Bonnet: dished lip around front lights ?

[Julian.P]

Carsten, if it's of any use I can take some close up shots of my flanges supplied by Chuck they are quite intricate in the way they are made curving in both directions, even with my sheet metal skills I decided to leave to the professionals

[Durango2k]

Hi Julian,

some pics would be nice, if only to convince me to NOT try it :-)

Carsten

[Julian.P]

Hi Carsten hears a couple of pics of my flanges.
Julian

[Durango2k]

Chuck from MM has sent me a mail.

He says that all the parts I have are S1, so I can use my buckets/cowls/ scoops (whatever the correct name is in this language of yours), and the diaphragm parts as well. The only items not S1 are of course the wings plus the centre part.

He then asks 300 USD for the 3 flanges I need which is fair- I think I'll give manufacturing one on my own/ with local help a try, and see how far we can get, and decide then what to do.

What however is really interesting and puzzling me is the assembly / how it came to me when I bought it.

The wheel areas are all sprayed with underseal and came with true american mud as an ad- on. So, this car / this bonnet was actually driven. The nuts and bolts where all covered in dirt / soil.

This means that someone drove the car with S1.5 main parts and S1 innards ???

Which then means he could not have fitted the S1 glasses and failed on that, oooorrrr, he loosely fitted them drilling holes into the 3 main parts which I found.

Strange. Maybe from a distant time when there was no internet let alone repro parts and worldwide availability of E-Type items. But fuel was cheap and sex was safe they say back then...,

Carsten

[Series1 Stu]

Strange. Maybe from a distant time when there was no internet let alone repro parts and worldwide availability of E-Type items. But fuel was cheap and sex was safe they say back then...,

Carsten

Fuel was never cheap in this country.........

Your car seems to have endured the indignities of being an old European car in the USA. They did get some rough treatment (also in the UK, to be fair) in the past. Maybe you should consider yourself lucky that it hasn't been "improved" by the addition of a small block Chevy engine and a 2 speed Powerglide.

[Durango2k]

News :

I now had a set of the flange parts made locally. A guy from the german forum says he does things like that every day, so minor work and fun for him, they came for free. Interesting story behind him- he was an investment banker till 2009, then left and said he could no longer betray people. Went to school again in his mid-50s, and became a metal man at an old car shop. Cool.

I meanwhile gave myself a lot of pleasure.... using an angle grinder, and freeing the surfaces from bondo. In total, I have not yet weighed th dust, but what I managed to collect from the garage floor alone fills a 10 ltr. bin. And the upper parts of the garage plus my tools etc are still covered in white dust.

Then I drilled the frame out of the lower valance, so I can de-rust it better. Lots of surface rust, no holes, so I bought 5 ltrs of phosphoric acid, to aid me in rust removal. Will use the angle grinder with a wire wheel then thinned acid.

Today I thought I‘d start cleaning the smaller parts, which went well, prepping them to be blasted, but then I found that Mr. PO had indeed cut the right hand side lamp bowl carrier away. First I wondered what the heck, but I now think he had a reason- he had an S1 panel on the left, and an S1.5=S2 panel on the RH side. Maybe the RH panel is the one that came from the factory with this 1.5 bonnet, and he only could find a single LH item ?

This of course made it impossible to fit the light on RH, which is why he hacksawe‘d it.

Now, I need an RH S1 diaphragma panel.....


Have a look:



And I may have a spare S2 RH panel to give away, if someone wants to repair it.

I haven‘t found a place to buy the lamp „rings“ from, except maybe Chuck /MM, but SNG stock the complete panels, so as a last resort I may have to look there.

So, work in progress, but lots and lots to be done, until this bonnet lives again.

Carsten

[Durango2k]

Progress: the german-made flanges arrived, and I fitted them today using screws. First some clamps, then drilled 2mm holes, and used titan grub screws.

Look:



(„It’s hard to be green“- Kermit)














On the front left rear edge the glass is a bit way-off, but this should be covered by the chrome ring. I now know why they made it so wide- the production tolerances were that large...

Chuck states on his site that the S1.5 holes are a rather sloppy cut-out from maybe have-been S1 bonnets back then, and it certainly looks that way. The flanges are good copies from a good S1 bonnet.

Next job- fit the wings and check that side. Maybe start welding the flanges on. It will add a lot of stability, mainly to the wings. Then start undenting the whole thing.

Carsten

[paulsco]

Carsten,

I'm sure you already know this, but don't weld those flanges on without first fitting the wing, so that you can line up both repair flanges together.
There is too much risk of rotating them slightly and the glass not fitting properly.

Paul

[Durango2k]

Hi Paul,

Of course I will.

News from the shed:

The RH side did fit perfectly. The wing is a bit high on the long straight, but the flanges plus the glass fits nicely.

The LH side is problematic. I tried to use the S1 wing I got from Pete, but after grinding of the paint and Bondo below I found it had been cut at a few places round the glass and indicator apertures. I thought it would not matter, but in fact the glas fits badly. About 1cm wrong, it sits too high and even crosses the flange twice.

So, I asked my german chum who made the three flanges to make me one final one-and I will then try to use my own S1.5 wing, which is un-cut. I am pretty sure it‘ll fit better then.

P.S. just no one get this wrong, please - the wing which I got from Pete was a gift, it came for free with the tub, and you could not see this from the outside.

