7. E-Type Stories from the Jag-lovers group
"About 15 years ago I had my 63 E-type roadster. I was much younger then
and drove much faster. During one of my late afternoon 100+ Mph blasts
down the back-country roads here in Utah, one of my sun visors moved up
into the airstream. It was ripped off by the high speed air. My buddy
and I slowed down, turned around and went back to get it only to find
some old man by the road side mad as hell since he thought that we had
trown something at him. So, make sure that you either drive slow Mike
or tie your sun visors down !" Jim Cantrell (jimc@sysdiv.sdl.USU.edu)
"As I am fast approaching 50 this July, I told my wife last Christmas
that I was having a mid-life crisis and either needed to have an affair
or buy a Jag! She asked me what kind of Jag I wanted! After a little
searching here in town, we found a British car shop that had a
basket-case 70 E-Type roadster. They were going to restore it but after
restoring a 71, they could not justify the time or expense until the 71
got sold. I didn't really want it but my wife kept telling me that I
would only kick myself for the next 15 years if I passed it up. Needless
to say, with that kind of support, the E now resides in my garage. I was
truly fortunate in that after I got it stripped down, there was very
little rust. The floorpans had rusted out where they had accumulated
water during storage but that was all I could find. It is an Arizona car
with only 56K miles on it. The down side is that during the 5 years it
sat at the car place, they misplaced many small items as they were
starting the restoration. I have spent about $1,500 on new and used bits
and pieces and I believe that I now have about 98% of the car. I am
close to painting it and reassembling it and hope to be able to take my
wife for a spin it it by this Christmas. I'll keep you posted on my
progress." George W. Cohn (gwcohn@azstarnet.com)
"Some time ago, I had a SII E Type OTS that I was doing body work on in a
night class & I drove it to school & back on a regular basis. One night, it
rained & after going through a particularly large mud puddle, the car died &
wouldn't start again. Turned out to be a wet distributor & all was well
again the next day after I got everything dried out. My boss at the time had
the real explanation for the Jag's propensity for failure to operate properly
in wet conditions - "EVERYONE knows that cats don't like water!" Ever since
then, I don't aim for mud puddles when driving a Jaguar with an XK engine &
its low-mounted distributor." Steve A. (SteveAv@aol.com)
"A friend of mine was looking at the Jag this afternoon. "With all those
switches on the dashboard, how can you tell them apart at night?" he asked.
"No problem", I replied, "those are Lucas switches. No matter which
one you hit, nothing happens." Michael Frank (mfrank@westnet.com)
"Speaking of e-type stories, I had a very frightening experience about 15
years ago. I had a 63 E-type roadster that was in beautiful condition.
It was summer time here in Utah and I was returning home late one night
(2-3 AM) and driving through my little town of 600 people. I decided to
open up the car in second gear on the main road through town before
retiring for the night (I was much less concerned about police and
bodily injury back then). I opened up the throttle and pushed real hard
on the pedal. To my amazement, the throttle stuck wide open. I was
rather shocked and had no real contingency plan for this type of
occurance. As I approached what I considered 300 MPH (an optical
illusion surely), I panicked and pushed in the clutch. The engine
revved up to about 7000 RPM before I got enough of a thought to turn the
key off. I was totally amazed to find out that no damage to the engine
was apparent. The cause: the throttle linkage had gone over-center and
stuck wide open. I had a similar situation happen in a much more
powerful car with an automatic and the earlier experience taught me what
not to do. Here, I calmly pushed HARD on the brake and turned the key
off. Not even a drop of sweat this time." Jim Cantrell (jimc@sysdiv.sdl.USU.edu)
"When I was a young stud of 21, my very first car was a 64 E-Type
roadster. One evening while going home after visiting my parents, I
came upon a Porche while crossing some mountains. He decided to race me
and we went at it neck-to-neck at speeds up to 90 mph over this two-lane
twisty mountain road. I was finally getting the best of him when I blew
a freeze plug out of the engine! Needles to say, this put me out of the
race at once. I hitch hiked some 30 miles back to town where my father
helped me find a freeze plug and we came back and installed it in the
dark by the side of the road. After refilling the water, I continued on
home. This incident never seemed to have caused me any adverse problems
and I finally sold the car in 1973 for a princely $1,500 when I bought
my new Datsun 240Z. Had I known then what I know now, I would have been
much better off to just store the car for the last 23 years. Ah 20-20
hindsight." George W. Cohn (gwcohn@azstarnet.com)
"One of my first jobs was to change the oil filter on my E-Type 2+2. This
is not a modern spin-on type but consists of a cartridge inside a cover
with a central bolt which pulls the cover onto an O-ring in a groove. I
changed the O-ring and thought it was in the groove, even though working
through the hand hole in the undertray it was impossible to see all
round the groove even with a mirror. But it wasn't in the groove...
