VIN # & More Images Added - Educated Guess as to Year - Make - Model ?

[alsancle]

I would say engine # plus 10 years will tell you just about when it was done.

[Trulyvintage]

Great Detective Work !

 

So - based on the side profile view - what model of the 1936 P2 series do you think the car rolled off the Detroit production line as ?

 

 

Jim

[auburnseeker]

My guess would be between a coupe and a 2 door sedan based on the length of the doors.  I think Coupe personally but without a body number you probably won't know for sure.  If the seat is original it had to be a coupe as it's not a split back and a tudor would have been a split back for access to the rear seat.  

[auburnseeker]

A fellow just contacted me and is in the neighborhood of this car, and is thinking of purchasing it.  He asked me for my thoughts,  including what I thought it was built from.  I basically relayed what we concluded on this site, about what it was/is.  He said the engine turns but doesn't run.  Does anyone have any experience with these engines?  are they any good or do they suffer from major failures like other later jag engines?  That would be my biggest concern if he can live with the cosmetics and what has been done to it. 

[dictator27]

Valve adjustment is best left to an expert it is a time-consuming process

[1912Staver]

They are great engines but like all older semi exotic engines can be very pricy for parts . The bill for a Jag engine rebuild may make perfect sense if it's going to be installed in a $80,000.00 XK120, however in a say $10,000.00 "interesting" Plymouth based old timey creation probably not so much.  A machinist friend did a rebuild on the engine in his Early E type a couple of years ago. His cost for parts and a bit of machining he is not set up to do ended up at close to $7000.00 Canadian.  Once again against the value of an E type this sort of outlay is not that big a deal but on the Plymouth it probably would be. 

  The gearboxes are equally pricy especially the older Moss produced units like this car appears to have. And the parts situation can be difficult.

Actually in my experience even the later Jag 6's are reasonably decent engines. Its the 12's that are real wallet killers.

 

Greg in Canada

Edited November 18, 2017 by 1912Staver (see edit history)

[C Carl]

I was infested with Jags in the mid '60s. Turned 3 120s and 2 140s into 2 120s and 1 140 and a bunch of spare parts. You could get a decent , strong 120 for a few hundred bucks back then. Any new part over the counter , massive junkyard availability , parts cars for $100 or so. 120 used as daily driver , drove one coast to coast Fall of '65. Stayed on top of things using the excellent manual. I found the rare need for valve adjustment fun , precise , and unambiguous. Yes , of course the sequence does include R&R of the camshafts , but the DOHC design makes this simple. Feeler gauge to record clearances , grab your micrometer and pull camshafts and add or subtract using different shims inside the cup followers. Re-time the camshafts , buff and polish the cam covers with jewellers rouge if you like , and zip things back up. You will not have to this again for a long time. Early lower timing chain tensioners were spring loaded bowed blades , check for wear as long as you are stirring things up around there. Later tensioners are idlers pushed by pistons driven by engine oil pressure. It has been a very long time , but that is how I remember things - very rugged , simple , and straightforward. Those engines talked to me , and were great to drive with all that long stroke torque. They never let me down.    - Carl 

[1912Staver]

I agree with you completely Carl. Wonderful cars ,sadly only for those with pretty deep pockets these days.  I worked on quite a few customer Jags during my time as a British car mechanic, but even in those days {late 70's / early 80's} they were out of my reach. These days they are WAY out of my reach.  MGA's were a far better fit to my resources both then and now.  As a young teenager in the early 70's I saw many project XK's that would have been cheap to buy , but by the time I was in the workforce and earning some money Jag's were already climbing in price and rapidly were beyond any hope of being affordable.

 

Greg

[gwells]

3 hours ago, 1912Staver said:

It's the 12's that are real wallet killers.

 

So true. And doing anything on a V12 Jag engine takes four-five times longer to accomplish than the same job on a six. One example: replacing cam cover gaskets on a six paid (IIRC) an hour flat rate; on a V12, it paid five hours.

And these days finding someone who knows what they're doing in terms of making a V12 Jag run right is near impossible. So the course most owners have to take is to learn to do it for themselves, and that is like getting a graduate degree from a hard university.