Part 6
So…..back in the room…..
where were we……………………………
Oh yes….
Strip Down
As I have a habit as I seem to have done all my life of multitasking… (Something which men are fantastic at, as we all know)…. or perhaps some might just say, an inability to do things in a logical sequence, maybe due to my ADH/dyslexic brain waves, which tend to respond to impulse and doing what I want when I feel like it… I was juggling the remodelling and building of the main bathroom in the house and gently finishing off one or two final tweaks to the E Type at the same time as trying to restrain myself from ripping the XK apart because it was new and much more fun than DIY
Working out in the draughty and damp marquee wasn’t exactly fun in the winter of 2021 which was definitely a wet and windy one, but the urge to keep pulling bits of the car just for the hell of it was impossible to resist
You know what I mean…
Whereas stripping the E Type had been an almost forensic process, trying to do things in a very logical sequence, whilst learning about the way in which the car was built , I approached the XK in a more nonchalant way..more relaxed having had the experience of the E Type before it
Rust there was a plenty….
And plenty of old crud inside the rear wheel arches….what a trial they were to unbolt….!
Brick for scale comparison….this is from one wing….
The Spares Catalogues are fantastic sources of information so whilst carefully bagging all fixtures as I still wanted this car to retain as much originality as possible, I simply started to take anything apart, and when I got bored or especially challenged with a piece that wouldn’t come adrift or loose , I just moved onto something else ..so never got frustrated and never lost any interest, because there was always something new and different to do
The only drive that I had in mind… and I was firm in not wanting to set real deadlines as life has too many of those…..was this restoration should be more in the timeframe of the Porsche, which was 3 years, and not the way of the E Type, which took more like 11
Part of me was not able to dismiss the earlier thoughts about life passing too quickly, and I figured that I wanted to get on and enjoy driving it so I set myself an aspiration to complete building the car and get it on the road as spring or latest summer approached in 2024
In theory this is still possible, as being a chassis based car, there would be a moment when Barry could release the chassis back to me once the more evasive surgery on the bodywork was complete and the alignment between body and chassis no longer needed as he moved onto the final more cosmetic and smaller scale work
The chassis and running gear were preserved in this oily and cement like coating….
And much of the inner woodwork was in a petrified like fossil like state….
But there were lovely original finds such as body numbers…
Headlamps being a classic case of trapped water over the years….
Engine out sure does change the ride height….
Thinking ahead i imagined the sequence might allow me to then clean and paint the chassis and install the running gear and build up a fully rolling chassis …potentially at the same time as Steve was to be prepping the body….and in some magical and seamlessly orchestrated collaboration it would allow the rolling chassis to be reunited with the partly painted body in time for final gapping of doors before final paint
Or at least that was the plan….and in fact is how the factory build them back in the day as you can see in this picture where the painted shell is being lowered on the production line onto the built up chassis
…as it happened this had to change as the DVLA would ultimately want to inspect the car before assigning a number plate….so we had to change tack and re-unite body and chassis and wait for an inspection, before the car went to Steve….but more of that later
