Construction of the New Hill Garage

The construction of the New HIll Garage was initiated by a strong negative spousal response with regard to restoration of the Volvo PV544 in the small garage workspace under the house. Construction also became feasible due to a mortgage loan re-finance that resulted in some extra cash. The original design plan was for a traditional slab on grade construction featuring a 3 bay garage. When I presented the proposed design configuration to the chief architect, she noted that the garage would be bigger than the house. Although I thought this was a reasonable thing, I was informed that I needed to go back to the drawing board. At 2 bays in width, the garage was not as wide as the house. At 1 1/2 stories in height, the garage was not taller than the house. But that left no room for restoration work. The solution was to go with a basement garage space under the main garage. Structurally, this was not impossible but raised introduced challenges. One of my personal requirements was that the space be unobstructed by poles or support columns. The solution was pre-stressed concrete panels. These are commonly used in commercial parking garage construction. They are very capable of taking the weight of cars over a large span. In my case, the span was 28', which resulted in a 6" slab thickness. As we will see, 2" of cover was added, more for cosmetic reasons than structural.

While I was researching the availability of concrete panels, I came across Superior Walls, who manufactures pre-cast concrete wall panels. I visited their factory in Oxford, NC, I was very impressed with their operation. The wall sections are produced in a quasi assembly line fashion. Very long forms can be set for 8', 9', or 10' of width. The face of the wall is about 2" thick. The inside face of the wall is backed by 1" of styrofoam insulation (blue board), visible in most of the photos. The walls are reinforced with concrete studs, which are pre-cast and then integrated into the face wall with metal ties. There are 2" x 6" sill plates top and bottom. 1x2 wood strips are provided on the back of the studs for attachment of the interior wall material, typically sheetrock. The studs have internal holes for routing of electrical and plumbing lines. The wall sections may be supplied with wood framed opening for doors or windows. A brick ledge can also be applied on the exterior. The wall sections are connected with mechanically bolted connections. The wall sections are sealed with a urethane sealant.

The great thing about the pre-cast wall sections is that the erection goes very quickly. The site is prepared by excavation. The excavation is filled with a thick layer of pea gravel. No concrete footings are required, rather the integral footing of the wall bears directly on the compacted pea gravel. Think of a railroad tie laid on its bed of stone. The Superior walls crew arrived early one morning. First they used a laser level to screed the foundation area to a level profile. Next, the foundation area was compacted using a vibratory compactor. String lines were laid out to define the perimeter of the structure. In my case the garage was 28' x 28'. At this point, we were ready for the walls.

The walls arrived on a flat bed trailer. The pre-cast floor panels came the same way. A mobile crane arrived and set up in a convenient position. The first panel was hooked up to the crane and set into position in the foundation. A second panel was set to form the corner. Both panels were mitered to form the corner. The corner was bolted together top and bottom, after application of the urethane sealant. Soon, the complete perimeter of panels was set into position. Start to finish, this took about 3 hours. Now we were ready for the floor panels.

Next it was time to lay the pre-stressed concrete panels across the width of the walls. The panels were set with the crane, side by side until the entire space was covered. At this point, the work of the Superior Walls crew was done and they headed for home. A total of about 5 hours was needed for the entire effort.

The panels are just resting together with no interconnection as placed by the crane. The panel joints form a V groove. A

grout mixture is poured into this groove. When cured, this ties the panels together. Additionally, I ran anchor bolts from the top sills of the walls into the floor panels. Next, the exterior walls were waterproofed with asphalt. Then, the portion that would be above the grade were finished with a brick veneer.

Once the brick veneer was applied, a form was applied around the perimeter of the building. A 2" thick (nominal) mixture of cement and pea gravel was added to the top surface. This is not mandatory but it allowed me to put a power trowelled finish to the floor. Also, I was able to apply a slope to the floor to meet code. At the same time, anchor bolts were set into the perimeter as the starting point for the wood sill that would be the start of the traditional wood frame construction that would be applied on top of the concrete structure.

Interior to the shell, the walls can be your form for pouring the interior concrete floor. I don't have a good picture of this but it is pretty straightforward. Exterior to the shell, I had retaining walls poured. At the front, the wall forms the ramp up to the main floor of the garage. This area was filled in with compacted fill and topped with stone. Later, I added pavers as the durable suface. At the rear, the walls keep the cut banks of earth stable, since in order to have an at grade entrance to the lower garage, I needed to cut into the existing grade to about a 5 foot depth. A concrete pad was poured between these walls. Once the floor was poured inside the shell, it was OK to backfill around the sides.The next phase of the construction was fairly standard. Stud frame walls were formed to surround the main floor of the garage. The space above, the attic, could potentially be used as a living space but I wanted the storage space. A set of stairs makes access to the attic simple.

