unimogjohn

I pulled the Jaguar back into the garage and got it back up on the lift. Pulled the two front wheels off, and then pulled the hub and brake drum of the passenger side brake. Everything was nice and clean, no cylinder leaks, drums and brakes look new. Ah ha, that is the problem. It has two brake adjusters with fine little teeth on a rod. As you use the brakes they are suppose to run up on these little teeth and adjust the shoe. Problem is that the lower rod has lost all its teeth, So nothing to grab to hence it could not adjust the brakes. Guess I will be looking for new rods. Glad that I have figured out the problem. I will also clean everything up, re-grease all the bearings and do some cleaning.

Here are a couple of pics of Jon's Suburban and the shocks we took off. And someone wrote me and asked "what with this farm work you do". Well this is what Alice lets me do daily. I took my Suburban out for a fuel run this morning. Brakes worked great and the suspension was nice and firm, but not harsh. Cannot wait to get it on the road for a long trip. After I get the Jag finished, I will put it back on the lift and attach the inner fender shield and repair the windshield washer system. But at least now I am back on the road.

Ben, I had a 1959 Austin Healey Sprite in college circa 1965 and 1966. So I am at least aware of these English vehicles of that era. Should be lots of fun. I still have my Sprite maintenance manual. It should come in handy.

Another adventure begins. For yet some unknown reason Alice has been longing for a little station wagon for her and the farm. She settled on a Morris Traveler that she saw at a British car show a couple of years back. So ever since I have been looking. One on Ebay kept popping up, but the price was too high and never met the reserve. Last night it met the reserve, and we were the winner. Now we just have to get it from Florida. I don't think that we are going to pick it up, will have it shipped. Here are pics of the car from the auction.

It is Thursday. April 13th. David, sent you an email. Going to take a look at the Jaguar front brakes today.

It is Wednesday, April 12th. Porsche Jon came over with his 03 Surburban with quadrasteer and self-leveling shocks. The shocks are original to the truck (266,000 miles on the odo). They were leaking and throwing codes all over the place. Jon decided just to take them off and replace them with Bilsteins. We started at 9 AM and he was out the door by 3 PM. Fun day. Of course the Jaguar was in the garage so I had to move it out. It started to rain so put the light plastic over it. Of course the wind picked up too. Jon snapped a picture. The seals on the oil filer canister are "unobtainium" so submitted an inquiry to the Jag community. One guy came back with the specs and source for the seals and gaskets. So now I have more stuff coming that will hopefully seal the canister for good.

I have notes from the previous owner that he re-did the brakes and had the cylinders, there are two per wheel, sleeved with stainless steel. Of course, it does not mean that it was done correctly. Could not find anything wrong with the Suburban's caliper so will watch it over the next year or so.

April 11th, Tuesday, PM. Worked on the Jaguar from 8 till 5. A long day for sure. Took that long to replace all the rubber coolant lines. Got them all done. The ones on the front of the engine were a struggle. All were hard as rocks and stuck. Had to cut a couple off to remove them. One line to the heater was almost closed. No wonder we had low heat output. Refilled the radiator with new anti-freeze and will recycle the the old stuff. The $61 hose kit was good, but did have to do some trimming. But everything was there and even have a couple of short pieces left over for the future. The old hoses were a combination of sizes and types. Must have been replaced as needed. Tomorrow Porsche Jon is coming over with his new Suburban. We are going to change out the shocks. It will be going off to Dan at some point for new brake lines. They are rusted like mine.

Since it looks like I am waiting for parts, I decided to work on the Jaguar's front brakes and why the car pulls to the left when stopping hard. The front wheel drum brakes are of self adjuster design. So with the car on the lift I decided to just spin the front tires to see how much rotation they have. Pulling down the tire by hand reveals that the passenger side tire will continue spinning almost 20 rotations, the driver' side barely 5. Tonight I will review the factory service manual and tomorrow will pull of the drums to see what is up.

