The Ferrari Restoration Begins

The Ferrari has been on hold for nearly as long as the Jag. This is the car that Dale feels he can handle, at least some of the restoration, himself. The dream was that he would do as much as possible. We have a mechanic, Bob Klingenberg, who we trust implicitly who can handle the items that we cannot. Dale bought a workbench so that is not an issue or excuse any longer.

1^st item to tackle is the brakes. We do not want the car crashing into the front bar of the car trailer.

Dale got the tire off and washed the wheel. He thought that we might need to buy new wheels, but he now feels that ours are fine.

The Ferrari books came out and the 1^st brake will come apart tomorrow.

Off For Another Chapter in Life

After handling claims for the wildfires I was talking to our auto insurance agent about some of the classic cars we’d seen that had burned. She said that the insurance company for our exotic cars now had a requirement, that the cars must be garaged when at home in order for coverage to be afforded. This will affect our plans for trailering cars here and there.

On Sunday night Dale moved the RV to the front of the house and put the car trailer in front of the garage door. Our plan was to load the car first then leave, hence, leaving the car in the garage until the last minute. This was a good plan but took so long. Figuring out how the tie downs were put together was only one of the time-consuming tasks.

Loading the Jag this time was so much different than when we took the Jag to British Sports Cars in 2013, just to have them start it. (you can read about that in my blog from 6-10-13.) In that case, it took a neighborhood to help. This time we had an electric winch so we didn’t need to round up our neighbors.

Dale stood on the trailer with the winch while I sat in the car and steered. Sitting there I remembered how much I love this car!

Getting the car onto the trailer

It's a Jag

An old truck, old guy and old car

On the way to British Sports Cars, I called ahead, this time speaking to the owner. He assured me that they would be there when we arrived.

Upon our arrival, our grandson, Elias, was waiting outside the shop. He lives nearby and having us as grandparents, has developed a love for cars! We wanted for him to be involved in the restoration process so that, if we are called away to work, he can be our eyes and ears. Of course, Elias was assured that he could visit the car whenever he wanted.

I went into the shop and let them know we had arrived. I saw Justin, the son and part owner, and introduced myself. He remembered coming to our house to look at the Jag and then starting it back in 2013. He rounded up the mechanics and they all came out to help unload the car from the trailer.

Offloading using muscle power

After the car was unloaded we reminisced with Peter, the dad, how they started the car for us back in 2013. He remembered that he’d wanted to unlock the trunk with his master key but Dale had told him not to worry about it. He really had wanted to do that and regretted that he couldn’t. We assured him that we didn’t want for him to spend his time on a project that he was not getting paid for.

 Unfortunately, the shop is very busy at this time so the restoration project will be on hold for another couple of weeks. But what are another 2 weeks after the old girl has waited patiently for 30 years.

Waking up in 2013, it takes a neighborhood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB9xKLU0UKU
A quick start up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmkldSmFdVo

Restoration Time on a Very Old Jag

Well, I see that it was about 4-1/2 years ago that Dale worked on the latch and we thought that we’d get the car running then. I’m guessing that we were called away to work and for the past 2 years we have been busy the entire time.

Feeling very British with my pint while blogging

When we got home from claims in Toronto and then helping in Oregon, we decided enough was enough. Time to work on cars!

We assessed the situation, the Jag has an immense amount of work, most of it trying to figure out how to repair the 60+year old handmade car. We decided that we’d involve professionals who could get this done within our lifetime. We had discussed the 2 repair companies who we are familiar with and decided to go with British Sports Cars in San Luis Obispo. This is a 2-1/2 hour drive from us.

I gave Dale his cell phone and insisted that he call to set an appointment to bring the car in. No more messing around. He called and set an appointment for this coming Monday, July 9. We will trailer the car over in the morning.

Looking up the phone number for British Sports Cars

Now Dale decided that we should try to have the seats recovered prior to our trailering the car. Unfortunately, bolts under the seat are bolted in and rusted so it became a project that was not really do-able in the short amount of time. We will let British Sports Cars remove the seats and then Dale can rebuild the frame and we can have them recovered.

Unfortunately, 4-1/2 years ago, as blogged, Dale took the latching system apart. This had to be put back together. Only 1-1/2 days were needed for that little chore.

Now we are getting the car ready for her big trip to San Luis where she will get ready for some fun driving. What is really fun is that our boys are 200% behind our driving these cars, as Nate said: "I hope you race it".

We are looking so forward to joining a local Jaguar Club or 2 and participating in their activities. And just maybe I'll even retire a little bit so we can drive.

The Latch Issues

The repair of the latch for the bonnet is way more involved, at least in time, than we thought of course. But since Dale cannot start other projects until he can open the bonnet when necessary he is working on that first.

Dale went to an open house at XK Unlimited a few months ago. While at the open house Dale found cables and fittings for the latch repair. These sat in their box until a couple of days ago.

