It's Primed!

So, I decide that today is the day that I am finally going to prime the jaguar. I got up early, did some finish sanding, pulled the car out into the sunlight. It was the absolute perfect day to paint a car. A light whisper of wind 2-3 mph just enough to keep you cool but not enough to blow anything on the car. 77 degrees and 50% humidity, exactly as described by the instructions on the back of the paint can. It doesn’t get better than this, everything on the back of the can is coming true. I could feel it, today was a day that things were just going to go right. I washed the car meticulously, and then wiped it with a solvent cleaner. Unlike my collegeworks days, I spent the morning really doing the prep work properly, so that the job would be done right, and the paint would last.

As I was masking off the instrument cluster, I looked over and saw boomer, laying a massive dump approximately 4 feet from the car. Just in the right place that as I am walking around it painting and not looking, I will step in it. Great. I just accepted the fact that I was going to step in shit, and moved on. If that’s the worst that happens today, I am a lucky man. After the car was masked, I took a step back to admire my handiwork. The car was gleaming, perfectly clean, and masked properly, just waiting for a shiny new coat of primer. Now was the time to get a cool drink, and gather my wits for the task ahead of me. I went inside, poured a tall glass of water and researched the finer points of spray painting a car.

Upon returning outside 15 minutes later, my eyes met the following scene. There are 3 freshly dug holes approximately 1 foot in diameter and 1 foot deep about 6 feet from the car. Boomer is digging the third hole with vigor, and is literally throwing dirt all over my freshly cleaned and masked car. He clearly used a similar approach with the other two holes, because there is dirt caked all over the top of the car. What the fuck? With the entire yard at his disposal, why did the dog decide to dig these holes directly next to the car I’m trying to paint. Why did he need to direct himself at such an angle so that 97-98% of the dirt he was flinging was going onto the car? As I began to verbally berate my four legged friend for his poor judgement, I heard it. Buzzzzz…. Buzzzzz…. Oh SHIT!

Now think to yourself, the dog has already taken a dump immediately next to the car, and thrown mud and grass all over the freshly cleaned car. What could he possibly do to make this situation worse. Much worse. He could say…theoretically…dig up three gigantic underground hornets nests within spitting distance from the car I am trying to paint. Yeah, that would really fuck with my day. Well that’s exactly what he did. The back of the paint car does not give any guidance as to what to do about mud, hornets, or dog shit. Regardless, I sprayed copious amounts of bee and wasp killer, put on my dad’s shoes in anticipation of the dog shit, and re-washed the car. From there on out, it was smooth sailing. This is a picture of the result. I think it looks killer. Thanks for all of your help.

Sandblasting and Prepping the Body

Over the past 3 weeks we have stripped it down, sandblasted, and then sanded the body. All rust has been removed. The sandblasting process was quite an adventure. As my friends know, I don't deal well

with tangled cords and in order to sand blast I was made to don an air fed helmet with a hose attached to the back of it. This device made it very difficult to see, and impossible to hear or be heard, and also attached me to a big heavy air hose. Then in order to operate the sandblaster itself, I had to carry around three additional hoses. The sandblaster that I rented worked poorly at best, and not at all at worst. I spent most of my day wrestling and untangling hoses trapped in what resembled a moon suit. This was a trying day, but ultimately successful. No videos of my spazzing out in my moon suit for you all, but it was a close call. The rust damage had to be fixed with bondo...I know, I know, bondo is a crappy solution, and i should weld in new panels etc etc. Well, in this case I just simply didnt have the time, and to be honest i think that the bondo looks quite nice. Priming will be done tomorrow, and then its on to drivetrain components.

This is The plan for the drivetrain of the Vehicle. It is just a rough outline,

but it shows a sketch and audio of my plan using my livescribe smartpen.

The vehicles

I have acquired 2 vehicles that I plan on combining into one working vehicle. The black car was in perfect working condition, and then allowed to sit in a field for 20 years. The body is almost completely rusted out, and the interior is completely destroyed. We found 2 dead animals in the back seat when we were cleaning it out (a raccoon and a cat). It has all of the chrome trim, chrome bumpers, headlights, taillights, gauges, door handles, window cranks and mechanisms, the grille, and all 4 pieces of side glass in great condition. It is missing the front and back glass, and the body is very rusty. I bought it without the engine and transmission, but it has a rear and and a full set of brakes. I plan on removing all usable parts from this car, and adding them to the white car. 

The white car is the exact opposite of the black car. It has been garaged for its entire life. It has a little surface rust, but the body is in great condition, as is the frame. It has been parted out, so it is missing the bumpers, all of the chrome, many of the door handles and window crank pieces, all 4 pieces of side glass, and the front fenders, headlights, grill, etc. It has an interior that is in mediocre condition, but certainly better than the animal graveyard that was the interior of the black car. The white car also came with many parts in the trunk, including the dual SU carbs with manifold. The valve train with all of the springs and cylinder head, the torque converter, a full gasket set, a starter, and many other parts that I found in the trunk as a bonus. I will be using the frame and body of the white car as the base of the new vehicle. 

First Post

This is the first post in the blog on the project. The main outline is that I plan on restoring a 1960 Jaguar Mark IX and installing an electric drivetrain in it. The general idea for now is to use a combination of electric, hydraulic, and diesel to create a car that weighs 6000 lbs, has a top speed of at least 75, goes 0-60 in under 20 seconds, and can have a range in all electric mode of at least 20 miles. I know that this is an ambitious project, but I think that it can be done. I am excited and willing to hear any and all ideas from anyone that knows anything about these cars. Please feel free to add comments, suggestions, ideas, considerations, thoughts, or concerns. I only ask that if you are going to comment on how something will not work, offer an alternative idea, a workaround or a solution. I want this to be a source of motivation for the project, and not discouragement. More details to come shortly on the project. Just as a reminder of what we are going for, this is a picture of what I would like the final car to look like.