop. Somehow, management expected you to see into the future, predict costs and schedule, and stick to it. I’m not going to be so hard on myself. That said, from … Continue reading
I’m finally getting started with my 1963 FHC project. What? It only took me 18 years to reach this point? Well, a lot of things got in the way. The main distraction was my career in nuclear power. This took me on the road a lot! This left limited precious time for projects at home. … Continue reading