Although dark, I eagerly went for a test drive round my usual circuit
which involves about a mile of warm-up followed by blasting up a long
hill to allow glorious use of full power. As I reached the top, doing
about 90, I routinely scanned the oil pressure: ZERO! I switched off
and coasted to a rapid halt. Oil everywhere, on the undertray, under the
car, on the rear wheel. Sump empty. I walked to the nearest petrol
station, bought 2 gal of oil, poured it in and started the engine. To my
utter relief, oil pressure appeared. I set off for home, switching off
between short bursts and coasting down the long hill.
At the bottom I had to brake to turn off and as I did so - the whole
bonnet (hood) swung up, completely obscuring the way ahead. I had to
stop quickly or I'd hit something but any decel caused the front to drop
and scrape the fender on the road. Ugggh. With all the excitement and in
the dark I had omitted to latch the bonnet and the PO had removed the
safety catch. The next day, in the light, I retraced my journey. The
oil trail ran clearly all the way to the bottom of the hill, then
completely stopped. I can therefore only assume the car did at least
half a mile on mostly full power with no oil pressure. Amazing. And no
after effects - plenty of oil pressure afterwards and no bearing
problems. What oil? Castrol GTX. Two merciful escapes in one
night. Much to be thankful for." Chris Longrigg (chris@zodiac.win-uk.net)
"Being the proud owner of a 1966 E-Type Coupe for over 25 years, I would
like to share a story about an encounter that took place in 1989:
It was a sunny Saturday morning around 7:30AM when I was driving down
a freeway on-ramp on my way to work (yep on a Saturday no less). As I
entered the freeway at 50mph a brand new redder than red Ferrari
Testarosa sporting those bug-antenna like side mirrors and paper license
plate blew by me doing around 70mph, needless to say it startled me
cause I was in kind of a daze with the morning and all. He passed so
close that he actually buffeted my car. Instant adrenalin - and I took
off after him and sat beside him in a heart beat, still doing around 70
(I am guessing on these speeds due to the fact that my speedo cable was
not hooked up). He was an older fellow (about my age) wearing a chrome
white driving suit with gloves and glasses that wrapped around his
entire head. Casualy he looked over at me on his left and almost
snickered as he eyeballed my white coupe with dark grey patches of
primer here and there that sort of resembled a four legged creature that
munches grass out in the fields. Anyhow, he decided to leave this
primered beast and move on, as he nailed that beautiful red Ferrari, he
didn't even bother to shift, well I did and yep I blew right by him, and
only after he realized that he was being had, did he down shift and try
to catch me, well since we both were going the same direction we had to
negotiate a somewhat small freeway interchange, and let me tell you he
was on my butt as we went through the S curve and back out onto the
flat, and this time he tried to pass me on my left, so I redlined (yep
my tachometer worked), and once again I was walking away from him by a
couple of mph which is quite a bit at speed.
Abruptly he slowed down and took an off ramp, didn't know if that was indeed
his destination or he just wanted to find a place to get out and kick is car.
My exit came so I got off and pulled into the company parking lot, jumped out
of my coupe and walked around until my legs stopped shaking and my back
unknotted. I know by now all of you reading this story are saying yeah-in
your dreams, no way an E can blow off a Testarosa, but let me tell you it is
true, and in the Testarosa owners eyes he was thoroughly beaten by a
Jaguar XKE. Anyhow as I walked around the car I noticed a little water
drizzle coming out from under the car, so I tilted up the bonnet and
identified the problem to be the water hose clamp on the top of my small
block LT-1 lump, it needed to be tightened a half turn." Ed Freige (edf@borrego.studio.sgi.com)
"In about 1985 F.R.W.(Lofty) England visited Australia .In Melbourne,the
JCCV organised a tour of members garages to look at restoration
projects. One member had built a shed in his back yard and had an E type
body on a rotisserie and with a mig welder was indeed a serious
restorer. He gave a talk, how it was a US import and how he had replaced
almost all the body panels because of rust. The grand man looked
thoughtful,put his hand on his chin "Rust prevention!"he said "when we
built these,you know we never painted anywhere you couldn't see." And
as any E Type restorer will tell you he was right." Don Tracey (dont@echuca.net.au)
"#1 Right after I got the car I was demonstrating it to the wife. She was
somewhat of a skeptic about spending $13,000 for a 23 year old car. I was
proudly exclaming how modern it was since it had air conditioning. The
outside temp that day was 105F.