After Al left and headed back to NY, I got busy on the Jaguar. I decided that I would make repair to the oil filter cannister first. After about a hour I had the assembly off the side of the engine. No wonder the top was leaking. The plastic like gasket on the canister attachment bolt had split with age. Also the gasket between the assembly and the engine was totally worn and crumbled in my hands. So cleaned up the mating surface, and it is ready to go in when I get the correct gasket for the bolt. I also drained the oil out of the engine. And of course I did not have the correct gasket for the filter canister itself so had to order a couple. Looks like it will be a few days before I can put everything back together. Here are some pics. Oh, and I also straightened the tail exhaust bracket. Both tubes are parallel to the ground now. An easy fix.

This afternoon we had a nice visit from Al Gerisch (AACA Lifetime member) and his wife Mary Ann. They were travelling thru the area on their way home to NY. Al always met me on the show field at Hershey and gave me plenty of great advice on what the judges expect. And Al has many, many car and judging stories, I could just listen for hours. Anyway, we had a great couple of hours at the farm. Al gave me pictures of some of his cars. He has a 28 Gardner, 53 Chevrolet, 65 Corvair convertible, and a 29 Chevy coupe. He also has several other cars. He and Mary Ann go on several east coast tours each year so look for him if you are on one of them. Thanks for coming by Al.

Paul, I would call the table as a light or hobby use. The steel top is about 1/4 inch. I am sure that Eastwood has the specs on their web site. Opps, make that 1/8 of an inch.

Sunday, April 9th. Bled the Suburban's brakes using the Motive pressure bleeder. Filled it with one quart of new fluid and then pumped it up to 10 psi. Opened the rear passenger bleeder and watch the air and fluid being pushed out. Within five seconds it was just pure fluid. Then I did the remaining three. Used about the entire quart of DOT 3 fluid. Put the tires back on and headed out for a test run. The brakes pumped up just fine to a hard pedal. I made a few normal stops at speed and then a couple of panic ones. Perfect, no issues and it stopped straight. In a couple of days i will again check for any leaks and then put the driver's side fender splash panel back into place. ABS did not throw any codes and I did not have a check brake light on. Success. Tomorrow I hope get the Jaguar up on the lift to start its repair. Things i want to do. Check the alignment of the exhaust pipes as they are not parallel; check the front brakes to see why it is pulling to one side; replace all the coolant lines; and the oil cannister fix and change the oil. And also plan on bleeding the brakes with new fluid.

Chris, I am not a great welder yet either. But your welds look like mine when I first started. They look like you are not getting metal to metal penetration. Grind one of them down and see if the weld has taken. Martin has some good questions too.

It is Friday, am. We did have a big storm pass by in the afternoon. So much lightning and thunder, and a couple of inches of rain. Wind was howling. So I stayed inside and did not venture out into the metal garage. Seemed like the right thing to do. But this morning I put in the new master cylinder. Took several tries to make sure the brake line screwed into the master correctly and without forcing them in. While the master cylinder was on the mounting studs I did not bolt it down. This enabled me to move it a bit and get the threads on the brake line nut to catch and go smoothly on. So that job is done. The special bleeder cap for the pressure bleeder should be here this afternoon. We will be gone all day tomorrow so the first chance I have to bleed the brakes will be on Sunday.

Roger, on the plus side of painting. At least you will not be spending $20,000 for a paint job. Maybe you will have $25 into yours. The car is really looking fantastic.

Dale, just a quick question. Will you be making your own wiring harness or buying new/NOS?

It is Thursday, early PM. Lots of rain and thunder. Big storm, but so far no high winds like the south and mid-west have been receiving. I spent some time bleeding the master cylinder for the Suburban. Mounted it in my big vice, plumbed the bleeding kit I had, filled the reservoir, and bled the system. Now there is no air in the master. This afternoon I will mount it back into the truck. Have to be really careful as the master is aluminum and the brake line connections are steel. I do not want to strip the master's threads at this point. I am going to start the lines with the master not mounted and will see if that is easier to make sure that everything lines up and threads in easily. I then opened up the Eastwood blaster that I got last week. Will start putting it together in the next day or so. Special black silica sand is available at our local Tractor Supply store for $7 a 50 lb bag. Greg likes playground sand from Home Depot at about half the price.

