In the beginning there was an elegant S Type that drove under its own power into the carport. As with all great undertakings of mankind the largest of tasks begins with the smallest of steps. We removed the bonnet. I mention this because it was achieved with no particular hardship, nothing to complain about, no costs incurred. Hold that thought, you may need to refer back to it as the story progresses, just to remind yourselves that we are capable of doing, albeit the simplest of tasks, correctly, without unnecessary rework or unpleasant cock-ups.

In fact things went fairly smoothly until the engine was half dismantled. I will admit in passing, that removing the engine-gearbox unit in the approved vertical manner, required the aid of an unapproved piece of 2x1 to lever it past the sway bar, however, no damage done to man or beast.

We were feeling fairly pleased with ourselves looking at the block, with the head and gearbox off, and looking forward to inspecting the engine internals when we realised that a seized harmonic balancer bolt and flywheel bolts were going to stop us getting straight in there. At this stage the gear box was going to require minimal work, maybe just a sliding member for the over drive. I know, let’s take it all down to Spiteri’s and let them undo the offending bolts…

And this is where the story really begins…

Naturally Spiteri’s had no trouble loosening the offending bolts, and fairly soon the block was off to the machine shop for inspect and report. The gearbox was another matter. Not wanting to rebuild the O/D in a dusty carport we put the unit in V&A Spiteri’s expert hands. The discussion went something like this: Me: "Andrew, can you do that gearbox off the ‘S’-type for me, I think it needs an overdrive clutch and maybe some sychro rings", Andrew: "I’ll get Vic to take a look at it and report". Report: "Rebuild gearbox with bearings, synchro hubs and rings, O/D sliding member, seals, etc." Oh, so it will take a while will it?, Andrew: "yes, but don’t worry about the gearbox yet, I have some bad news on that 3.8 block you sent out for machining..."

It seems that 3.8 litre engines are getting a little expensive to rebuild, with several parts becoming rare or expensive. I won’t bore you with any sordid financial details, suffice it to say that the economics of repairing a 3.8 block cracked between 4 cylinders and needing full machining is not a pretty thing (from the owners perspective). After a short search, a suitable ‘long bolt’ 4.2 litre engine was found, and the block, crank and rods send out again. Take Two…

At this stage various ‘traps for unwary players’ started to take their toll. The scene: One sunny day in The Carport, The task: reassemble a 4.2 block with a mixture of 4.2 & 3.8 components.

Step 1: pistons, rods, crank and bearings in. Beautiful.

Step 2: oil pump, timing chain drive, distributor drive in. Oops, oil line won’t fit. Must be different on a 4.2. Yup, sure was, so 4.2 oil pipe added into the equation.

Step 3: Sump on, invert, start fitting the chains up. Oops, chains don’t line up. Very strange, it’s almost as if a 4.2 block is longer at the top than a 3.8. You would need a different gear carrier, wouldn’t you? In fact the darn thing is about 7mm longer, and you need the 4.2 intermediate gear carrier.

Step 4: Put the head on, trial run, no head studs in. Sweet. Looks good all round, just have to slide it 7mm to the back to cover up those two water jacket holes… Except that the front is fine, haven’t we seen that 7mm before somewhere? Yes, Josephine, the block was longer (apparently at one end), and no, those water jacket holes don’t go anywhere in the 3.8 head. What, you forgot to plug them up already? Keep at it.

Step 5: Fit clutch and gearbox. I have to keep some secrets, so I am not going to tell you how we did this without a proper clutch alignment tool, using only our bare hands and an assortment of rods, clamps and the trusty 2x1. PS operated by a long screwdriver the clutch seems to throw out and work fine.

Step 6: Put engine in car. Good. The real work begins. Read manual, put spring mounted plate on the back of the gearbox by jumping up and down on it until the pin slips in. Now just raise the engine in the air, up, Up, UP… Crikey, with the hoist at full stretch and hitting the rafters already, how are we going to get the back of the gearbox, or more precisely that dammed spring plate, over the front of the car. Enter the Slippery Slide. Strategically placed, a piece of chipboard will afford a nice way to just ease the rear over the front of the engine bay. Now down we go, into the transmission tunnel, and, Uh Oh, that pesky plate hits the floor just as the block hits the tunnel. Curse, swear, use the 2x1, no, lets take the tie rod and sway bar off, yes there we go. Done.