As we cruised smugly down a very heavily trafficed street in town, smiling
proudly at the pedestrians as they admired it, suddenly there was the sound
of a 12 guage shotgun going off. Scared the bejeuses out of me. White
smoke began pouring from every louver in the hood, out from under the wheel
wells and any other place it could find its way out. I pulled quickly to
the side of the road and poped the bonnet. It was imediately obvious that
the AC hose ran too close to the exhaust manifold and had exploded spraying
freon onto the manifold generating the white smoke. I immediately slammed
the bonnet down and drove off to the utter amazement of the spectators who
had gathered. They couldnt believe that it was still able to drive away.
#2 A week later I was cruising (if you can call 120MPH cruising) down a
familiar country road where I knew there would be no police officers. I was
wrong. As I came around a corner to enter the freeway there was a trooper
looking right at me through the sights of his radar gun. I hit the brakes
and slowed to about 80-90 by the time I got to him, but he had caught me at
120 and I knew it. The limit was 55! As I got to him a big smile spread
across his face as he droped the gun to his side and just waved as I blew
past. Sometimes it pays to be driving an exotic. If I had been in the
Seville I would have paid dearly for that indescression.
#3 This one realy scared me. I was driving a twisty back country road late
at night at about 80mph when I reached down to turn off the interior light.
Hit the wrong switch and extinguished both the headlights and dash lights.
All those damned switches (they wouldnt pass DOT now days) feel the same in
the dark and I couldn't find the one for the headlights! I just started
slowing down as fast as I could and relied on my memory of what I had seen
before the lights went out to guide the car. Luckily I got it stoped on the
side of the road and then found the correct switch." James A. Isbell (JISBELLJR@mail.utexas.edu)
"When I purchased my E-Type, the body was rusted but the driveline had
been carefully and expensively refurbished. The transmisison was so new
it didn't even have dust on it. The head had been removed, but I didn't
know what all had been done inside. The PO was the traditional "Little
old man" and had died.
But every time I turned right, the car would stagger, stumble, miss
and die. At first the problem felt like a carburator float malfunction,
but after experimenting a bit I noticed it would run if I jerked the
wheel to the left, then quit when I turned back to the right.
So I started looking at electrical solutions. No oil leaking from the
coil, nothing abnormal with the distributer. So when I pulled the bonnet
off to clean and repaint I followed the wireing carefully.
Sure enough, the low voltage wire on the coil was barely
connected. When I turned right it would pull off far enough to
disconnect. Going straight or turning left it made contact. Six inches
of new wire and a connector at each end made for the cheapest fix one
could hope for." LLoyd (3030P%NAVPGS.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU)
"I guess the pain has subsided enough that I can share the story of my
car, the one that got away.
I live in Monterey Ca. One day I saw an ad for a '70 Jaguar XKE
Convertable, best offer. I said, sure, but not in my price range, so I
didn't call. A week went by and the ad was still in there. What the
heck, so I called.
Turned out it ran and the owner drove it into the garage, a warm, dry,
heated garage in a residential area. They were turning the garage into a
den and need- ed the space. It sat there three years. They had just sold
it a few minutes ago but thanks for calling. I asked if they would tell
me how much they got for it. Five thousand dollars, they said.
I asked if I could come over and look at it. They said OK, so off I went.
It was beautiful. Almost perfect black leather interior, british
racing green, wires in great shape, and not a spot of rust could I
find. The only thing wrong was a cracked windshield.
I don't awaken at night crying any more, but then again I haven't told
anyone about it either. I haven't seen it around town, the new owner is
probably laughing so hard he can't steer." LLoyd (3030P%NAVPGS.BITNET@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU)
"At the risk of these E-type stories getting old I'll keep it short! I
took my Dan '69 E-type series II OTS down to the local coin-op car wash
to give it a good cleaning (I like using the foam engine degreaser they
have in those guns). I was done cleaning my cat and pushed it over to a
parking stall to dry the distributor cap and the rest of the car. 8-) I
pushed it around the corner and parked it right next to a guy in his
series III coupe. It was silver with red interior and one of the nicest
looking coupes I've ever seen. After talking with him for a little
while I learned that he was just finishing up a ground up restoration
and had already sold the car to Ferrari of Los Gatos (northern CA).
