Econo Jag MK2 1967 2.4 Auto

[homersimpson]

So a few more pictures, first the brackets I made for the rear exhaust. As its an early 2.4 it has a single pipe and for some reason the bracket welded to the pipe was nowhere near the holes in the car so I made something up to suit:

The brackets are on the left of the picture below, not a good picture though i'm afraid:

A few more pictures of the underside before I dropped it down:

A few pictures of it out of the garage today, I purchased a couple of really good bumpers recently and so have fitted those which is starting to make it look like a finished car:

Needs a good clean!

[goldnrust]

As you say, its starting to look like a car again Looks great.

[voucherboy]

Beautiful Homer, underside images are amazing. Final furlong.

[grizz]

Looking so good.

Having just MOT’d the Rezin Rockit myself and seen it up on the big ramp, it made me smile too.

Looking at your build from this sort of angle, makes you realise where you have been to, to get to where you are.

All the clean, new, shiny stuff is a testament to the level of commitment over the last three years

[vitesseefi]

It’s all looking rather wonderful. Especially love the underside.

Years ago I did a body-off resto on a Herald. For various reasons I needed it as a working car before full paint so it ended up going for MoT with rather spiffy underpinnings but looking like a proper multi-coloured primer-patched shed on top.

The MoT man rolled his eyes when he saw it, but the double-take when he first looked up after raising it on the lift was priceless 😀. It passed…

[homersimpson]

Thanks all for the nice comments :-) Its getting so close I can almost imagine me driving it but still a little way to go.

[homersimpson]

So for those who are interested i've been tallying up the cost so far which stands at a whopping £11,233.65 which is way over the 10K I originally set myself back in 2018. Fortunatley I can blame inflation for this (in my head anyway!).

The main items left to buy with approximate costs are:

Carpet set £300
Chrome Bits £400
Balance Wheels £40
Odds and ends £200

Its looking like it will be around £12,500 finished.

I've also split the costs by area which are as follows:

Original purchase £1200
Bodywork (everything to get it ready for filling and priming but not including those items) £2833.28
Paintwork (filling, priming, painting etc.). £1,374.59
Mechanical work (engine, brakes, gearbox, axle, steering etc.) £3516.94
Electrical (replacement lights, battery, wiring loom bits etc. £257.91
Interior (seats, woodwork veneer, headlining, vinyl trim, vinyl paint etc.) 1371.74
Chrome work (Bumpers, chrome pieces, overiders etc. £564.24
Other (Heritage certificate and number plates) £114.95

What surprises me the most is that the bodywork and painting was fairly cheap, especially when you consider £850 of the bodywork cost was having the car shotblasted.

[kevins]

Most of the usual cost in bodywork is labour, mechanical stuff is the mostly parts, If you kept track of the hours you put into it things might look different!

I've found the same with the restoration projects I've done, I look out for a project which has been mechanically looked after but needs bodywork, if you do all the bodywork and paint yourself and don't count the cost of your labour it can be a relatively cheap restoration.

[goldnrust]

Yes, the other way I look at it sometimes is that metal work and painting make for a comparatively 'cheap' car hobby, as the amount of hours they require far outweighs the costs.

A couple of sheets of steel, a bit of welding gas and a few grinding disks, call it £200 worth, can give you several months of hobby time when reviving a rusty old shell. But that same £200 worth of brake, suspension or engine parts will likely only take an hour or two to fit to the car and then you've no more hobby till you buy more bits!

I guess it's why some people get some deep into the car cleaning stuff nowadays with modern cars, can create a lot of hours of 'hobby time' with a comparatively low cost (I know you can spend stupid money on products but you don't have to) compared to buying aftermarket parts to bolt on in an afternoon.

I wonder if you;re closer to your 10k budget is you account for inflation homersimpson! (Both in the general sense and in terms of classic car prices rising sharply over the past few years)

[homersimpson]

So i've started a job that i've been putting off, flatting and mopping the paintwork.