Step 7: Connect up the tailshaft. Great in theory, but there is a spring mounted plate making access to the mounting bolts impossible, guess we have to drop it off, AHHHH !

All right, calm down, that hurt a bit but now it’s time to drop the head on and time the cams. Done this before, I know it’s easy.

Step 8: Head: Place gasket and head on studs. Put washers and lifting rings on, placing rings on correct studs, the long ones. Right, the long ones, which were they? Silly me, just look at them. There they are; one, two, three, four, ..five, six… Oh, not just 4? Well screw them in a bit more then. They won’t go? Hell, there isn’t something broken off down there is there? So down the stud holes we go, looking for the worst. Thankfully just dirt and rust was found, hot tanking it seems does not remove every thing. And no, I am not going to tell you how we cleaned the holes out, 10 inches below the deck of the block. It’s another trade secret.

Step 9: Time the cams. On familiar ground here since I did the head a few years ago, still, lets read the book again since everything is new this time. Book says "adjust the chain tension up before attempting to time the cams" OK, good advice, seems sensible, although I am not quite sure why. Push plunger, adjust eccentric wheel, lovely. Now we fiddle around and adjust the timing. Good, now just turn the crankshaft to bring the two hidden bolts around… NOOOO !! They’re Not Moving! Stop, think. Turn crank, chains move, cams turn.., not. What have we done? Chain not turning. Drive sprocket not turning? Woodruff key on crankshaft left out? Remove the engine again?

At this point I should state that I indulge in long distance cycling training. My heart is at least as strong as the next person’s. However my father, leading me in this process of repetitive heart strain and mental shock, is 70 years old. He was quite white at this stage, and if I had been able see beyond my desire to set fire to the whole car, I may have shown him some concern. Thankfully, his ticker is up to Jaguar standards also.

When we calmed down a little, we decided to grab a torch and look down the timing chain line to see what was going on. Then we discovered the first reason the top chain should be tight when adjusting the timing; this helps it engage with the intermediate gear, and cause the top chain to turn, thus rotating the cam shafts. Ahh, I see. Fine, tighten the chain, check the timing again. Hmm, slightly out. Well, 45 degrees actually. So that is reason two it needs to be tight, since with the adjuster half way between the two cams, as you tighten the chain the cams rotate apart, loosing the timing… So in we go again, and iteritively set, check, tighten until the timing and tension is spot on.

OK, now things went smoothly for a while, manifolds and carbies on, accessories on, radiator in (did I tell you about the modified water hose dramas? No? Well, just imagine it then), time to fire up the engine.

Step 10: Start her up! Clearly the tide had turned. It started up first time, after a bit of cranking to bring the oil up, and sounded beautiful. This is not to say that there were no dramas however. A few seconds after starting there was water pouring on the floor, oil gushing from the filter, and hissing gurgling noises from the sparkplugs! Quick, stop the show! Tighten the loose bits and restart for an easy 10 minute warm up. Stop & re-torque the head, lovely.

Step 11: Adjust & bleed the clutch. Push pedal down, wait for it to come up. And wait. Forever. So, how do you bleed a clutch master cylinder that jams down after every stroke? Answer, you can’t. Get it fixed. Again. Maybe the new rubber has got contaminated from 5 months of sitting around. Try again the next day with a new rubber. Push, and wait… OK, try again the next day with a new piston assembly: Push and return, Sweet. Great, all bubbles out now, how is the operating rod length. Hmm, needs to be longer, a lot longer. Try again the next day with a longer rod. Great, adjusts up now, we have a full stroke, start her up and slip it into gear… Er push the gear lever,… Shove the gear lever,… GRAUNCH! No Stop! Sit. Cry. Not enough throw in the assembly to disengage fully. Why, How? (who?).

About here we discovered that the patience of Jobe is not nearly enough when your Jaguar job is going badly. We were exhausted. Demoralised. Pissed off. After 5 months of cleaning, grinding, welding, drilling, painting and assembling we felt beaten. And I needed the car back on the road. Reluctantly we borrowed Vic Spiteri’s trailer and took the beast over to Blackburn.