In order to have a clear span space in the main garage, I went with steel beams to support the attic floor above. The framing of the roof is a little exotic but it was necessary to get the 12/12 pitch and to have the 4 gables.

The siding is HardiPlank. This is a cement based board that is guess can never rot. It's a little bit of a mess to install because of the dust but should be very low maintenance. It also seems to hold paint pretty well. The roof was standard asphalt shingles.

Final touches on the exterior included a set of doors and a breezeway to connect to the house. The doors are a single panel, called a "California Door', that swings up into the overhead. They are styled to look like door on an old carriage-house. The doors to the lower garage are similar but do not swing overhead, rather they are a tri-fold door. The right hand panel in each door swings open for easy personnel entry. The breezeway started out as a roofed deck. About a year later, I enclosed it with leaded glass panels.

Once the exterior was finally done, I could turn my attention to finishing off my garage/shop space at the basement level. As I mentioned before, the Superior Walls had wood lath that excepted sheetrock. First I ran my electrical wiring. Lots of 120V outlets and a single 220V outlet. I put a simple laundry sink in one corner, with cold water only. I have an air compressor in a nearby outbuilding and I ran the air lines into the garage. I wanted a lot of lighting. After painting the overhead concrete panels white, I installed lots of fluorescent fixtures. I also installed a beam in the overhead, which serves as a pick point for a trolley hoist, sometimes also called a monorail hoist.

Initially, I had thought that I would not need any cooling due to the heat sink from the walls sunk in the earth. Unfortunately, the main garage space gets very hot during the day and its heat is wicked through the floor/ceiling into my shop space. But a small window unit air-conditioner that I installed brings things back down to a bearable temperature. In cold weather, the room temperature never goes below 50 degrees F. But I have a small propane heater that will get the room up to 70 degrees after a while.

All the cabinets shown in the photos are my custom build. The countertops are oak flooring, sealed with urethane.

Troubleshooting your XK Engine - Checking Cam Tappet Clearances

I approach the old lady hoeing weeds in her garden. "I understand you've got some old cars stored in that barn out back. Mind if I take a look? Go ahead Mister" she said. "I'd be glad to get rid of them so the milk cow would have more room". I approach the barn and enter through a side door. There, in the back, what is that? I approach closer in the dim light. It looks like a 61 outside hinge flat floor E-Type, covered with hay and chicken mess! "Harvey, wake up." (It's my wife Kelli calling out to me as I nap on the porch swing) "It's time to come in and eat supper." Damn, woke me up from a most excellent dream!

So we continue with our troubleshooting guide for the XK engine. My specific example is the 4.2 litre 6 cylinder engine in my 1967 E-Type. But the concept I am going to discuss this month, the checking and adjustment of Cam Tappet Clearances, can be applied to other XK engines too.

Last time, we checked the timing of the cam with respect to the movement of the pistons. If the cam timing is off, your engine performance will be noticeably degraded. This month, we will see how you go about checking the clearance between the cam lobe and the tappet. This clearance can have an effect on your engine performance, especially if it is too tight, as this will hold the valve partially open, resulting in a loss of compression and burning of the valve seat. In the opposite direction, a clearance that is too loose will result in increased valve train noise and, if excessively large, will also degrade performance.

As we have noted in previous articles, the XK engine has overhead cams. That is, the camshafts are located in the cylinder head, very close to the valves they open and close. This is in comparison to a "push rod" engine, where the cam shaft is much lower in the engine, near the crankshaft, with the cam motion being transferred to the top of the engine via long push rods. The overhead cam configuration is a more elegant and high performance configuration.

Strictly speaking, the lobe of the cam shaft strikes the "cam bucket", which in turn strikes the head of the valve stem, forcing the valve open. The lobe of a typical XK cam protrudes 3/8" beyond the "basecircle" of the cam, thus opening the valve by that amount. When the lobe of the cam is away from the bucket, there is a small clearance. There are several reasons for this clearance, including the need to leave an allowance for thermal expansion of the various parts and the need to leave a running clearance so the bucket is not worn down from continuous contact. It is this clearance that we will check and, if required, adjust. You will want to perform this job on an engine that is effectively at room temperature, so that thermal expansion effects do not affect your measurements.

