Spring Fever

Happy Easter!

I have Spring Fever… It’s actually an annual occurrance for me, but was MUCH worse when I had a “real job” and didn’t do what I love for a living… This year, we worked hard during the Winter and the Winter was LONG on top of that, plus I have my own E-Type to mess around with – which is NOT helping! Of course, this means I am working about 50 hours a week instead of 80, and I have actually taken the last two weekends “off” and done no work in the shop – that hasn’t happened in about 4 years!

Over about the past month, Brent and I have been gradually getting the new MM E-Type ready for action. At some shops, this would mean we’re building a race car for the season (and maybe I’ll be crazy enough to actually do that sometime down the road…), but for now, it just means that we are reviving a bone stock Series 1 2+2 to play around with.

This is a great car that has been sitting WAY too long. I bought the car last Fall and posted photos, but quick recap – it is one of the LAST Series 1 cars – it does have open headlamps and Series 2 style wire wheels (but still has eared knock-offs) – otherwise, everything else is Series 1. The car was built in June of 1967, and was originally Indigo Blue with a medium grey interior. The gentleman I purchased it from bought the car as a 2-year-old used car in 1969 with 21,000 miles on it. When I picked it up in November, he had managed to rack up another whopping 20,000 miles over his 44 YEARS of ownership! He had the car repainted willow green in 1971, had the IRS completely rebuilt in the 1990’s, and had the front seats expertly recovered in light grey leather about 5 years ago. Otherwise, it is a true virgin survivor! It has ALWAYS been garaged – he said it hasn’t been wet in at least 25 years.

So this is going to be the new “company car” for weekend spins, customer visits, quick runs to get supplies on nice days, but mostly just to have one around that actually RUNS! – and therein lies the rub – and my distraction of late…

When I say the car is original, I’m NOT kidding, and that has been the battle recently. The first thing I messed with last Fall was a clogged heater core and heater pipes, and badly deteriorated ORIGINAL heater hoses. the rubber has broken down on the inside and clogged the core and all the tubes.

Next, we changed the oil – dissapointed by the fact that someone had stripped the drain plug in the past and replaced it with this crazy expanding rubber plug – but it does actually hold without leaking.

The car has factory AC with the Series 2 style radiator and dual fans, and the PO said “it has always run hot, so there’s no thermostat in it…” – BIG MISTAKE. The factory style thermostat has a “foot” on it that closes off the bypass once the car warms up. With no thermostat, A) you are constatntly running through the bypass, and B) the water is mocning through too fast to effectively draw heat out of the engine block. So we installed the proper thermostat and that made the car’s temperature much more stable, if not any cooler overall…

Next, I started messing around with the carbs. With all of my past experience with E-Types. I was never an SU guy – but I AM NOW! It’s amazing how you can go from clueless to an expert on something in one weekend when you have to… Suffice to say that I know how these work now, and just about have them – although I don’t know if I’ll ever be quite there!

After the carbs were tuned up, and a new set of Champion plugs, she was running MUCH better – so I called Hagerty and paid for a year of insurance with roadside assistance and the works, went down to DMV and got tags, and started running up the miles with the kids happily tagging along in the back seat!

As the weekend wore on last week, I started getting more and more brave, and was heading out farther and farther from home – the car was running flawlessly! Finally, I was ready to take Janie for a spin, and we went out for about 45 minutes last Sunday – after she made a big deal about not wanting to leave the kids home alone even though Anne is right on the cusp of being old enough to babysit and she already took the course and everything…. But OF COURSE, on that ride, she started breaking up at anything above 3,000. AAAGGGGHHHH!!!!! I thought maybe it was a bit too lean now that it was really nice and hot, but I kind of knew in the back of my mind that wasn’t it… So I dialed up the mixture on all three carbs half a turn and headed back out. I was about 3 miles from the house and giving her hell in second gear at about 4,800 RPM when my new toy broke – like someone just switched it off…

On the side of the road, she wouldn’t fire off at all, and I had to have Janie come out and get me. We were about halfway home when she could no longer resist, “I just have to say it or I’m going to explode – THIS is why I didn’t want to leave the kids home alone!”

Once back home, I loaded up the truck with tools and headed out to rescue the Jag. Sadly, this was a failure and we ended up roll-backing her home after 60 minutes of tinkering did manage to get her running again, but not even well enough to move under her own power. My final diagnosis was “ignition component failure due to high heat” – bolstered by the fact that I’m about 90% sure it was ALL original – definitley the coil itself, which was stamped 4-67 like everything else on the car…

To make a long story short, as this is going to be a car I expect to take customers out in, I decided to skip the pain and suffering of setting the points – FOREVER – and I ordered up a new Pertronix distributor, coil, wires, and another new set of plugs. I wasn’t quite sure if this was the right move, so I made a few calls to those in the know on Monday morning and everyone confirmed that the Pertronix units are the way to go on a stock E-Type. It helps when you’re on a first-name basis with some of the top E-Type engine builders in the country!

It all showed up Thursday night, and I spent Thursday evening and most of Friday installing this stuff – which I HIGHLY recommend – AND it’s CHEAP! The Pertronix distributor was only $163 complete! I took my time feeding the new wires, setting the timing, etc., and she’s running better than ever now – and cooler!

So then, between Friday at about 3:00 in the afternoon, and Saturday evening, I drove the car about 100 miles. It’s running great and really coming back to life after a LONG “nap” in the PO’s garage. He said when I bought it, “This is a great running car, it just needs to be driven more than anything else” – and he was right! It’s kind of like Christine in a way – some stuff has fixed itself – like the RH door latch, which was not working at all, and now works great after some use – with NO help from me!

Here are a few photos of the adventures. Hopefully many of you are doing the same thing this Spring getting the E-Type ready for another season. And if you DON’T have an E-Type yet – GET ONE! Yesterday, at one point in my afternoon cruise, I just spontaneously started screaming out loud, “This is so F^%#^&&*((ing great I can’t stand it!!!” – and it’s a 2+2!!!

Well, gotta run – I think Easter breakfast is just about ready in the house, and then after that there’s a big green blob downstairs (that one of my neighbors has already christened “The Pistachio”) that I think is calling my name… Happy Easter! – Chuck