Spiteri’s declared that there "wasn’t enough clearance in the throw out assembly", we muttered something about Blind Freddy knowing that, and agreed to let the experts pull the engine out again to find out why.

As the assembly came apart it soon became obvious that we had fallen for a very basic trick; the clutch plate was in backwards. Retribution was swiftly metered to the guilty party, and the opportunity used to fit another rear main rope oil seal since the first had been poorly installed and was leaking like a sieve. Within a few days the assembly was back in the car, and road tested, things were looking up.

I would love to report that we just drove home from Blackburn put the bonnet on and hit the highway, but you’ve guessed it doesn’t work that way already.

The beast arrived home missing and splurting horribly. No problem, just a bit rich, time for a quick tune up. Push the choke fully home, adjust it off and so forth, set mixture, air; now that’s running better! Pull the choke out, push it in; rough running is again the order of the day. Bother.

Now the issue here is that I had the original twin 1 ¾ SU’s converted to manual choke. Why? Because I found the standard "electric enrichment device" not very suitable for the daily cold start short running work that the car gets, and I am a great fan of the SU’s ability to control mixture and air through the standard manual choke mechanism. Solution; choke conversion kits are still available for HD6 models, so let’s fit one.

Back to the rough running. Clearly the jet was not returning after being moved by the choke lever. On the back carby the jet is held in position against the adjuster by a nice spring inside under the jet. On the front carby there was no sign of any spring action at all. Panic Time! No spring fitted? Hundreds of dollars wasted? Pull the carbys off again? Oh dear, so much pain for a bear of very little brain. So we started in to pull the front one off, and… 2 seconds later the fuel line jamming the choke lever was released! Apologies to the carburettor shop whose work appears to be perfect in every way, as we were told it would be.

Right, lets hit the road. Back out, not bad, good brakes, nice steering, off down the street. Come to a roundabout; turn in, Whoops, where has the power assistance on the steering gone? Very nasty, take a few turns carefully, turn into a driveway, WoW! Nearly hit the post, now that’s understeer! Time to sit and sob again. Looks like no power assistance at low revs, and/or high steering loads. I guess I should mention here that we had been horsing around with the power steering. Since the old generator mounted pump was leaking like a sieve, and I wanted an alternator fitted to cope with modern city driving, we fitted a new separate power pump and alternator. The steering box had also been fully overhauled. What had gone wrong? Wrong choice of pulley diameters? Steering box binding up? More rude words said about various previously reputable vendors.

Lifting the front wheels off the ground is a great way to start debugging steering; spin the wheel about 3 turns lock to lock, What’s that you say? Only 1.5 turns lock to lock? That’ll do it for sure. Wonder where that end stop bolt is set? Looks under sump at freshly painted idler arms near the end stop, and, Oh, right, should those tie rod clamp bolts be jamming under the idler arms and scraping the paint off like that? Yep, spin the clamps around 180 degrees and we have 2 ¾ turns of lock. Problem solved. Job finished.

Just like that. Really nothing to it after all. Just pull the engine out, overhaul the gearbox, do a few steering odds and ends while it is out. Spray paint the engine bay, wrap a bit of plastic tape around the wiring loom, put the reco engine back in. Doesn’t sound like a 5 month job, does it? And I won’t admit to anybody how much it all cost. I thought I knew how to estimate a job like this before I started, but I found out that the accumulation of a myriad of small tasks and the slow assembly in a cramped engine bay soon takes on a life of its own. Nice pussy…

1,000 miles later how are we going? Well, the job is a major success, but I have slight choking fits when the wife asks me "Is it all finished?"

On the plus side, the engine pulls like a train and the steering is perfect at speed. The alternator happily runs the quartz headlights and electric fan, and charges the battery even at idle in heavy traffic.

On the other side however, the clutch pedal was too close to the floor, and after extending the master cylinder pin it is now too high, the bypass hose leaks onto the distributor and causes stalling, and there are still oil leaks. I guess it will never be "finished".