The 'E' Type Forum

As it was a clear sunny afternoon I thought I would take the E type out to see my friend.

He needed help with his Land Rover doors which wont open or close.

The E lives on a CTEK trickle charger, it struck straight up and off we went, full tank of fuel.

No problems still goes like a rocket. Reminded me what its all about. Drives so effortlessly and is so comfortable.

No rattles shakes or vibrations. Perfect apart from a couple of niggles.

Just noticed the speedo (recently rebuilt) cannot keep pace with the acceleration. It hangs around bottom speeds on the dial at 30mph then flicks up to 80mph when I change gear. I suppose it must be the cable? anyone experienced this before? Its a bit like it is twisting up a spring that is then releasing?

The speedo cable, is about the only old "old" bit left" It is the original long LHD one. Maybe time for a new shorter one?

The other niggle I cannot solve is constant low speed brake noise. A regulat wheel spped gringing nooise.

It arrives after a couple of miles, like the rear pads are dragging on warped discs. All the pads, discs, lines calipers and everything are recent of course. Its quite annoyingly audible with the window open. It thought it
might just go away, but it hasn't yet. In all other respects the brakes are fine, nothing gets hot or anything.

James,

I had a similar brake noise. Never apparent when cold, but appeared once warmed up. Didn’t go away with speed, simply got masked by other road noise etc. Particularly irritating when cruisng through picturesque villages! Applying the handbrake gently would cause it to either go away or change pitch and volume. Took me about 4 years to get to the bottom of it!

It turned out to be due to the rear disc “top hat” sections coming into contact with the inner edges of the caliper mounting frames. When the rear end was cold, there was only a few thou clearance between the frames and the discs, which was disappearing as the brake discs and diff generally got warm and expanded ever so slightly. I could see slight witness marking on the outer side of the discs, a cm or so up the side of the top hat from the root where the disc surface meets the top hat. The calipers were perfectly shimmed and centred, so not sure why the problem arose. Could be that repro disc castings are ever so slightly thicker than OE.

If you get under there with a torch, it’ll make sense. Mine is a 3.8 with an early diff, so different setup to yours, but worth checking.

I made some improvement without dismantling anything by using a “finger” powered belt sander to shave a shallow groove in the face of the top hat, but that proved to be only a partial solution and I was wary of going too deeply into the top hat and weakening it.

To sort it out I decided I would have to drop the rear end and remove the discs and calipers to get access to the edges of the caliper frames. In the event after I dropped the rear end and swung the hubs and driveshafts out of the way, I was able to avoid the headache of removing the discs and calipers. By using the holes through which the bolts that attach the caliper frames to the diff for access to the edges of the caliper frames, I was able to use a metal cutting bit in a mini drill to grind back the edges of the frames to give additional clearance. It may have been possible to do this without dropping the IRS, just by swinging the driveshafts out of the way, but it was not until I had the driveshafts out of the way that I was able to figure out the “through the access hole” technique.

Your Speedo issue sounds more like an issue with the Speedo itself....sticky needle probably. I doubt it is the cable...

Thanks chaps.

John, that all sounds very plausable, I shall get her up in the air and see if that clearance looks too tight.

Guess ill put up with the speedo for now.

Thankyou.

Your rear end noise may be a driveshaft shield rubbing on the hub carrier . A deft piece of bending ( hand pressure will usually do ) should stop it

I agree with Cactusman that the speedo problem sounds instrument related rather than the cable, although I suppose cable inner wind-up could be the cause

I had a similar problem with my old car when I lived in Greece. Never fixed it in fact, sold to a friend, didn’t want to bother me, still not sure what was the problem with it. I feel that they like to fix everything in Greece, which is not bad, like I know a guy who bought a very “dead” apartment in Athens, but in a beautiful old building in the heart of the city, he invested in renovation and then sold it at nearly 50 per cent profit. I am impressed!