Its plenty hard enough as it was paint over 2 years ago so here we go, the doors have a fair bit of orange peel because I was trying to avoid runs.

Heres a picture before I started:

First step was to get my DA sander with an intermediate foam pad and a 1500 grit disc and run over the door which part way through gave me this:

When this stage was finished it looked like this:

Next was a 3000 grit 3M trizact disc with a small amount of water and after running this over the door I got this which probably brings back 80% of the shine in next to no time:

Finally I used some Farecla G3 advanced polishing compound with a polishing mop and then a G3 glaze (Can remember which one) which finished it off nicely.  Its not 100% perfect and if I was a bit braver I might be able to go a bit furher but I don't want to burn through the paint.

It now looks like this.

I went quite slowly because I haven't done this for a while, it took around 30 minutes to do the door from start to finish so a fair way to go on the rest of the car.

[jjeffries]

Does the 1500 on your DA load up much? As in, do you have to change discs frequently?

Lovely work.

John

[homersimpson]

Mar 7, 2023 2:07:20 GMT jjeffries said:

Does the 1500 on your DA load up much? As in, do you have to change discs frequently?

Lovely work.

John

Yes I used three discs on it yesterday, I should really have connected the vacuum to it which I will do before doing any more.

The trizact discs last quite well, I should only use a couple on the whole car.

[homersimpson]

A bit more done, some good some bad

First the good, half the bonnet sanded and compounded:

Rear flatted and  compounded and number plates fitted.

I've flatted and compunded the whole car and it looks great..... apart from the n/s rear door.  Either the paint was a bit thin or I was a bit enthusiastic but either way its not good.

curse word.

[Paul Y]

Lovely work Sir.

P.

[homersimpson]

I've been doing a few bits and pieces over the last couple of weeks, not many pictures though.

First was repainting the rear door and a piece on the front wheel arch where the recovery truck drivers strap touched and wore through the paint when it was moved when we moved house.

I've also fitted the bonnet mascot:

I've also centralised the rear axle in the car by adjusting the panhard rod, fitted the dash top rail for (hopefully) the last time and have started working on an upgrade wiper motor solution using the motor from a Mini, still a lot of work to do on that though as it parks on the wrong side but hopefully won't be insurmountable as I think I can disassemble the gear to swap it round.

Today i'm going to take the wheels off to get them  balanced and then I can set the tracking and will have a look at the castor and camber on the front of the car, its been suggested that I should try and get as much castor as possible and set the camber at 1 degree negative.

[stealthstylz]

You should be very proud of what you've achieved on that budget. Looks better than many professional restorations.

[pollystag]

Looks really nice work,
Bit better than mine that was done in one hit on a hot day last June.

[homersimpson]

Apr 4, 2023 13:59:29 GMT pollystag said:

Looks really nice work,
Bit better than mine that was done in one hit on a hot day last June.

That looks really nice and the wheels are nice.

What colour is it and is it a Jaguar/Daimler colour?

[homersimpson]

Apr 4, 2023 11:57:29 GMT stealthstylz said:

You should be very proud of what you've achieved on that budget. Looks better than many professional restorations.

Thanks for the compliment, i'm never happy with any of the cars i've ever done and I can see all the flaws which many people probably wouldn't notice (and some they would!).

When its finished it should be a nice example, not sure what I will do with it then as I don't use the other one I have.  Maybe time to start another one :-)

[stealthstylz]

Apr 4, 2023 19:25:56 GMT homersimpson said:

Thanks for the compliment, i'm never happy with any of the cars i've ever done and I can see all the flaws which many people probably wouldn't notice (and some they would!).

[/div]

When its finished it should be a nice example, not sure what I will do with it then as I don't use the other one I have.  Maybe time to start another one :-)

[/quote]

You've built a tidy enough to look great, but not perfect enough to not be able to use 55 year old luxury car up from a wreck for the cost of a 2nd hand small hatchback. That's definitely an achievement.