It is Wednesday, April 5th. Yesterday I planned to continue to work on the Suburban, but Alice reminded me that it was time to pay "the man". So she handed me all the house and farm receipts for the year and locked me in my room until the taxes were done. At least I got lunch. So today I headed to the garage to see if the old/new Motive bleeder would hook up to the master cylinder. Nope. So I did a bit of research and found the correct cap. So with the help of Mr. Amazon it is on the way. It should be here on Friday. Since the master cylinder looked as if it needed a replacement (leaking around the plunger end) I decided to pull it. I did remove all the old fluid with a turkey baster. My oh my, look what I found. Lots of crud. Glad that I decided to replace it and bought one last week. Tomorrow I will bench bleed it and install it back into position. I know that Roger will tell me again about preventive maintenance. I am ready for it. I deserve all the criticism he can dish out. I deserve it. I did find one of the lines going to the ABS controller seeping, so gave that another little tug with the wrench.

Here are a couple of pics of the offending, leaking bolt on the oil filter housing. Now at least you can see what I am talking about.

It is Sunday, April 2nd. No work on the Suburban today as we have events that we have to attend. But I did get in an hour with the Jaguar. I found my spare coolant hoses that I bought last year. One was just the top hose, and the other was a complete kit. The one top hose was hand made in England so that is the one I am using today. The other kit hoses will go on when I get the Suburban done and back on the road. I did have to cut down the hose a bit, maybe half an inch on one end. I used the chop saw for the cut. Stinky as the rubber heats up, but it makes for a very fine cut. Fits great. And the new hose is thicker than the one I took off, which is age cracked but still pliable, so I am able to reuse the Cheney clamps. Refilled the radiator and let the "cat'' run until the engine was heated up. While cleaning up the coolant and with the engine running I noticed that the oil filter is leaking badly. It has always seeped, but it looks like the big bolt's fiber gasket that goes thru the housing and holds on the filter cannister has given up. So that is also on my project list for next week. The bolt does not clear the intake manifold so I have to take off the assembly from the engine to install the round fiber gasket. Not a big job, but what should be a simple job, just got a bit harder. I do have new gaskets on hand so will not have to wait for anything. And I can change the oil also, a once a year job.

Tonight Alice and I took the Jaguar out for pizza. Halfway to our destination, about 30 miles away, we started seeing green rain drops on the windshield. What is up with that? And of course we smelled anti-freeze, and the temp gauge was rising rapidly. Only a mile to our restaurant with Camaro Steve leading the way. We made it. Let the car cool down for about an hour and then did an inspection. The top hose to the radiator from the engine had pulled almost off. The clamp had no more threads to get it tighter. So pushed it back on as far as it would go. Refilled the radiator and left the cap on loosely. Did not want to build pressure to push it off again. We made it back home and the engine ran cool all the way. Tomorrow I am going to put on a new hose and clamp. I have all new hoses so am going to change them all as soon as I get the Suburban back on the road.

Bill, I actually have one of those, bought it many years ago. Will try it tomorrow as could not get any fluid to pass to the rear caliper. I do not know if I have a leak somewhere. But I did get the trailer hitch installed and torqued to the proper specs. Used the little Kubota tractor to lift it into position. Had to drill two holes in the frame to fit the furthest bolt. I have the electric connector installed, but not permanently. Using tie wraps for now. Don't know if I am going to keep this bracket or not.

Roger, it looks really good. Will you post your two color choices on pieces of scrap for us to see?

Still Friday. Filled up the master cylinder with fluid to start gravity bleeding. Noticed a few drips under the master so stopped to tighten up lines. The FedEx truck arrived so decided to stop for the day as it is almost 5 PM. So hauled the trailer hitch box to the garage and opened it up. Put the hitch behind the truck. Looks like all new bolts came with it also. The sides are much longer than the factory unit. I think I will put my little Mighty Vac unit on the passenger side rear brake caliper, and see if I can pull the brake fluid through the system. That will have to be Sunday as the boys are all going to a farm and construction equipment auction tomorrow.