An early-hours run to wherever the hell it was that we went has us display our cars for the first time at any event, ever. The now-traditional 5am departure with a Bear powered by Haribo makes for a swift journey. We have long sneered at the hubcap polishers, but we've two cars that are shiny enough for this sort of work, and we've no objection to supporting the JEC even though we no longer race with them. Nobody mention that we're not even JEC members any longer...
Helen's debut at the Jag show was a success. It’s actually only the second Jaguar event we’ve ever been to, but it wasn’t as appalling as I’d feared. There are actually things worth seeing.
The intermittent rain and leaden skies merely made for a more dramatic backdrop. The iconic Ecurie Ecosse transporter presented an excellent photo op, but the point to today, really, was that it gave us a deadline again. As work expands to fill all available time - unless you’re billing for it, in which case it gets done too quickly – we do need a deadline to work to, or we simply never get done, we just keep adding more jobs to the list. At some point you just have to go with what you’ve got.
From that standpoint, success. We have a car that looks the part, and drives about. It’s been a long time coming. And there is a “snag” list that writes itself only once the car is being “used.” Even running this car half a mile around the showground today does give you a list of must-do repairs. The interior is good enough for display, but not yet useable. Gearchange is hopeless with this gearknob flopping about the place, there are a series of items we simply must finish.
Home again though, and time to finish the finishing. Daft as it sounds, she needs to be finished for a trackday, not a race day. The standard is lower, you can accept a few loose ends. The trackday planned is at Castle Combe, we’re heading off there with the Jags anyway and we have a spare berth in the back, so we’ll cart the old girl all the way there for it. As time is short, we fix the essentials. The tunnel top is properly screwed into place. The gearknob is filled with sealant and squidged into place – the quickshift lever has no means of fixing the knob to it, only friction can do the job, and making this a tight fit is all we can do. It either works, or not. Testing will tell us.
The door cards were riveted on, rather than riv-nutted. This is not acceptable. Nothing should be fitted to the car that cannot be removed without power tools, because you don’t get power at most circuits. Both doors therefore take a substantial number of these, making the trim removable should we need to access the innards for any reason. I cannot think why we’d need to, but you never know.
Those pull cables gain their blue heatshrink covering, and the passenger door gets one fitted. The glovebox lid is drilled for the tie-wraps that will hold it firmly closed – you can always cut them to get at the fusebox and relays that lurk inside, but no risk of the original mechanism failing and it popping open to distract at that critical moment.
Under the bonnet a catch tank has to be fitted. The old one will suffice for now, quickly painted as if we meant it all along. We have proper plans for the whole header tank and catch tank setup, but our tame tigger is on a deadline I set at December, so we’re hardly worried about running the old setup as a stop-gap measure.
Bonnet and boot pins are attached properly, considerable time taken to make them actually fit such that it does not take excessive effort or fiddling to get the panels to fit. The bonnet is a bit of a problem, because though it stayed hinged, there is so much flop and swing in it with the steel inner missing that you do have to aim when you close it. There is no real solution to this other than to have welded the inner piece that we retained to the outer skin, and that way doth madness lie. The other issue is, how does the bonnet now stay open? No locking gas struts here now that the inner is missing. We could do with inventing a bonnet pole like a posh show car. We have lightened it, but made it less practical.
The tunnel top is affixed, and as a temporary solution the old gearknob is filled with silicone sealant and squidged on. Silicone does do many things, but this is asking too much of it as a long-term solution. Further thought needed here, probably with drills and a file.
Seatbelts go in. Helpful to have these really. Extinguisher was mounted long ago, but small work needed to route the cables such that they run smoothly, and those daft cheap over-centre clamps are, as we all know, rubbish, so they need tie-wrapping shut even though they are meant to be self-retaining. We know that they pop open in a collision, and in fact in our cars usually we back them up with a pair of giant jubilee clips, but even that is not an elegant solution.
A flurry of tie wraps pull and massage the various wires, cables and pipes into one single and vaguely organised snake through the cockpit. Pathetic as it sounds, it does matter to me that it’s not a tangled braid of wire, I don’t want to plait the plumbing. I may have a touch of OCD.
Finally, we’re calling it good to test. A trackday does not require full race readiness. We’re happy that the car starts, stops, and steers. She looks to be sitting a little high now, but the big scales confirm that she’s lost 150kg. That’s OK, given how much of her we’ve kept, other than the lightened bonnet and the missing passenger seat she’s still legal for the JEC roadgoing class, there’s no metal cut or lost here. It does show how light such a car could be, sub 1500kg is perfectly possible.
To Castle Combe then, time for the track at last. Wasn’t I originally aiming for February with this project? Who cares? She's better for the extra time, we made a pretty car. Time to find out if she's quick. And if I am.
Mirrors. Having elected to part company with the JEC a careful read of the new regs is in order, and I must have at least one external mirror. Jag regs don't specify a mirror, hence the camera substitute I had planned, but these do. So she gets her old ones back. It takes some of the cleanliness of the car's lines, but it's a rule, so what are you going to do?
A quick polish of the glass so I can see out, a year of dust and overspray do not make for great vision, but the glass will be on the way out shortly in any event, group 1 regs now permit perspex. Mechanical winders I think may also yet replace electric. We always loved the comedy of power windows, but weight can now come out of the car now that we're not looking for an obscene 1550kg limit anymore. All in good time.
Just finished, and already off the tarmac and on the grass.
Hopefully this is the last time!
When the chance to snap your picture alongside the legen-wait for it-dary Ecurie Ecosse transporter presents itself, take it.
We think we made a very pretty car.
We don't care if anyone else agrees with us or not.
The clean lines are because something is missing.
Mirrors.
Also the grille is slightly askew.
Then the sun came out, so we took more photos.
I am liking that chrome a lot.
Louvres came out pretty well in the end.
Not perfect, but good enough for the 100mph photo, which is all we ask.
Why the stylised cat head?
For those who recognise this, there is great delight in seeing it on a car. For those who don't, tough.
Stone-resistant headlamp covers were originally meant to have the air intakes set into them, but Group 1 regs say otherwise.
Doesn't look too out of place here.
A group of German enthusiasts demanded to hear the note from the custom exhaust.
We obliged....
We apologise for the small red BMW in the shot.
But admit it, after all the mockery over the rain light, it looks like it belongs.
We surrendered and fitted mirrors.
Lining these up is not so simple, they have to be in different places on each door for best rearward vision.
Carbon-effect aluminium door cards, steel pull cables with heatshrink covers, and a million rivnuts.
Underbonnet complete.
The solution to the exhaust/HT lead proximity was awfully simple in the end.
On the scales for a final weigh in before we go. Everyone has a set of these lying about.