Shandangles '84 XJS v12

[Shandangles]

Hey team, small useless update.

My boy is now at the point where he hardly fits / doesn't like being in the rear facing seat so he's been upgraded to a front facing and my daughter is in a booster seat.

 

The consequence of this is now the whole family can fit in the Jag. 

You wouldn't believe it but the rear seats are basically useless for any human with legs so this stage will only last a little bit, but weekly family drives are on the cards for the next little bit. Which I guess is the whole point.

 

Apart from that I took it out for the night recently, and somehow started it then locked the keys in as we were loading up bags into the boot. Very awkward.

In the city with no tools and an old english car sitting idling in a underground carpark, locked....

With some rapid  googling I came up with a plan. I went back to the hotel too and stole a bread knife and a metal coathanger. I managed to undo and remove  the passenger side mirror, this gave enough access with the coat hanger to manipulate the lock mechanism open.

So there ya go, jags are reasonably easy to get in to in a pinch!

 

👌 Cheers 

[Shandangles]

Not much to report as per usual, operations have been remarkably flawless.

I have been amassing the necessary components to complete a preventative refresh or the rear end.

A bunch of bearings and bushings etc.

As such I have just dropped the rear end this Arvo, parts have a solid 10mm of schmutz that will require a serious going over with the water blaster prior to disassembly.

Some pics, 

1) the radius arm attaches the lower control arm to the chassis, its the only rubber bush (apart from the subframe mounts) The retarded thing is you can't get the mounting bolt out while the shock is in place, there simply isn't room. The bolt is even special in that it's not a typical 6 sided hex bolt, one of the points is cut off so it's a 4 sided "hex" . Top tier English engineering 

[Shandangles]

Size limits necessitate multiple posts 😕

[Shandangles]

Close up view of the inboard brakes setup.

I had thought about extending the bleeders to a more accessible location but upon having a proper look they really aren't that bad to access

[Shandangles]

And lastly for today, the diff cradle is dropped from the car.

Really not too big of a job, about 90 mins all up, not bad for a first time. There really isn't that much holding it in the car. 8 mount bolts, 2 radius arm bolts, d shaft, hand brake and brake line.

Next up is a thorough cleaning and disassembly 

[Shandangles]

Small update for a Thursday arvo. 

Disassembly begins. Turns out the lower shock is on a removable pin type deal. This has to come out in order to remove the radius arm bolts. Unsure if super clever, or retarded🤷‍♂️

[Shandangles]

Employed some "slave" Labor in the form of my 4 year old daughter to clean some of the 40 years of schmutz off the bits. Not perfect but 10000 times better. Might disassemble and go to a local garage and see if they have a spinny parts washer maybe or do a sneaky in the dishwasher 😂. If not will just media blast and powedercoat.

 

[Shandangles]

All is apart, well apart from the diff and brakes. Unsure if I'll pull them just yet. May measure the discs first to see if I need to swap them out as it's a subframe out job.

Everything is so fucking dirty all the bits that pivot are greasable so it's just absolutely caked in shit, even after the water blasting session.

Now it's just cleaning, disassembly, clean again, get new hardware, re assembly. 

[Shandangles]

Have been slowly chipping away as time allows.

Basically just a bunch of cleaning and buying tools such as 12 ton press, dial gauge and a tub to make a gettho parts washer.

Jerry rigging up the hub to press the axel off.

 

Spent a few minutes a night  over a week or so scrubbing shit off all of the suspension bits. Then have them a paint so everything is a nice shade of black now.

I then started to remove the calipers and noticed the calipers had a spacer in between the 2 halves and it has vented 2 piece discs 1 piece solid discs is supposed to have, evidently this is a old twr upgrade, how good. Decided to leave it all in place as the pistons aren't seized and disce still have 2mm on them.

You can see the spacer plate in the middle of the caliper

I then stripped the rear hubs and fulcrum. Bit of a pain as it's all bearings not bushes. So had to press / drift the races out. Then it was back to the "parts washer" 

Seeing as everything is bearings there is a required "float" in the conical bearings. I'm not mechanic / engineer so was dreading setting this up. But after buying a dial gauge and fluffing about for a couple of evenings with the shims that came in the rebuild kit I got both sides to the required 0.001"-0.003" clearance

The original fulcrum has felt seals and a little cup they sit in, seems retarded. The first rebuild kit I bought was the same, I then found a kit from simply performance in The UK that replaces all of that shit with newer rubber seals, much betterer

 

That's about where we're at, slow assembly now. I have all the parts , just need the time. Hopefully this weekend will have the hubs and fulcrum all greased rebuilt and assembled.

I've also rebuilt the half shafts, only broke 1 UJ in the process. They are an old f150 unit so should be strung enough. Hopefully.

I'm also toying with the idea of buying a small cheap ultrasonic cleaner for all the hardware. Am yet to decide if that a genius idea, or retarded.

 

[Shandangles]

Howzit,

Had some issues with the rear hub inner grease seal. It was like the supplied seals were a bees dick too large and simply wouldn't fit in. I completely mangled one trying so ordered what I thought was the same thing, turns out it was a more factory style metal/ rubber seals rather than the newer all rubber style. These older style could go in 1 of 2 ways, curve down or curve up. They were also a very tight fit, I decided to go curve down due to ease of installation. It's only sealing wheel bearing grease under no pressure so should be fine 

Then decided to put the lower arm needle bearing stuff together. Significantly easier than i expected. I'm at like 2 months since disassembly at this point to my memory is beginning to fade on the specific order of seals etc, luckily there could only go together one way.

There are 2 needle bearings in each side of the fork that are pressed in, then the "axel" they allow to rotate, on the inside / outside there is a small inner washer, a grease seal, a lager outer ring and a big boy washer. 

 

Currently held in place via cable ties

I just need to extract the large radius arm Bushes and press in the new ones and all the refreshing is done. They are like 95mm OD so much bigger than anything I have to press them in / out so I think I'll have to cut them out.

I have ordered a cheap ultrasonic cleaner to hopefully tart up all of the hardware but it's effectiveness has yet to be seen, it should arrive today.