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Monday 23rd January 2017
Monday 23rd January 2017
The black seats and carpet are in good condition and I was pleased to see the addition of rear seat belts which will help saleability. But the door cards, wood and the headlining all need work. The headlining is made more complicated by the 'Webasto' opening roof.
The steering wheel trim needs a bit of a repaint and this picture is flattering of the wood as the veneer is peeling a lot. You can see some peeling on top and a bit on the door capping on the right.
I have found a place on eBay that sells a complete new set of re-veneered wood for £900 (all pieces except for the one that goes horizontally across the Hot - Cold switch on the dash..). It'd certainly transform the interior! The quality looks good so I'll see how it goes!
March-April 2017
March-April 2017
I've removed the wooden door cappings, chrome handles and the door cards for cleaning, tidying and refurbishment.
I've removed the wooden door cappings, chrome handles and the door cards for cleaning, tidying and refurbishment.
I have removed and polished all of the interior chromework.
The rear door shows where the low part of the exterior door skin has been replaced in the past. There's a small amount of bubbling so it will need doing again.
I've got a slightly dented grille which I hadn't noticed previously and there's a bit of corrosion on the round cosmetic grilles that flank it and the headlamp surrounds but they are cleaning up alright...
I've got a slightly dented grille which I hadn't noticed previously and there's a bit of corrosion on the round cosmetic grilles that flank it and the headlamp surrounds but they are cleaning up alright...
The grille surround has some damage which will be hard to knock out. I'll give it a go, if not it will need replacing.
April 26th 2018
I've had some photos through for the wood set that is being made. Looks really good! I'm nowhere near ready for it yet however!
This steering wheel trim and its flaking paint is in need of a refurb...
Not pretty..
After gently scraping off the flaking paint and cleaning ready for painting.
...and with satin black paint drying it is going to look as it should again.
The veneered surround to the heater wasn't easy to remove. I'm sending it off to be re-veneered by the man who has made the new set.
There are these funny little nuts on the end of the bolts holding it onto the dash panel.
I needed to undo the vent adjusting cables under the dash to withdraw them with the wood.
Eventually got it out and have taken the brackets and cables off. Need to get it in the post!
July 2019
July 2019
As part of the body preparation for spraying I'm stripping the doors down to clean up and renovate the window mechanisms and clean the glass and chrome.
The driver's door before stripping. It looks untidy but is sound. I'll be sand the paint back and prepare if for some base coat.
There are spacers at each end of the..
..window frame.
Some overspray from a previous time..
A lot of dust and grease to clean off.
The window mechanisms work fine but they need a good clean. Both front and rear doors together here.
After cleaning and rinsing and blowing off with compressed air they're ready to be re-greased.
With the dirt and old grease gone these 51 year old parts should be good for another 51 years.
I'm carefully cleaning the windows and dealing with any corrosion on the slider.
The chrome before a careful clean.
August 2019
Webasto Roof removal and restoration
The webasto vinyl roof is still quite taut but needs a good clean on the outside..
..and the inside is dirty, stained and a horrible colour so needs completely replacing.
A handle in the sliding roof locks into this plate and cones locate into...
...two sockets either side. The cross bars in the roof slide in the aluminium channels.
The plastic cones and locking arm are shown above.
with the aluminium channels removed the roof is nearly ready to lift out.
Just need to carefully undo whatever holds it down at the rear.
These wires at the back hold the rear edge down tight.
With the roof removed I can start to take it apart for inspection. The front edge is glued to the wooden beam across the front containing the locking lever/arm.
The roof slides on rubber pads riveted on to T pieces attached to the cross bars
The roof spars are joined by thin spring steel strips riveted at each end. Most of them are salvageable but one has broken so I'll have to make a replacement somehow. You can't get individual spares for these anymore.
With the vinyl removed I can see that the headlining is held onto 3 of the spars with a loops of material.
The sliders at the end of each spar are held on with small set screws. I think they need to be adjustable to account for variation in the width of the roof aperture.
There's some rust to deal with but I'm sure I can clean off the rust and repaint it all. There are plastic caps on the end of each spar presumably to protect the roof material.
Left: all the metal components laid out ready to refurbish.
Then rear edge of the headlining is wrapped around a thin strip of wood and held in place with tacks.
Having removed the tacks it can be carefully opened up.
So the wood can be removed...
...leaving the material headlining on its own.
October 2019
Door card renovation
This LHR door card is dirty and baggy....as are all the others. I'll try and restore this one to see if I can do it as replacing them will cost several hundred pounds.