To check the clearance, the cam/valve covers must be removed. At any instant when you inspect the stationary engine, several of the valves will be on the cam lobe and depressed. The remainder of the valves will be closed. To keep it simple, we will check only those valves where the cam lobe is pointed straight up i.e. directly opposite of the bucket surface.

On the early XKE engines, roughly corresponding to those built up to 1968, the required clearance is 0.004" on the intake side and 0.006" on the exhaust side. On the later "emissions" engines, the values should be 0.012" and 0.014" for intake and exhaust. Check a reliable Jaguar manual to be sure. You will need a feeler gauge to make the check. Start with a blade that is 1 or 2 thousands less than the expected value. It should slip into the space between the cam and bucket easily. Go to the next thicker gauge and try again. As you go to a thicker gauge, you will notice that the gauge becomes hard to insert and has a pronounced "drag" as you move it in and out. Checking for the correct drag is an acquired technique but you can't hurt anything by experimenting with different thickness gauges as you develop your feel.

Prepare a chart listing the 6 intake and the 6 exhausts valves. Remember, Jaguar considers the forward most cylinder as number 6. After you check your first values for the cam lobes that are up, use your 1 5/16" socket to rotate the crankshaft pulley until the next set of lobes are up. Then check those valves. You will wind up rotating the crankshaft pulley multiple times as you work through all 12 locations.

Now you will want to review your numbers. Certainly, if all the numbers are spot on then hooray, you are done. If one or two values are way off, you might want to repeat the procedure and see if the aberrant values are repeatable. Values that are too tight (less than the target value) would be unusual but would be cause for immediate action. Values that are too loose by 1 or 2 thousands are not a big deal. Some mechanics actually set the values loose by this amount to make sure that valves do not hang open. Values that are 3 or more thousands too loose will not require immediate action but might explain poor engine performance.

Unfortunately, adjusting the clearance on an XK engine is a real pain. If you unbolt the camshaft and lift it out of the engine and then use a magnet to extract one of the cam buckets, you will find a small circular shim, about the size of a nickel, inside the bucket. These shims are precisely ground to varying thicknesses. They range from 0.075" thick to 0.105" thick and can be purchased in 0.001" increments of thickness. The plan is to remove the existing shim and to add a different shim that will bring the cam clearance into the correct range. This is a maddening process that involves the purchase of shims, measurements of each shim with a micrometer, and multiple removals and reinstallations of the cam shafts. If you are a novice, this is a job that you might want to pay an expert to perform. That said, I had never done the job before this year and, using the Bentley shop manual, was able to get through it without incurring any permanent disasters. The good news is that once set, the clearances are very stable and will most likely stay in spec for tens of thousands of miles.

So there you have the cam tappet clearance check in a nutshell. At this point, we have completed major checks of the cylinder head. Next time we will talk about the spark ignition system.

Disclaimer - Automotive work can be dangerous if proper safety procedures are not followed. In homage to our litigious society, I must state that I cannot be held responsible for any real or perceived mis-information that may be contained in this article. A good shop manual is mandatory before you attempt any work. Read the safety section of your manual. If you have any questions, contact me at hdferris@bellsouth.net so we can hopefully get questions worked out before a problem is created.

Specialty Tool List

Feeler gauges- if you feel like splurging, buy the Starrett brand

1 5/16" socket with rachet or 1 5/16" wrench

Troubleshooting your XK Engine - Checking Cam Timing

I'm anxiously awaiting the final decision of the judges at Pebble Beach. After all the work I've put into the restoration of my E-Type, could this be the penultimate moment? "And the winner of this year's Pebble Beach Concours D'Elegance is Harvey Ferris and his magnificent Jaguar E-Type ..." "Harvey, wake up." (It's my wife Kelli calling out to me as I nap in my hammock) "It's time to come in and shower before dinner." Damn, woke me up from a most excellent dream!

Now's a good time to continue with our troubleshooting guide for the XK engine. My specific example is the 4.2 litre 6 cylinder engine in my 1967 E-Type. But the concept I am going to discuss this month, Cam Timing, can be applied to other engines too.