Dale has now gotten back into his Jag groove and removed the latch completely from the body. He that thought that he’d clean it up and paint it but instead found the 60 year old part crooked and slightly rusty

Apparently, with the previous owner, the bonnet was difficult to open and the part became forced and crooked. Then someone put a couple of small bolts in place to stabilize the cable anchor as it had been pulled away.

He will try to clean up and straighten out the part, although he is unsure how to straighten it. Then attempt to put it back together with the new cables.

Opening the Bonnet, A 1st Challenge

Once we got back from British Sports Cars we really wanted to get the car project started but were quite busy. Additionally we had, and still have a garage that is packed with stuff. Some stuff is inefficiently packed in and some things we don’t need at all; however, it is quite a job to make a space and then build a workbench.

Dale with some of his car magazine and book collection

But even more pressing was the fact that Dale could not open the hood, more properly know as the bonnet. He spent several days trying to push this and pull that. Then he actually opened the bonnet only to close it and of course it was stuck again.

What he found was the anchor for the cable on the movable latch was very loose and the anchor for the cable sheath on the body of the car was also worthlessly loose. Needless to say that with most British Cars, removing these two anchors involves removing quite a bit of sheet metal. So for now the bonnet will stay open pending remediation of the latch and cable anchors. 

A Jaguar Roars Again

Why British Sports Cars you might ask, when it is so far away? Well we had an amazing thing happen to us. A couple of years ago Rafe Saber from Canada, the guy who put us in touch with BSC started a face book page for Jaguar owners. He has since started several other pages for various Jag owners. So Rafe loves his Jags and has enjoyed making the connections between people, events and Jag restoration companies. People post Jaguar related events and companies will post the Jaguar related items for sale or services offered.  One such company on the site is British Sports Cars.

Unbeknownst to us, Rafe and Justin from British Sports Cars spoke via facebook and came up with the idea of starting our car and videotaping the whole event. Their thought was that the video could be seen throughout the world as a “Rip Van Winkle” car. Rafe sent me a message via facebook about their idea and we in turn sent a message to Justin via facebook. We then actually spoke by phone and, of course, met in person.

We actually had sent messages to Justin about 1 year ago inquiring about their services after Justin posted photos of their service garage. So you see we all met on facebook, never knew of each other until we joined the facebook club, the true power of social media.

What was amazing to us is that Rafe and Justin afforded us the opportunity to have our car inspected and then the event without charging us anything. For this one simple act we will be forever grateful because we would have likely not gotten started with any restoration for some time to come. Starting a project like this is daunting at best but with their push we have quickly gotten excited about getting our baby on the road.

So back to the big

event; we got into San Luis Obispo about 10a.m. but were unsure where to park. Now we have a big crew cab truck with a long bed and we were pulling this car trailer. There was no place to park in front of the shop so we put the blinkers on, parked in the left hand lane on the one way street and I went in to get some instructions. A crowd quickly gathered along the sidewalk, people looking and pointing at our car. A woman asked me what model it was as I walked into the BCS shop. It was so exciting to see the reaction from so many people as they all were ooh’ing and awe’ing.

Justin soon came and along with his father guided us to the rear of the shop.

After getting the car off the trailer Justin got to work adjusting this and that. The lights worked fine but other electrical items need work. With 3 of the BCS people the car started with a roar! We didn’t remember it being so loud! It was a tremendous sound to us. Justin was unable to drive it because the fuel pump does not work but that will be fixed in good time. 

And just a side note, British Sports Cars had the car Amelia Earhart drove sitting in their shop. I was thrilled to not only get to see her car up close and personal but got to sit in the very driver’s seat that she sat in!!!

A day to be remembered!

Alink to a better quality video of the Jag starting is on U-Tube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmkldSmFdVo

It Takes a Neighborhood To Move a Jag

To get the Jaguar on the trailer we needed wheels that would turn and roll the car, not a novel idea. But we had tires that were flat, flatter than pancakes, not great for getting the car around.

Fortunately our tires have inner tubes and we were hoping that they would not be full of cracks like the tires. We filled the inner tube inside the 35 year old tires and believe it or not they held air! We did promise to buy new tires next but to get the car on the trailer in a hurry we had to make do.

We had a big plan to get the car onto the trailer, just the 2 of us. But as these things go; we needed a new wench, needed fuel for trip, and on and on. So it was getting to be late afternoon before we could start.

We backed the trailer up onto our driveway but realized that we did need a little help. One neighbor was home and came over, then another came home and came over. Soon we had 2 more helpers plus moms and sisters with the cameras, grandkids running amuck and dogs on leashes to help protect us. It took a neighborhood to get the car up onto the trailer.

We had a glass of wine to help settle us at night before our early morning to British Sport Cars.