The vinyl looks grotty but I think with a careful clean and sticking them stretched onto new hardboard could save them. The hardboard is warped with clear signs of water damage so has to go.
I was very surprised to learn that the armrest is thick card trimmed with vinyl!
I guess it made it light. Too heavy and it'd be too much for the hardboard to hold. It also shows how Jaguar kept costs down in the 1960's!!
The armrest is held on with these wing nuts. I assume that they had both wings originally.
The vinyl was stapled on so I carefully removed each one.
Releasing the vinyl, which I hope can be carefully cleaned and reused. The white wadding has stuck where the feature lines are set into the vinyl and I have removed the rest and will replace it with 2-3mm scrim foam.
It took a bit of research to find out the correct hardboard material and where to buy it but it is 3mm oil tempered hardboard. I have bought a large sheet and used the old one as a template.
These pictures show the scrim foam stuck to the hardboard and both sides of the vinyl stapled back in place. A heat gun is useful to help stretch the vinyl a little before stapling it. The armrest on these rear doors are quite complex and will need more work yet, updates on them to follow!
Not the clearest picture this, but it does give an idea of how dirty and dusty the interior of the car is. All the seats are out and I have been working on them too. The centre console (above) needs removing for a good clean and to assess what needs doing. The stereo (AM, FM) isn't much use now and only has one speaker anyway, plus I'll be replacing the wood anyway so I'll look into a retro looking modern replacement.
The centre console doesn't have many fixings to remove it but they are hidden on the letter tray under the dash. This little cover panel needs removing and cleaning.
The little dome nuts holding the console to the dash are also holding on the leather trimmed foam pads (shown on the left picture), with them removed out it comes.
Removing the wood including the radio took a while to work out. The air and heat control trim needs to be carefully removed to reveal the screws
These should both clean up nicely.
This shows the vacuum controlled reverse side of the box with the air and heater controls.
This is the underside of the control lever on the centre console that opens the flap to send air to the rear passengers.
The controls after a good clean, including the lettering.
The centre console when upside down showing the radio, ashtray, heater controls, speaker (single sided only!) and the duct to send air to the rear passengers.
It took me a long time to carefully clean up the centre console. There are some small wear and tear marks that I can repair but it's beginning to look worthy of refitting to the car.
The ashtray needs taking apart and refurbishing
The bitumen impregnated card used as sound deadening is missing in some areas and on inspection isn't adhering very well. I am going to remove this, treat any surface rust and replace with a modern butyl pad which should perform better.
Here I have been applying the new butyl panel damping pads across the back seat panel. I have decided to cover more than the original pads to improve the sound deadening over the original car.
May 2020
In order to understand and resolve some of the wiring issues on the car and in preparation of collecting the new wooden interior set I removed the main driver instrumentation panel, carefully labelling the wires.
The dials are original but there has been some modification to this panel over the years as the wooden blocks on the bottom left have been added to hang the manual choke switch and the after-market oil pressure gauge. I'm hoping to not need both of these as I'm intending to get the auto choke to work and reconnect the oil pressure gauge in its original position (undecided on whether to use a wired or a actual oil pipe yet as these are available.
I haven't tested the clock to see if it works yet but my intention is to remove the dial, remove the glass and bezel for cleaning and replace the bezel if it doesn't clean up well.
With the mileage of 93880 (less than 2000 miles a year) there is plenty of life left in the old girl yet. I'll need to tweak the trip as the numbers don't quite align when re-setting to zero.
MAR 1968 is a fair indication that this is the original dial.
This is the untidy collection of wires and lamps hidden behind the panel above the steering wheel. I will check the contacts and give this all a good clean before re-fitting.
There is corrosion on the gauge bezels that is unsightly...
..so I have been sand blasting them back to bare metal (left in progress, right to be done)
This gives an ideal surface for etch primer and satin black..
..to return the bezels to an as-new condition.
With the bezels out I have been able to clean the glass and dials carefully..
..and reassemble the dials and switches into the new veneered wood dash panel.
I have fitted sound deadening on the inside of the door skin on all four doors and refitted the cleaned and re-greased lock and latch mechanisms and the window regulators.
The pictures above are reference pictures for comparison of another S-Type with a suede green interior. The suede green in this case looks almost grey, I'm hoping for something a bit darker and more distinctly green. It might be the photos but the wood veneer looks more bright orangey red where I have (and prefer) a darker walnut look. It is good to see this as a comparison though.
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