Last time, we checked the compression in the cylinders, in order to establish if major problems were in evidence. Hopefully, you didn't come up with any serious issues. Last time we also discussed identification of the timing marks on your crankshaft pulley and the static timing guide on the front of the engine. We also discussed the procedure for placing your #1 cylinder at top dead center. It turns out that to check the cam timing, the #6 cylinder must be placed at top dead center. The procedure is the same, except you will be working on the cylinder closest to the front of the engine (#6) instead of the one at the rear (#1).

Here is the procedure required to determine if your cams are set to open and close the valves at the correct time. First you will need to remove the two cam covers. This will require a ½" socket to loosen the dome head nuts around the perimeter of the covers. Depending on various factors, the covers may be stuck the first time you try to take them off. You can use a rubber mallet or a hammer tapping against an intermediate block of wood to help break the seal, tapping laterally around the sides of the covers.

Once the covers are off, the intake and the exhaust camshafts will be visible. You can now see that each cam has 6 eccentric lobes spaced along the length of the cam. Each cam lobe rotates against a circular "bucket". Although you can't see it, under each bucket is the end of a valve stem. As the cam lobe rotates, it alternately pushes the bucket down (in the E-Type the maximum movement down is 3/8") and then releases it back up to its relaxed position as the lobe passes. Each time this happens, the valve underneath is opened and closed. Each lobe has a different orientation such the valves are opened in a precise sequential fashion, over and over again.

You will need a 1 5/16" socket or wrench, placed on the nut at the end of the crankshaft pulley, to rotate the engine. Make sure the tranny is in neutral. For extra safety, you might want to disconnect the ground wire at the battery or the 12V lead at the ignition coil. Go ahead and practice rotating the engine by hand. You are going to get good at it real soon!

Go ahead and use the instructions from our last article to rotate the engine until the timing marks are lined up at 0 degrees on the crankshaft pulley, corresponding to top dead center. Furthermore, establish that you are at TDC for cylinder #6. You can do this several ways. The workshop manual simply suggests that you pull the distributor cap off and make sure the rotor is pointing roughly towards the position of the #6 spark plug wire. All you are trying to establish here is that you at TDC for #6, not #1. If you are in the correct position, you will see a "notch" on the end of the camshaft adjacent to the timing chain drive gear. As you approach TDC, the notch will be roughly at a right angle (90E) to the gasket surface of the camshaft cover. If you are on #1 cylinder, the notch will not be visible at all, as it will be on the bottom side out of sight. There are notches on both in the intake and the exhaust cams. Both will have a similar alignment.

Assuming that you ordered your cam alignment tool as suggested in our last article, you are ready to go. The alignment tool is pretty much self explanatory when you have it in your hand. Starting on the intake (carburetor) side camshaft, use your 1 5/16" socket to carefully rotate the engine forward until the tool just aligns with the notch on the cam. If you overshoot, rotate the engine backwards 2 or 3 pulls and the approach again in a forward direction so the slack in the timing chain is positioned correctly. Looking at the front of the XK engine, normal forward rotation is clockwise.

Now go back and look at your timing marks on the crankshaft. With perfect camshaft alignment, the 0E mark on the crankshaft pulley will exactly line up with the static pointer. Perfect is a lofty goal sometimes and yours may be 2 or 3 degrees to one side or the other. When I baselined my engine, I found the intake to be at 10E and the exhaust at 15E! Not acceptable!

Check the intake cam timing several times if you wish, to be sure you have the process down correctly. Write down the numbers you are seeing. By the way, the numbers etched on the crankshaft pulley go from zero in 1E increments up to 10E. These numbers represent degrees before top dead center. It's possible you will fall on the other side of zero, in which case you will have to estimate your value, which should be reported as degrees after top dead center. The above process should be repeated the same way for the exhaust side camshaft.

When you are done, you hopefully will be close to zero, plus or minus a few degrees. A little bit of deviation should not result in marked degradation of engine performance. I would think that values greater than 5E would be grounds for resetting the cam timing. Unfortunately, this is a job that is best left to your mechanic or, if you feel up to it, the Bentley manual describes the procedure in great detail. I was able to do it on my engine but there was definitely a learning curve. If there was an interest in the club, this activity would warrant a hands-on technical session, lubricated with frosty beverages!

So there you have the cam timing check in a nutshell. Next time we will talk about checking the valve clearances between the cam lobes and the cam.

Disclaimer - Automotive work can be dangerous if proper safety procedures are not followed. In homage to our litigious society, I must state that I cannot be held responsible for any real or perceived mis-information that may be contained in this article. A good shop manual is mandatory before you attempt any work. Read the safety section of your manual. If you have any questions, contact me at hdferris@earthlink.net so we can hopefully get questions worked out before a problem is created.

