Engine - Engine Cover Design

While I wait for something of substance to turn up in my garage I have been surfing the net and looking through old magazines for ideas to dress up the engine. As you can see the "as is" look isn't very hot rod like so I'll need to do something.

As you can see below (double click on the image to see a larger version) I will create a cover that sits right over the top of the engine, but flamed of course. This will match in with the paintwork I am planning for the car itself and I'll probably run a flamed theme across a few of the other components as you'll get to see as we go.

Having done this drawing now I think it looks too flat so I will look to raise the centre section to make it more 3 dimensional and give it a bit more shape. I will also make sure the flames stand up from the background, again just to give it a bit of dimension.

I intend painting the car two tone (silver bottom half and blue from the swage line up) so I'll carry that same colour scheme through to the engine cover.

One of the other reasons I want to do an engine cover (aside from getting rid of the plain black plastic one) is so I can make the engine more symmetrical. The engine has just one air intake on the drivers side (the big fat plastic pipe in the top picture) I will change this to a polished or chrome pipe and replicate this on the passengers side (it will just be a dummy pipe on the passengers side and have no purpose) I will then bring the air intake to the front of the engine with a central air cleaner.

Now when looking at the engine it will look like the intake splits up and goes into both sides of the engine Voila! Symetrical.

Once this is done and the pulleys are chromed, the stainless radiators hoses go on and all the other plumbing done with braided hose, all of the sudden it starts to look a bit more like a rod engine albeit a modern one rather than traditional.

Rear Axle - The Jag Rear arrives

Special thanks to Phil Bradshaw who has been and retrieved the Jag rear that I bought a while ago from a chap by the name of Don Hawkes. I gather Don has a few old cars and parts squirreled away and as luck would have it an early S Type Diff.

I asked a question on another Trademe auction for a Jag Parts car and unfortunately the diff had already been sold. Don had seen me asking about the diff and was wondering how the heck he could track me down as he had one available.

About a week later I put a wanted add on Trademe and Don thankfully spotted it and contacted me. We settled on a price and the deal was done.

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to have Ed Juniors do the build as Phil has the engine and trans there in Stokes Valley to do the wiring and the Diff was in Tawa. May as well bring it all together down there I figure.

Phil kindly picked the diff up for me yesterday and sent me a few pics of it sitting on his trailer.

A fair bit of work to get this going again I think, but bear in mind the big ugly frame it is in will be disposed of and the rusty old springs and shocks will be replaced with new and you are halfway there with stripping it back. Well okay maybe not halfway but you get the picture.

Phil is leaving this lump of rust and grease on the trailer until Saturday when he'll shoot it down to Ed Juniors in Lower Hutt where it will end up getting mounted in the chassis.

Chassis - Decision made

Well its all go now. I have ordered the chassis from Ed Juniors Kustom Rides. They will also supply a basic version of their front end (to keep the cost down) and a brake pedal assembly. They will fit both of these as well as install the Jag rear and Engine & Trans once they have been dropped off.

In the end it made sense to have all the work done in Wellington given that's where the engine trans and diff are.

I have also caught up with a mate that has a Trucking Business. He trucks big rolls of paper from Kinleith to all over the country, then he backloads waste paper. He reckons he'll be able to stack the chassis on top of the waste paper bundles and strap it all down. This will keep the cost of freight down. Should be less that $500. Nice!

Anyway here's a few photo's of the bare chassis.