Which panel?

[PaulColeman]

The panel above my IRS has been butchered and needs repairing. According to Martin Robey a 4.2 S1 needs MRE61 which looks like this...


The one for the 3.8 is listed as MRE61A which looks like this...


My car is definitely a 4.2 (April 1965) but has holes above the rear brakes...


Were some early 4.2s the same as the 3.8s?

[paulsco]

My November 65 has the filled in panel (MRE61)

Paul

[38E]

The cut-outs don't provide much useful access to the brakes but they're probably better than nothing, so I'd go for that version so long as you have the cover plate because someone was posting recently that they're unavailable.

[christopher storey]

Both my S1 and my S2 have the panel with the cutouts in . They add a small convenience factor in relation to access to the rear brakes, but probably also add noise. Note Clive's warning about the lack of availability of the cover plate

[PaulColeman]

Thanks for the replies. I'd like to put it back to how it came out of the factory so I will go for the cutouts and may have to make a covering plate if I can't buy one. It looks as though it's just a flat panel? Although I've never seen one in the flesh (so to speak).

[Moeregaard]

The removable cover plate is a carryover from the very early 3.8-litre cars with a manually adjustable handbrake compensator. Access was gained via this area, and Jaguar retained the cover long after the automatic adjuster became standard. I don't know when they did away with the cover, but my very early 4.2 FHC from 9/64 had it, while my later Series One coupe from 11/65 did not.

Looking through Haddock's book, my gut tells me that the cover officially went away sometime around Feb. 1965, when other changes were incorporated, but it's also possible that the solid panel was incorporated when Jaguar ran out of the earlier variant. In any event, the cover is only piece of 20-ga. sheet metal with some embossed stiffening and secured with several screws.

[paulsco]

I believe the cutouts went when the shell was updated with the wider brake pedal housings and inside bulkhead vacuum pipes.

I don't disbelieve what Christopher says about his Series Two; he knows his stuff, but it seems unlikely Jaguar would have moved back to reintroducing the older panel.

Paul

[christopher storey]

The cover plates and access holes seem to have occurred at random right through 6 cylinder production as both my early S1 4.2 and my S2 have them, and yet other contemporary cars do not have them. Strange. Perhaps it is yet another relic of Arthur Whittaker's skills at cutting component costs - the one without cutouts was probably cheaper .The cover plate is dished at its periphery and indented with stiffening channels

[PaulColeman]

They probably found a load in a corner of the factory and just used them up, as and when. Seems pretty typical of the time and Lotus were no different.

I'll buy a cover plate and repair what I've got with a Robey panel. I'd like it to look correct for how it left the factory.