Specialty Tool List

• Cam aligning tool- Terry's Jaguar Parts P/N C3993
• 1 5/16" socket with rachet or 1 5/16" wrench (I bought a complete 3/4" drive socket set at Agri-Supply at an amazing price. Also check out Harbor Freight.)
• Note that a fire extinguisher is not required for this job but is always good to have around!

Troubleshooting your XK Engine

So I'm sitting at a stoplight and some punk in a jacked up pick-up truck pulls up next to me, leans out his window, and says "Hey, Grandpa, what's that thing got in it?" I look him right in the eye and say "4.2 litre, dual overhead cam HEMI". And I proceed to leave him in my dust! Won't the younger generation ever learn not to mess with me??

"Harvey, wake up." (It's my wife Kelli calling out to me from our dual Barcaloungers). "Your favorite program on the History Channel has been over for an hour and you've been napping. Why don't you go upstairs to bed?"

Damn, woke me up from a most excellent dream! But truth be known, your XK engine is in fact an overhead cam Hemi. All that Hemi means is that your combustion chamber is shaped like a hemisphere and that's exactly what the XK engine has. So be proud and let your powerful cat loose whenever you can. But you say it hasn't been running right lately? Or not running at all! And you're not looking forward to the 4 figure bill it's going to take at the local "Jag-you-are specialist" to get things right. Well, listen up because you can do some troubleshooting yourself and take control of your situation. Or at least you can deal with your chosen mechanic from a position of knowledge.

I took possession of a new E-Type a few months back. Here's what I learned on the way to a better running car. First, a method is required. Certain things need to be checked first or you may just be spinning your wheels, so to speak. The general order is to address air, spark, and then fuel. Let's break this down a little further.

First let's talk about air. Your engine is basically a big 6 cylinder air pump. The intake valves open as the piston is moving downward and draws in a full charge of air and fuel. The intake valves close and the piston moves up and compresses the air/fuel mixture. The amount of compression is expressed as a ratio. For my 4.2 litre XKE engine its 8 to 1. As the piston nears the top of its travel (top dead center or TDC) the spark ignites the compressed charge. The resulting increase in pressure drives the piston downward on its power stroke. As it reaches the bottom of its travel, the exhaust valves open. The next time the piston comes up, the combustion gases are forced out through the exhaust valve and the exhaust system. At that point, everything starts over again. This is the basic 4 stroke cycle. So your first chore is to assess the health of this cycle. For this you need a compression gauge (see tool list, below). Get your engine warmed up. Turn it off and remove all your spark plugs with a 13/16" deep socket. You might want to temporarily number your spark plug leads for later re-assembly. Screw the compression gauge intothe 1st plug hole. I like to pull the center spark plug wire from my distributor and lay it against the block so as to absorb the resulting spark. Place the gauge so you can see it from the driver's seat, push the accelerator to the floor, and crank the engine. About 5 seconds should do it but you want to watch your compression gauge until it stops further upward movement. Hop out and write down the pressure number. Repeat for all 6 cylinders. A healthy engine should indicate 140 psi to 170 psi. What's most important isthat all the numbers are about the same, say within 10 psi of each other. If you have a major problem, one or more cylinders will show a dramatically lower number. If this is the case, utter your favorite swear words and clutch your wallet because it isn't going to be cheap to get it fixed! You've experienced a major failure such as a blown head gasket, defective valve, or my favorite, a piston with a hole in it. They make nice conversation pieces for your desk or coffee table. Look, it could be worse. I once had a broken Porsche crankshaft on my desk at work as a conversation piece!

If you like, a leak down tester will give you a little more info. These are a little more difficult to use than a compression tester as they require a source of compressed air and also require that each piston be brought to TDC (top dead center) in order to make the check. I did it and it wasn't overly difficult. Follow the directions that come with the tool. Or ask your mechanic to perform this test. The leak down test can isolate whether the problem is valves, head gasket, or rings/piston.

So let's assume that your compression numbers weren't terribly bad but suspiciously low. Believe it or not but you really need to check your cam shaft timing next! The cams are a big part of proper air delivery. Because if the valves are not opening and closing at the correct times with respect to the movement of the pistons, engine performance will definitely suffer.

