Some progress to report. Still not actually building yet, getting there.

I spent a couple of days stripping the final useful parts from the Jaguar - resorted to the gas axe for the front suspension mounts (really I just wanted to try the gas axe out - it's been over 20 years since I wielded one!)

Dragged the body shell from the workshop using the tractor. I got lazy. I let the jack down with only one hand trolley under the front of the body.

The hand trolley survived only as far as the shed door, then one of the wheels completely separated from it's hub and the whole lot catastrophically collapsed. Cor blimey that Jag was heavy! Thankfully it made it out the shed door so I didn't end up damaging my shed floor. I ended up just lifting the car up and putting the old bonnet under the end to act as a skid. (My wife's suggestion!)

It worked a treat for most of the hundred odd yard journey up the drive to the front paddock where the car was left for the scrappy to collect.

Nice paint effect on the bonnet!

That cleared some room in the shed to get on with other things.

I painted up a couple of Jaguar wheels to see how they'd look with the Wolseley caps on, I'm happy with how they look.

I also played around with the ride height of the front end, but I'll have to remove the axles next to fiddle around to see how it will all fit together. I'm looking forward to getting into the real stuff, I feel like I'm just stuffing around so far, but it's all worth my time, I'm not really the "feet first" type.

On another note, I got tracked down by a Wolseley enthusiast from Sydney (Andrew Snelling of Peking to Paris fame) and we finally met up this week. He is preparing his 14/60 to take to the Australia Day MotorFest in Sydney city. It was great to meet him and check out his 14/60 he and his father restored in the mid 1980s. I didn't quite realise how rare the 14/60 was, his is the only one on the road in New South Wales, and he'd know - he really is Mr Wolseley.

He has another complete 14/60 under a tarp waiting restoration, I wish I had the money to buy it and the spare time to restore it.

Next job: remove the front and rear axles from the Wolseley, check the clearance of the wheels given the track width and set some sort of ride height/rake.

And I start my new job on Monday. Bring it on. :lol:

Cheers all,

Andrew.

Jaguar donor disassembly

I managed to get a bit of spare time over the Christmas break, so the rear suspension assembly and differential are now removed.

The diff ratio is the one I needed so that's great - I won't have to worry about getting another centre.

Also pulled the dashboard and instruments out of the Jaguar.

The original Jag engine was picked up by its new owner - it's going in to a 1969 E-type! Cool! 8) He drove all the way from Brisbane to pick it up! :shock: I thought I was the only nutter who drive thousands of kilometres for car stuff!

Some other exiting news on a personal level: I am starting a new job in the new year! I will be working at the Lithgow Small Arms Facility as a Technical Officer in Weapons Systems Research and Development. Basically I will be working in a small team of engineers testing and researching the Australian Defence Force's small arms weapons using heaps of high-tech gear like high speed video, thermal imaging, ballistic trajectory tracking and stuff. Testing guns and sometimes blowing them up! Makes Mythbusters look like a bunch of pussy cats! :lol: I am over the moon. I originally applied for a Technician job, but after reading my resume they wanted to interview me along with a handful of other hopefuls for a more senior position that hadn't been advertised yet! :shock: I still can't quite believe it! It's much better pay than I am currently on in the Police Force and it's only 20 minutes from home! (I currently drive over 90 km to get to work) They are just getting all the paperwork together and going through all the security checks and stuff, I should be starting with them at the end of January.

Bring on 2012! It's going to be a great year! :mrgreen:

Happy New Year everyone,
Andrew.

Front cross member removed.

Steering column removed.

I would have had the rear end removed also if it wasn't for four seized nuts on the prop shaft. Cor blimey that was hard work - I had to chisel them off. :evil:

A successful weekend in all, I'll sleep well tonight and do it all again sometime soon.

Andrew.

I pulled the engine out of the XJ6 yesterday. Glad to have that job out of the way.

Today I'm going to pull the front end and the arse end out of the Jaguar. When I jacked up the back end I discovered it doesn't have an LSD but I'm not surprised really. So if I am using the Jag diff I might save up for a LSD one day.

Off to the shed to find any remaining muscles that aren't aching yet! :lol:

Andrew.

Well things are finally starting to move with my build.

I've found a decent engineer - I'm working on a meeting in the new year to lay out the engineering details for the entire build. Before this happens I have the following to do:

Remove the front and rear suspension assemblies from the Jaguar XJ6 donor vehicle that is taking up valuable room in the shed.

Finish mock building the Wolseley to take a heap of measurements and photos of how everything lines up. Remove the front and rear axles from the Wolseley to investigate how to install the Jaguar suspension and the Holden engine and see how everything lines up in the chassis.

