V12 S3 Roadster - Blue

[anta]

Hi all,

Great forum - I've had a good read and there's loads of useful information.

I have just joined this forum because I have recently taken ownership of a 1973 V12 roadster. It has been garaged, and has not been touched for getting on for 30 years.

I've had a good look over it and the panels are in remarkably good condition with very little rust - there appears to be just a little on the rear wheel arches, and the last 24" of exhaust is non existent. So I am now tentatively considering a possible refurb - any advice on where to go for some sensible advice? What to do with it initially, or more to the point what not to do? A possible quote?

Many thanks,

Anthony

[Heuer]

Anthony

Welcome to the Forum. Suggest you speak to Harry at E Type UK (click on logo top left had corner for contact details) who has a lot of knowledge on the S3's and will offer sensible and reliable advice. Also a very nice guy with some great premises.

[1954Etype]

Hi all,

Great forum - I've had a good read and there's loads of useful information.

I have just joined this forum because I have recently taken ownership of a 1973 V12 roadster. It has been garaged, and has not been touched for getting on for 30 years.

I've had a good look over it and the panels are in remarkably good condition with very little rust - there appears to be just a little on the rear wheel arches, and the last 24" of exhaust is non existent. So I am now tentatively considering a possible refurb - any advice on where to go for some sensible advice? What to do with it initially, or more to the point what not to do? A possible quote?

Many thanks,

Anthony

Anthony,

look at jag-lovers.org- best resource on the net. Do a search first before asking as there is a lot of great stuff in the archives.

Also, if your car has been standing for a long time, be prepared for niggly breakdowns as rubber seals fail.

[anta]

Thanks for the quick replies, much appreciated.

Here's some images, best I could get due to lack of space in the garage.... Hope the links work:

[Heuer]

Anthony

That is going to require a fair bit of work mechanically because after 30 years every bit of rubber will have perished and many parts will have seized. Expect a full brake rebuild plus all the coolant hoses need doing but if the body is not rotten you are well ahead.

I have no personal experience of the V12 but it is a complex beast compared to the earlier cars. Suggest you buddy up with a couple of the S3 owners here - users vipergts and attwood and MarkE to name a few. There is the afore mentioned Harry based in Kent who has a S3 commemorative and Paul Roach Jaguar in Suffolk.

[vipergts]

That is sacrilage.....How can anyone dump a car like that.

Anyway good job you've rescued it.

Love the colour.

Won't be long before your engine is looking like this. :?

[WDRV12]

That looks like the one I did last year


Engine restored and bay tidied up

[WDRV12]

And it arrived like this !!

[anta]

I think the S111 looks great in blue! WDRV12 - that is a great looking car, seeing that just makes me want to get it done!

Long way to go, I took a shot of the engine but this was the best I could get in a murky garage, i'll take some more when I get it out into the light of day.....

[WDRV12]

That's actually lovely as all the original correct parts are there and has not been molested, just wait till you get to this stage.

[Heuer]

Out of interest how much would it cost (ball park) to get to that stage from what Anthony currently has?

[Peter Collins]

Hi Anthony
from one V12 owner to another i would just like to welcome you to the forum .I have looked at your pictures and am green with envy at your find , my advice to you is is to take your time and never take anything for :D granted .I have a couple of questions for you ; was the car driven into the garage or pushed in thirty years ago ? Is the car a genuine UK car or has it come frome some other part of the world ? Try and do as much work as you can yourself because there is nothing worse than having to say the chap down the road did the work to your onlooking admirers .
Peter Collins

[anta]

That is just what I was going to ask

As far as I can remember, the engine was running when the car was put into the garage - probably sometime around 1983. My father, who put it there and never had time to start the renovation (he insisted he'd do it himself when he retired) mentioned something was wrong with it.

There was a head gasket set on the back shelf so I'm assuming that may have been the original problem.

The car has been stationary since then, nothing has moved or been touched..... All totally original

[anta]

Peter, Thanks for the welcome. I hope I do get time to do some of the work myself, I'd love that.

The car is a UK car, 44,000 miles. I remember the car turning up on a trailer, but the engine did run.......

[WDRV12]

In all honesty it depends on the condition. All V12s that have stood will have the dreaded rear seal problem that will have dried out and now shrunk.




There is sure to be corrosion on the heads and it will have 1 or 2 cylinders down due to the fact that at least 2 valves are fully open when you switch off any v12 .
Here is one that had been at a body shop for only 18 months just look at the corrosion.