After we'd both finished drying everything we could find under the
bonnet (so the engines would run) he fired it up. WOW!, talk about
music! The combination of a freshly rebuilt V12 and the resonators he
had on the car made for some beautiful sounds. He asked if I wanted to
go for a spin so I thought about it for about a millisecond and got in
the car. The reason I said that he was "finishing" up the restoration
was because he hadn't received the windshield gasket that he'd ordered
so he was driving it around without a windshield. We were both in our
twenties and thought we were cool so we took off down the nearby
expressway.
Picture this! A bright sunny day with two idiots flying down an
expressway in a silver E-type coupe at about 100mph, no windshield, hot
air coming out of the engine compartment cooling vents and both guys
looking sideways out the front attempting to see. IT WAS GREAT!!
I gave him a ride in my car when we got back but that was boring. 8-)" Dan Graves
"Some thirty years ago as I was driving my E OTS down the road in a
sweltering 115 degree day in July with the top down. I hit a small bump
and the wipers came on! Not a cloud in the sky and here's this idiot
with three wipers swishing back and forth! The wiper switch wasn't on
and I couldn't make them stop! I finally pulled over to the side of the
road and raised the blades off the glass so as not to scratch it. After
I got home, I found that the wiper parking switch part of the mechanism
had shorted out. (I don't know why I didn't think of the fuse at the
time).
Want to know why there are no famous English astronauts? They got in
their first space vehicle, saw all the controls were marked "Made by
Lucas" and ran screaming from the launch pad! :-)" George W. Cohn (gwcohn@azstarnet.com)
From: Michael Frank
Subject: XKE Story: how not to buy a Jag
Last year, we began looking for a new old car. My dream car was a
mid-30's Bentley, but my wife couldn't warm up to the idea. After looking
around a bit, flirting with an Alfa, we realized that an XKE would be the
perfect driven classic.
Although the Series I's looked the best, we wanted a Series II or
III, because of the relatively modern safety equipment. We then searched
high and low for a good car. I've never seen so much rust in my life! We saw
cheap cars, which only lived because they were XKE's, and expensive cars
which weren't worth the price.
Finally I saw an ad in that national publication with the brown
cover. A 'perfect', 'fully restored', 'rust free', 1969 XKE 2+2. It had
several 'high performance' modifications, including defederalized triple
SU's and headers. I called the soon to be PO immediately.
He said that the ad had a great response, and that several buyers
had already called, and the car would go to the first money. He was selling
the car to make space for a new project Porche. To save time, he had made up
some videos, and gladly sent me a copy.
The car looked great on tape! Everything the ad had said. Perfect,
just perfect! One problem: the car was located in a great American city
about 800 miles from New York, so I couldn't go out to inspect it.
Fortunately, I knew someone in that city who was persuaded, reluctantly, to
go out and see the car. He called me enthusiastically endorsing the
purchase: in his defense, he had protested from the first that he was not an
expert. Everything seemed ok, so I bought the car then and there. Yes,
that's right, sight unseen. I was afraid that one of those other buyers
would snatch it up.
I then went back to the brown book to arrange for shipping. I found
a transporter who 'just happened' to be passing by where the car was, and
would be glad to pick it up for a reduced rate. He called two days later and
told me that his truck broke down and he couldn't make the pickup. So I
started looking for another shipper. Before I could cut a deal, the first
trucker called back, reported that his truck was on the road, and that he
would do the job for the original price. A bargain is a bargain, so I said
go do it. He caled me up a week later to let me know that another emergency
had come up, and he didn't get to my car. He had a number of scheduled hauls
to do, so he couldn't do the pick up for nearly two weeks.
I thought about it a bit, and decided to take the train out, and
drive the car home. Now when the PO heard about this, he was verrrrry
nervous. I should have known something then. He sent the car to a local Jag
mechanic to have the carbs set up, as a favor. That is where I picked it up.
I arrived at the Jag shop on an overcast morning. The place seemed
very competent, with XJS's everywhere you looked, and a couple of XKE's. The
PO wasn't there, but the mechanic had the keys. My car wasn't hard to find.
It was cherry red, and loaded with boxes of old parts(garbage). I checked it
over quickly. It looked a lot sadder than in the video, but maybe it was the
overcast morning. Without any further ado, I jumped in and drove off.....