Gee, camshafts. Now you're really looking around for something simpler to tackle. Like brain surgery! Come on, it's not that bad. I'll come over and give you a hand. You're actually going to have a week to think about this because you need to order a $10 camaligning tool from Terry's or one of the other usuals. It's a little piece of metal that serves as a template to tell you when your cams are set in the proper position. What you can do while you wait is check the TDC timing mark on your crankshaft. For the early XKE engines the stationary timing mark is at the very bottom of the crank shaft. I understand that for later engines it is up on the sides, at the 10:30 or 2:30 position, depending on how you look at it. It's a flat piece of metal that extends out over the crankshaft pulley. On the pulley, you need to identify the timing marks. On mine, 0 degrees and 10 degrees are marked, with 1 degree tick marks in between. You can use a 1 5/16" wrench or socket to turn the engine manually so that the marks become visible. Clean the marks off. A little dab of white paint (Liquid Paper works nicely) on the 0 degree mark will help it show up later.

Now you need to turn the engine until the #1 cylinder is at it's TDC position. There is a precise way and a rough way to check this. First, a bit of trivia. Since many of the Jaguar engineers were refugees from the shrinking aircraft industry after WWII, there are many quaint aspects of the aircraft business surrounding these cars. One is that the #1 cylinder, normally at the front of an engine designed by automotive engineers, is at the rear of an engine designed by aircraft engineers. Closest to the bulkhead or some such thing. Whatever, pull the plug on the #1 cylinder, that being the one nearest the passenger compartment. Turn the engine with your wrench while you use your third hand to hold a finger over the spark plug hole. If you are on the compression stroke, you will feel a little whoosh of compressed air under your thumb as the piston comes up. Once you are on the compression stroke, look down into the spark plug hole with a light and stop when the top of the piston comes into view. The precise method is to get a dial gauge with magnetic base (see tool list) and use it down the hole to determine when the piston it as high as it will go. This will take several try's back and forth turning the crank to get it at it penultimate point. An alternate tool is available that screws into the spark plug hole. It's also listed in the tool list. The crude method is to put a rod of some sort down the hole and just use your calibrated eyeball to determine when the piston is at its highest point. Either way, stop when you think you have the piston at it's highest point. Hop down under the car and check the zero degree mark on your crankshaft against the stationary pointer. In some cases, you may have to adjust the stationary pointer a little bit to get it lined up correctly. Regardless, you will see that the zero mark should line up with the flat side of the pointer, not the rounded side. Now you'll know what to look for when you are checking timing. And if you find that the pointer is substantially out of position, you may have just discovered why the ignition timing may be out of spec!

If you haven't figured out by now, only men shaped like Gumby can get under an E-Type unless it is raised up somewhat. I made ramps out of 2x6 lumber to drive the car up onto. Two thicknesses of wood (3") makes a big difference. Another advantage is that the hood can open fully without striking the bumper on the floor.

Gee, is that Jerry I see over there gesturing that I've used up my allotted space for this month! I've got to stop for now. Next time we'll check those cams.

Disclaimer - Automotive work can be dangerous if proper safety procedures are not followed. In homage to our litigious society, I must state that I cannot be held responsible for any real or perceived mis-information that may be contained in this article. A good shop manual is mandatory before you attempt any work. Read the safety section of your manual. If you have any questions, contact me at hdferris@earthlink.net so we can hopefully get questions worked out before a problem is created.

Specialty Tool List

• Compression Gauge- get the kind with the hose.
• See Summit Racing Equipment P/N SUM-900009
• Leak down tester- Summit P/N SUM-900010
• Cam aligning tool- Terry's Jaguar Parts P/N C3993
• Dial Gauge with magnetic base- Summit P/N SUM-900016-1
• Top dead center tool- Summit P/N CCA-4795
• First aid kit- priceless!

Current Driver - 1967 E-Type 2+2

I couldn't stand it that my restoration project looked like it was going to take years to complete. I needed something to drive now. I had been perusing the want ads and found this local car on Craigslist.com. The car had been originally sold in New York but made its way to North Carolina. In the late 90's, a local gentleman undertook this car as a restoration project with his son. He did a lot of nice work and got the car into good shape. He sold it to the owner of a local bicycle shop, who drove the car for a few years and then decided to sell it and move on. His loss was my gain. A bonus is that it is the same model as my restoration project so I can use it for comparison purposes.

I have spent a fair amount of time sorting out the engine but have learned a lot in the process. It is running better then ever now!