Then I have to pull the body off the chassis so I can take measurements and document what I want to do with the chassis so this can be presented to the engineer.

Thanks to the wizards of engine management at http://www.delcohacking.net I have sorted some questions out regarding the Holden V8 Powertrain Control Module (PCM). VL400's BCM Simulator will give me complete cooling fan control, air conditioner compressor control and subsequent engine idle increase, check engine light and transmission mode indicator. This is a breakthrough as I was stuck how to get these items to work without using the original Holden Body Control Module (BCM) computer. Yeah, I know - that's why most hot-rodders go for good old fashioned carby engines! :roll: I'm convinced I'm going the right path and the benefits in fuel consumption, power output and reliable running will be worth it.

By some strange miracle, I managed to pick up a 1998 VT V6 Commodore as a parts donor car for next to nothing. The car runs and is complete (I drove it 300 km home on a permit!), it had been hit in the rear quarter and the owner decided to pension it off as it has done 245,000 km. The engine is strong, quiet and doesn't blow a whisker of smoke - so I might offer it for sale. This VT will be my donor for heaps of things like the wiring loom, fuses and relays, brake master cylinder and booster, throttle linkage, floor and firewall, seats, evaporative control system (charcoal canister) and heaps of other miscellaneous bits and pieces.

Having a working VT in the workshop has allowed me to test a bunch of things to see how they work on the VT V8 engine and computer, because the V6 and V8 are very similar in their engine management configuration.

I tested my AutoMeter speedo and it works perfectly on the speed signal coming from the PCM. I tested the temperature gauge and the PCM isn't happy having it in parallel on the line to the temperature sender - no drama though, all I have to do it fit a dedicated temperature sender for the temperature gauge and everything is happy. I tested putting a low oil pressure warning lamp in parallel with the PCM and everything is happy.

Having a close look at the cruise control in the VT, I think I'll be able to adapt it quite easily for my project - so she'll have cruise control too! 8)

The other thing I'm going to do with the VT is use it as a test bed for my V8 engine - that will allow me to test it all hooked up before I start putting the wiring loom in the Wolesley - this will be great to hear it running and sort the gremlins out before I start ripping the wiring harness to bits.

So I've got plenty happening and plenty to keep me busy over the next few weeks. And my health has improved no end so I'm happy to report that I'm spending every weekend up and about doing things. :D

Sorry for the lack of photos, nothing much to see at this stage.

Cheers,

Andrew.

How long will this take?

Someone on another forum asked me how long I thought the project will take.

Ahh! That's the magic question.

As it stands I have a great deal of the hardware needed, engine, trans, suspension and such. I have to appoint an Automotive Engineer to certify my work so that is the next step - held up by the fact that our woefully useless state government registration authority are changing the entire certification process - with very little information being released to the public. The new scheme was advertised to commence in February 2011 but still nothing has been announced. :x As you might be able to tell, I'm a little frustrated with this.

Once I've finished mock assembling and documenting, I'd like to clean up the chassis and make some drawings/plans to take to the engineer.

Other hurdles were to build my shed (140m²) and that is now pretty much complete bar some lighting in internal fit out. Then I had to sell off my collection of cars (Rolls Royce, '49 Morris and '59 Morris) and that is now just about complete, the '49 get picked up this week.

Then there's my health. I've lost months and months and tens of thousands of dollars to my health problems, but I am determined to not be beaten.

Anyway, all things being equal, I'm setting myself three years, although I should be able to complete it in less time than that. As I've never carried out such a project before it is a little difficult to estimate. I've heard stories of others taking 10 plus years and others taking 18 months. Given I'm doing everything I possibly can myself, except the upholstery, progress might be a little slow as I hone my skills.

Enough of my waffle for now!

Andrew.

Further Progress and mock build

Further Progress: Mock Build

There has been a little progress on the Wolseley. I have sold my '49 and '59 Morisses, so I have a little cash left over for this project after paying the bills.

I started mock building the car to see what's missing, about 2/3 way through. It was a great buzz to see the pile of rusty parts start to look like a car.

Dad was up visiting so we headed up the shed to have a tinker, what better way to spend my birthday! :lol:

My health has been dragging me down still unfortunately, but I refuse to give up - I will get there, wherever it is I was going! :lol:

I used some of the money from the '59 Morris sale to get a few items from overseas while our Aussie Pound is strong.

I got a set of instruments from Auto Meter:

And I got a Lokar automatic shifter and indicator boot:

Mine is a bit like this except the boot base is round.

Soon I will get an order off to the UK for my Moto-Lita steering wheel! Nice - can't wait.

It seems a bit strange buying bling when I haven't done much building yet but I want to buy while our Dollar is high as I think it will eventually fall again.

Cheers all,

Andrew.