About ten blocks from the garage, the engine started to sputter. I
looked at the guages, as I should have from the first, and the battery was
on full discharge. I chugged into a gas station, popped the bonnet, and had
the attendant charge up the battery. Hopped back in, went back to the Jag
mechanic. Alternator wasn't charging. New alternator installed. Still not
charging. Uh-oh says Mr. Jagwrench, *&%$#$% PO has totally miswired these
relays. A few minutes of fiddling and we are back in business. Do I want to
keep the new alternator? Sure. $350.
All the way home smelling raw gas and foul exhaust. Eight hundred
miles of pure agony. Even the thumbs up and envious stares of passersby is
small compensation for a rolling gas chamber. I drove as fast as possible,
with the windows fully down.
Get home, put it in the garage. Soon the entire house smells of raw
gasoline. Wife pushes me out of bed to do something, before we blow up. Pop
the bonnet. Fiber washers on the fuel rail had either been reused or
abused.. turning on the ignition shows a steady drip, drip, drip from every
banjo fitting. No new washers, so I drain the rail and use a wire hanger to
hold it high. Wash up the gas as best I can, and go to bed. The house will
continue to smell of gas for two weeks. My wife knows not to ask if we made
a mistake.
It is now almost a year later. How close to 'perfect' was this Jag?
Well, the body is, indeed, very nice. Not perfect, but fine for a driven
car. There is controllable rust in the floorboards, and some bondo in the
nose. The drivers door sags, and I have a new hinge waiting to be installed.
I happened into a complete interior kit, which I have been installing a bit
at a time.
The drivetrain is ok, but I need to adjust the tappets one of these
days. The rear axle is an untouched original. No problems, but not really a
good thing in a 27 year old car. The previous owner had installed a hot cam,
which has made the car really hard to tune. A very good Jag guy told me that
the flywheel is somehow 5 degrees off, which contributes to the tuning problem.
The brakes are problematic. The PO told me he installed a rebuilt
booster, metal sleeves, silicone brake fluid and new lines. All of the
above applies only to the fronts, however. I had to replace the check valve
and all the vacuum hoses.
The tires, I was told, had only a couple of thou on them. This may
have been the case, but the car had sat so long, the tires had uncorrectable
flat spots. The wires were so rusty and out of true, that they went to Jag
heaven with the tires. Wheel bearings and ball joints are tired, but
serviceable for now.
The headers had to go. There just wasn't enough room for the exhaust
clamps. Without clamps, exhaust blew right into the passenger compartment.
With clamps, the exhaust caught on every bump, and finally tore itself
apart. Noise, sickening fumes, bad smells... my new Double SS exhaust fixed
all of that!
The heater didn't leak when the car was delivered. This is because
it was capped off. I had to replace the entire heater box, core , and fan.
Every hose in the cooling system had to be replaced. The PO had evidently
had some hose problems. In some cases, these were fixed by patching in a new
segment of hose with a piece of pipe to connect to the stub of the old hose.
The carbs had to be completely rebuilt, and I am still fiddling with
them. The original jets had totally petrified! The distributor (a dual-point
Mallory) has caused a few problems: It was delivered with only one set of
points, rather than two, and the hold down bolt was stripped, which didn't
help that timing problem.
The PO told me he had installed 'new cooling fans'. One of these
just burned out, in a cloud of black smoke. I guess it's easy to mistake
'new' with 'bought a part at the junkard'. The 'complete air conditioner'
had been rendered inoperative because the headers didn't leave room for the
hoses. The PO just cut the hoses away. There was so much dirt in the system
that every part will need to be replaced before it will run again. (I just
found the last part!, soon , soon!).
These are just a few of the larger problems I have encountered. For
all that, I am very, very happy with this car. I thought I had a bargain: I
actually paid exactly what the car was worth. As the deal becomes a memory,
I find that the car is improving by the day. We have been able to take it
out every weekend, and even on a few long trips. Every time I drive it, I
find and fix another problem. I think that soon it will settle down to
normal maintenance.
Only one big problem remains: the trucker who I originally hired to
haul the car back keeps calling for work. Does anyone have a car this guy
can haul? Get him off my back! Please!
Moral of the story: never, never again will I buy sight unseen.
Never, never again without professional advice. And if the price seems too
good to be true: of course it is!
Mike and Iris Frank
1969 XKE 2+2 (OUR CAT)