1967 E Type roadster (BD) Total CJ restoration

Specification (briefly) for this project is as follows: This car has been 'under restoration' in another shop for approximately 10 years. Unfortunately, virtually everything is going to have to be redone.

Another stunning E Type headed back home...

Opalescent Maroon paintwork is truly stunning	Panel gaps are perfect throughout

Installing the new convertible top...

Engine and CJ5/600 five speed now installed, engine bay filling up rapidly...

Interior installation continues, building a new CJ5/600 five speed...

CJ5/600 tail housing	Main case and top cover also CNC machined
Carlos getting the interior  installation underway
	Crankcase breather tank polished

Gauges rebuilt, dash assembly underway...

I am pleased to report that your car is now rolling and steering once again, and has already started to receive its lights, chrome an brightwork.

Engine bay starting to fill up
Dynamat installation underway		Panel fit is beautiful on this car
Install lights and brightwork

We have now finished all the paintwork and it is time to get the reassembly underway. The bodywork and the paintwork are absolutely spectacular.

The cabin and boot compartment have now been painted...

After countless hours of blocking and sanding, it is now time to apply the first of the Opalescent Maroon paint.

Engine frames first to be painted	Floors next in line...
Rocker guard applied before painting	Underside of this car is as good as E Type restoration gets...
Rocker guard is also applied to front wheel arches prior to painting

We have been busy in both the Coachworks and the engine machine shop, over the last few weeks. We have now completely finished all the panel replacement, sheet metal repairs, panel fit and filler work. The car is now in Slick Sand (sprayable Polyester) and over the next week or so will be blocked with 120 followed 180 grit paper. Once that has been completed, the car will be put into high build primer which will be sanded with 400 followed by 600 grit (wet) paper, at which point it will be ready for painting.

Boddywork has been completed, car now in Slick Sand	All new rubber seals and latches are installed for final blocking process
	Balancing your crankshaft	Kevin removing weight from the clutch pressure plate
Perfect!	Weighing pistons prior to assembly	Setting crank end play using oversized thrust washers
	Just over .004" end play	Short block now assembled

The following photos show Darrell repairing the lower part of your bonnet's left hand wing, which was badly corroded. It is a fairly tricky procedure due to the beading that runs around the wheel arch and along the bottom edge of the the front wings.

Your crankshaft has now been ground	Body wax applied to box section behind lh cowl side panel	Replacement panel now welded into place
Lower wing badly corroded	Corroded panel is cut away	Fabricated panel is offered into place
Note wheel arch beading	Panel tack welded in position	Joint is then TIG welded
Front edge will be rolled around beading (see photo below)		An invisible repair, inside and out
	Wing now as good as new	Lead loading welded seam at bottom of cowl side panel

Repairing your corroded and accident damaged bonnet center section.

Both side flanges of bonnet are rusty	New sections of steel were fabricated and welded in place
	Fabricating a repair panel for side of bonnet mouth
This is the noisiest machine in the entire shop!
Panel has lots of complex curves	New panel is first tacked in place
Then TIG welded	Finished repair virtually invisible

Your car has now been transferred to one of the frame jigs. The next task before us is to restore and fit your bonnet.

Bodyshell now as far as we can go without fitting bonnet		Cowl side panels will be installed as part of the bonnet fitting process
Both front wings are rusty and will have to be repaired
Fabricating and installing a new   flange for dront wing		Fabricating a repair panel for bottom section of front wing
Forming the fender beading at the lower edge of repair panel

Lots of progress in the Coachworks since our last update. We have now installed the new inner sills, boot floor, main floors and outer sills.

Cutting away the old boot floor		Trial fitting new boot floor
Clint spot welding the new inner sills into place
		Trial fitting new floor cross-member
Spot welding new floors in place
Applying Wurth Body Wax to inner sill cavity	Spot welding new outer sills

It is now time to get the restoration of your body underway. As Clint started cutting away the old floors, he discovered that replacement floors had been installed over the top of the rusted originals. In some of the photos below you can clearly see the labels on the aftermarket replacement floors...

We now have your body back from the balsters and our suspicions have been confirmed. The car has some significant rust issues which had previously been covered up with masses of bondo. The photographs below tell the sad story.

		Inside of boot hints at what lies beneath
Boot floor is rotten	These rust holes were filled with bondo	Rust at front corner of lh front wing was covered in bondo
The inside of the lh front wing	Floors are also rusted through
Kick panels had rust holes filled with bondo	The view from underneath the same kick panel	Holes in bonnet mouth were filled  with bondo

We now have your car fully disassembled and unfortunately, we can already see a number of issues with the body. At a minimum, this car really needs new floors as well as inner and outer sills. As always, we won't know the full story until after media blasting. The engine frames have been very crudely repaired and are not serviceable. On a more positive note, I am pleased to report that we were able to straighten your warped cylinder head and after align honing the camshaft caps, the head is as good as new.

	Painting inside of block with Gylptal	Car now totally disassembled
	Engine frames are junk, unfortunately
	Floors have issues that should become  more clear after blasting	Inner sills are paper thin and have rust pin  holes in them
Suspicious looking goop in driver's footwell	Align honing cam caps and saddles	Resurfacing your cylinder head  after straightening

We have now align honed and resleeved your block, re-surfaced the deck and honed the cylinders to size ready for the new Venolia forged pistons.

Measuring main caps	Align hone in progress
Old sleeves cut away	Cylinder cut to receive new top hat sleeves	Timing chain cover is junk and will be replaced
Setting up to re-surface block after re-sleeving		Replacement timing chain cover is machined with block
Honing new sleeves to size

The following sequence of photographs demonstrate a number of problems with your cylinder head. As it is the original matching number head, we are going to do our best to save it, although it is very badly warped and has already had a lot of material removed from the deck surface. Hopefully we will be able to straighten it and still have enough material to work with to re-surface it.

Head is warped	Measuring more than .050"	Note uneven bearing wear and remember this is an engine that has never been run
Measuring warpage along the cam saddles	Measuring the run-out on the previous valve job	.004" run-out is way out of spec

I am pleased to report that your car is safely inside the CJ workshop where we already have the rebuilding process underway. Unfortunately, as you suspected would be the case, the engine rebuild you had done elsewhere has a number of serious issues. The valve seats in the cylinder head have been machined incorrectly, at too great a depth, corrosion issues in the chambers were not addressed, and the re-surfacing job done on the cylinder head deck is about as bad as it could be.

The block also appears to have had sleeves installed within sleeves, which is a totally unacceptable practice. The bottom line is that we already have a much needed full (Stage One) CJ engine rebuild underway.

I hope you enjoy watching the rebuild of your E Type on these pages over the next few months.

	With the head removed, we were able to inspect the quality of the previous rebuild	Difficult to photograph, but the previous valve job was not of good quality
	Re-surfacing job scored the deck surface very badly