The 'E' Type Forum

Does anyone know if this is for an E type - just found it in the garage and have owned all three series at one time or another. It looks a bit long to me.

The design is just like my S1 etype one but, like you say, it looks a bit long in the shank!
Maybe it would work if the wheel was upside down ??
Robbie

Is the S3 version longer

Geoff

It’s for an S3 I believe. They are longer. I can measure mine to confirm if you want.

Regards,

Simon

The cross piece is not rectangular on a Series 3 - it is a pressed circular fitting that fits into the centre of the wheel to hold it in place. The rest looks correct.

It’s rectangular on my very early car. (97th RHD coupe). I am pretty sure it’s original, but you never know...

Simon.

If you could measure it i would be grateful thanks and solve the mystery

Hi Bernie
AFAIK S1/2 spare wheels were always supplied stored face down using a short shaft handle and rectangular clamp. With a redesigned boot floor to accommodate a larger fuel tank, S3s had the spare mounted face up so the clamp needed a longer shaft.
Two versions are listed, BD36809 for the standard steel wheel and BD36808 for wire wheels, where the clamping face is further away from the floor - at a guess a couple of inches. Initially it appears that the S1/S2 rectangular plate was used, but is present on cars produced up until June 1971 (over 1500 cars produced by then) when the round clamp plate seems to have been fully adopted.
My car was originally supplied with wire wheels and the clamp shaft is 8ins from the underside of the round plate to the end of the thread, but I am guessing that Simon's would be significantly shorter as I think his car came originally with steel wheels.
Sorry for quality of picture.
Bob

Bob - your post would tie in with my both Simon's and my responses. His being a very early S3 has the rectangular plate and mine being a Jul/Aug 71 build S3 has the round plate. Mine has disk wheels and the clamp while looking like yours in the pic is much shorter - is packed away somewhere and cannot measure it at the moment.

Cheers

Garry

Thanks very much mystery solved!!

Hi Bernie,
Interested to know if yours is the shorter S3 version and if so what length it is.
Bob

Length available below the clamp is 165mm

So 1.5ins shorter for a steel wheel than for a wire, that makes sense.

You learn something new every day!!

Hi
Here’s my(restored now) S1 ‘62 3.8clamp for comparison
Robbie