Engine Installation

Contemporary pictures of the Jaguar Factory building D Types indicate that the front frame and engine were assembled first and then attached to the monocoque. If you are repairing or servicing the car, the Service Manual tells you that you can only install the engine from below the frame. Well, this is what we chose to do - although we lowered the frame over the engine.
It was slow as everything is a tight fit!


The engine and gearbox assembly are attached to the chassis frame in three places.
The centre mounts are unique and are shown in the pictures. They are fitted when the engine is in the chassis.










Everyting fitted perfectly and the project is starting to look like a car!

The "eagle" has landed

The monocoque and frame have been built in New Zealand over the last 6 months.
They have now arrived in the UK ready for us to start assembling all the components we have been building here.
First we had to unload it!








Then we put it into our workshop. Two of us can lift it quite easily in this form.









We have decided to start assembly with the "plumbing" - so wiring and brake pipes will go in first!









The loom is made to original design and from original specification materials. The exceptions to this are that it has additional wires built in to it for an electric fan (for cooling) and for indicators

Detail Work

Quite apart from the main components of the car, there are a multitude of smaller parts to get ready. Of these, the carburettors are yet another "hard to find" part. We picked up a set of the correct 3 x 45DCO3 Webers at an auction in France. They were in reasonable condition overal but still needed rebuilding and re-jetting.

Other unique parts we are currently acquiring are:

• water pump- aluminum casting
• dynamo and water pump drive pulleys
• starter motor - runs opposite way to normal and has aluminum nose casting

Transmission Assembly Continued

Having sorted out the concentricity of the bell-housing, we were able to add the clutch and gearbox.
We chose an AP multi-plate clutch rather than fitting an original D Type one. This was because its design is very similar to the original and yet it had the bonus of sintered linings which will give longer life.
Prior to fitting, this item had been balanced with the crankshaft.

The clutch requires a clutch release mechanism which is unique to the D Type. Jerry designed an incredibly neat solution for this part.

The gearbox is an original D box which we were very lucky to find.

The box is an all-synchro unit and has a drive at the rear for a Plessey pump - thats an hydraulic pump for brake actuation.