As you made clear earlier you will need all the perishables replacing not just the hoses but also the water pump ! Dont forget a lot rots from the inside !!

But the reward is fantastic

[MarkE]

Wow, Anthony, what a great find! And welcome.

Before the pros give a ball park figure (a very hard thing to do!) I'll give you some of my experience.

My S3 had been stood for 20 years in a dry storage facility near Los Angeles, so luckily had none of the damp-air corrosion evident in your engine bay. After a quick carburettor re-build the engine fired up and ran very smoothly, which I found absolutely amazing. However, after a couple of miles on the road, all was not well. Oil was leaking from every orifice, and the coolant, transmission oil, brake fluid and power steering fluid, jealous of the oil's freedom, soon followed. It was like the Tory Canyon.

This really was to be expected, and the engine was pulled. The heads couldn't be removed due to corrosion between the studs and the head, and the studs had to be chopped through, and another pair of heads sourced. The head gaskets resembled lace curtains. The biggest bugbear of the V12 was also evident....the rear crankshaft oil seal had dried out, and oil was pouring out of there.

The final discovery was the build-up of sediment around the liners, which had set like concrete. Very little coolant was able to get though to cool the block / liners, and if the engine had been run for long, it would have been ruined. The sediment was a sandy version of the lime scale that builds up on the kettle element in hard water areas, and we got close on half a bucket full out of the block and from around the liners.

Because the car was in a warm state, no antifreeze had been used, which caused at least some of the problem. However, a car parked up for 30 years with neat antifreeze would probably suffer in a similar way.

OK, that was cruel, but it's got all the bad news out of the way! The good news is that, even if your heads have problems coming off, sourcing a good second hand pair isn't an expensive exercise. As the engine has to be stripped right down to its component parts, it's certainly worth replacing the shells and cam chain / tensioner. Chances are the bores, pistons and rings won't have any problems, and if anything, the bores may need to be honed to get rid of any glazing.

Once the engine is apart, you may as well get all the little brackets, pipes, pulleys etc. re-plated / powder coated. It's also the time to get the cosmetics of the block sorted out, and get all the ancillaries overhauled, including the carburettors.

The parts bill won't be expensive, but you may be up around 150 hours labour for getting this lot done, including getting all the little bits and pieces sorted and the engine out / back in, maybe more if the heads are seized on.

However, there's one more set of jobs to do whilst the engine is out. Now is the time to replace all the brake pipes, check out the fuel pipes, check out the wiring, re-core the radiator and heater matrix, overhaul the power steering rack, and whilst you're in the area, you may as well sort out the front suspension and front brakes. Check out the gearbox and propshaft, and overhaul the clutch hydraulics. Everything is very tight and fiddly with the engine in, and a dream when it's out.

By now, I'm afraid that the hours spent have gone up another notch, and I was up around 200 / 250 hours at this stage, but once done, you only have the rear suspension and rear brakes to sort out, and the car should be 100% mechanically sorted.

I hope this hasn't scared you off, but on a V12 particularly, it's daft not to do everything you can once the engine it out.

Now the pros can give you a ball park!!

[vipergts]

Never counted my hours but it was 2 years and lots of delicate detailing.

My car was stripped back to the bulkhead with engine frames off.

Depends how fussy you are....I don't reckon anyone can put a price on it.

[WDRV12]

Re-Heads we as many other specialists have, have made a tool for removing the heads and I must admit we use it every time now . So getting the heads off is now not an issue as it was before.


I know that for those that may want to do their own heads you can hire the tool from quite a few of the specialists . Grublogger is one we used in the past when we needed a second tool

[WDRV12]

Never counted my hours but it was 2 years and lots of delicate detailing.

My car was stripped back to the bulkhead with engine frames off.

Depends how fussy you are....I don't reckon anyone can put a price on it.

But look what you ended up with its car porn !

[MarkE]

We used exactly the same heavy plate for trying to remove my heads. They luckily came up about a quarter to a half inch on the studs, but that was it. Enough to get the saw in! That was after mucking about for 2 days, with a good soaking over a weekend, heat on the heads....pretty much everything was tried before resorting to the chop.

Strangely, we had the same problem with my S1, and the studs had to be chopped, but Rob Beere managed to save that head...all important as the 6 cylinder head has the engine number stamped in!