Chassis Build

The chassis wouldn't be ready until September, so in the mean time I started to cleaned up and paint all old Jag bits. The rear wishbones and propshafts needed to be shortened, this would be done by DAX on an exchange basis. Most of the rear came apart quite easily but I couldn't extract one of the prop shafts from the hub, in the end I had to get a BIG puller from my friendly Land Rover garage 'Western Garage', thanks Chris.

Some of the threads in the front lower wishbones were in a bad way, this may have been due to the fact that the springs were under a bit of tension when it all came apart! I borrowed a tap from Dave and retapped the holes.

September of 2000
I hired a Luton box van from my local hire place and set out for Harlow. I drove almost non-stop and it took about 5 hours. The guys at the factory helped me load the chassis and within 20 minutes I was ready to leave. The journey home was even longer and I had to stop for half an hours sleep as I was starting to drop-off at the wheel.

I arrived home about 7.00 PM and made a few phone calls to rally the troops. A big thanks to Tony and Charles for their help in unloading the van, all I had to do now was take it back. That night I had a bad migraine, next time I might take a friend to help with the driving!

The next day I had a closer look at the chassis. I was disappointed with powder coating (which had cost extra) as there were bubbles around the joints and it was starting to rust, I had to paint over all the joints to stop any further rusting, NOT the quality I was expecting!

The front went together very quickly and without any trouble. I fitted new bushes all round and my daughter Sharyn, even painted the brake calipers a nice shade of bright red! They must have been painted later, cos they are not red in these photos!

Had a problem with the rear suspension as I lost one of the spacers and had to get a new one made up by a local engineering firm "MS Engineering" (Thanks guys!). I Fitted new spiders in the drive shafts and refitted them.

Within about two weeks I was ready to bolt on the wheels and roll it out of the garage. For the time being I would use the Jag wheel, two of the tyres would not stay up, but my local tyre specialist "Brixham Tyres" fitted second hand ones for a couple of pounds, thanks! Now we could roll the chassis out of the garage. I couldn't find the track-rod ends so the front wheels tried to go in opposite directions but I managed to wheel it out into the sunshine. I phoned DAX and complained at the lack of track-rod ends, so they sent me some more, about 4 weeks later I found the originals in the bottom of the box (Doh!), so I had to apologised to Brian at DAX and gave them back at the kit-car show in Exeter.

October 2000
Next I had to fit the engine and gear box. This had allegedly only done 1000 miles since a full rebuild, so I gave it another coat of paint and bolted it in. I had quite a lot of trouble sourcing the engine mount, these were quite expensive new (£80 a pair?), but I managed to find a second hand pair for £20. Fortunately my Granddad had given me a 1.5t chain block which fitted to an overhead trolley that runs the length of my garage, great for moving engines about!

The original gearbox came with a side mounted gear change, DAX advised I look for a rear mounted gear change as fitted to the Sherpa vans. Fortunately a local scrap yard had just such a van and off I went. I explained to the owner what I wanted and as I was removing it I heard this lovely roar. I followed the sound and there stood a V12 E-Type coupe in bright red, burbling to itself, what a sight :-))

Next I ordered a prop-shaft and this duely arrived, but would it fit? It looked very short. It did fit and very nicely at that.