Now, pictures:

See how bad it fits on the LH side:





And how nice on the RH side:









See the cuts in the LH wing: and if you compare the apertures carefully, you see the LH side is larger and a bit disformed.



Carsten

[Nighthawk]

I have a 1965 series 1 roadster and it does not have the lip around the headlamps, on the first restoration i never noticed it was missing, the chrome trim rings were attached with stainless self tapping screws. someone removed the recessed lip and the captive nuts i would like to put this right, what do you guys suggest?

[Durango2k]

Well,

If you do not have a german friend who manufactures the flanges for free for you , the only known way to me is Chuck at Monocoque Metalworks.

See his website, what you need is his conversion flange kit for the S1.5 cars.

Different approaches to fit it, from riveting (hidden under the thick chrome surround), to „weld it under the bonnet parts“ to „butt-weld it“, but be careful, Chuck says butt-welding with a MIG ruins the lines due to thermal distortion.

Carsten

[Durango2k]

Now,

I bought myself a welding helmet:

http://www.esab.de/de/de/products/index ... ode=451029

and got some CO2 in a fire extinguisher (as I have no own bottle ), and welded the flanges:






Hopefully I‘ll have some time tomorrow, then I‘ll turn the beast over , and weld the underside. Then planish all the spots, then start un-denting the worst edges, maybe using the fenders as masters.

Carsten

[Durango2k]

Now, this is what I did today:



First, some fun- I assembled the bonnet links. I used an M8 alloy tube to replace the rivets. I cut them to fit, and it works 100%. Into the tubes I put an M6 bolt with a nylstop nut and peened it.

Then, I put the front right bumper on the bonnet‘s upper half, leaving the underpan off, so I could get a better view:

If you look closely, you can see that the curvature of the mouth edge does not fit the curvature of the bumper. This is related to the crash about 40 ? yrs ago. If I manage to re-bend it into shape, it‘d be fine.











Now, the LH side looks almost ok, just a few dents, but the all-important mouth edge on this side already looks about fine to me. The underpan is just loose, no bolts, and the vertical stiffener is not yet fitted.

Carsten

[Series1 Stu]

It's coming along nicely, Carsten.
Did you get my email about the diaphragm panel?

Regards

[Durango2k]

Hi Stuart,

Yes I did, but I forgot to answer it seems

I‘ll send the money tomorrow, and will notify you once the parcel has arrived.
And of course document the conversion process, to proove my theory that
there was just one base panel ever, and that it was modified just in 2 ways:

- from ring (S1) to dished flat, but the large 20.5 cm cutout remained

- it became an additional 2 inch cutout next to the 8-pin socket. The S2
bonnet gas struts attach there. Mine already has the cutout, but also
a blanking plate on it, which looks factory correct.

Carsten

[Robsan]

Carsten,

I can see there is a large gap between the bonnet and the fixing tab for bumper.......... at the end nearest the centre, where you have the wedge shaped spacer...............
I have checked with my bumper/ bonnet and I think that that your fixing tab is not in its correct poistion? Looking at your picture you can see the tab is slanting whereas it should not slant [that much] and indeed run more parallel

has it broken off in the past and been rewelded ? If it was running more parallel then gap would not be so great, plus the wedge spacers would fit better

I am not sure how to post pictures here........ but if I was I could show the poistion of tabs on my bumper [also series 1.5]

[Robsan]

This bumper on e bay............ its a later model I think, however shows how the fixing tabs run parallel to the bumper [ without the slant ]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/jaguar-E-typ ... 0033.m2042

Item no. 253230366910

hope this helps ;-)

[Durango2k]

Hi,

Ah I got it- yes, strange. They came with the car. No idea why they were mangled.

I‘ll give the other one a good look, and if possible, I‘ll fix that- and will get the fixing tabs parallel to the bumper shape.

Thanks for pointing me in this direction !

Carsten

[Durango2k]

Uh- no, you were dead right.






Darn, PO did cut and weld this one, I did not notice it, and now they‘re already chromed.

Yikes.

Only idea yet is to use my trusty dremel with a bunch of cutter discs, and carefully cut the mangled part of. After this, use standard tools to straigthen it, cut to fit on the edges, and re-weld it in along the metal tabs which would survive deep inside the bumper.

On this car, nothing is for free....

Carsten

[Durango2k]

But on the positive side, I managed to get the bonnet centre part shape corrected.

I fitted the bumpers as shown, made some marks on the bonnet flat flanges (where it bolts to the underpan), then removed the bumpers and retainers, and cut. Then, used some grip vices to tear and bend, and hammer and dolly, until I got the correct curvature. Then used an Y- grip vice to snap left and right of a cut, pull it to get the shape right, try a few times till its about right, then spot- weld the cut inside the Y, and remove the grip. Hey presto, shape of bonnet is way better now. Did both sides.

So, all whats left up there for now is to fix the bumper tab issue (bloddy idiotic PO), and then to correct the underpan to fit nicely.

Then repair the internal structure of the underpan- the hinge tabs are being made locally for me, I have to make one retainer cage for myself als Chuck said freight is sooo expensive so he says I‘d rather make one on my own.

It‘s coming along a good way- give me another 2 weeks and the metal should be alright, next then is to put some primer on the main parts.

Carsten