1967 420 Saloon Total Team CJ Restoration

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Specification (briefly) for this project is as follows: Total restoration of a car that has been in the same family from new. A host of performance and reliability upgrades will be incorporated. The car will be finished in British Racing Green with Biscuit hides.

Time for a few finishing touches, such as the custom steering wheel and the last few pieces of chrome, etc.

Custom wheel compliments the  dash veneer nicely	Overriders and bootlid badging now installed	Installing the front indicator lenses
Stereo installed and working	New door mirror should be quite practical

Sam has been having a few problems related to the stereo that you had installed. Basically the head unit does not want to fit in the console. More on this later.....

Front seat frame now installed	Sam wrestling with the stereo head and the console	Interior starting to look rather luxurious!
British Autowood shift knob on CJ5 looks great!		Kids need to pass inspection before being allowed inside!
Both front seats now installed

Installing the rear seat, the door panels - and perhaps the most outrageous stereo ever installed in a Jaguar 

Going on with the re-trimmed door panels	Wood trim finishes it off beautifully
	Almost ready for the front seats	Outrageous stereo in boot!

The center console has  now been trimmed and installed.

We had some fun working out a way to mount your aftermarket air conditioning vents in the dash parcel shelf, although the finished result works very well. The problem we had was the kit had been designed for a Mk II, which has an entirely different dash. In the end we decided to fabricate miniature 'speaker boxes' which we then trimmed out in biscuit moquette, to match the 'floor' of the parcel shelf.

Dash vents for after market AC	AC controls
Not sure what happened to my camera with this shot!		Installing the custom boxes to the parcel shelf
Still some useful storage space

Time for some lights and chrome.....

Installing the front lamps and bumper blade	Custom tank looks great!	Note compact AC compressor
Rear seats going into place

As you can see, the car is progressing nicely.....

	New Triplex screen installed	Dash surround retrimmed
	Starting to look good inside!

Installing the engine, trans and Weber carbs....

Installing the headliner and the first of the refinished wood trim....

Going together with your beautifully detailed front suspension subframe...

With everything meticulously colour sanded and buffed, it is now time to start putting the car back together. The following photographs show your car swallowing huge quantities of Dynamat!

The paintwork has now been completed and the finished result is absolutely spectacular. We look forward to you visiting and seeing it in person next week!

Note: The pictures below were taken in the booth both with and without a flash. That is why the BRG seems really dark in some of the shots and lighter in others.

Starting to apply the sealer	Sealer is tinted green	Base coat applied
Clear being applied	The car looks absolutely beautiful
Even the door jambs are spectacular	I can't wait to see all the chrome going  into place against the BRG backdrop
		Check out this close up to see the quality of the paint application

Yesterday was a busy day and saw some tremendous progress. We now have all the interior panels as well as the doors, bootlid and bonnet all finished. I am pleased to report that they look spectacular! Everybody here is thrilled with the British Racing Green colour.

The sealer is tinted green	Starting to apply the base
	The first pass of clear	BRG is beautiful in the sunlight
Doors are supremely straight		Time to paint the main bodyshell!

The first coats of British Racing Green will be applied over the next few days. We will paint the cabin, engine bay, boot compartment, underside of the boot and bonnet and then wheel arches first - then paint all the outer panels early next week.

Masking the outer panels
Cabin, engine bay and boot will be painted first	Going on in the background.....
The interior is sealed first....	The sealer is tinted green	Underside of bonnet
Boot compartment received 3M  rocker guard first, then sealer	Engine bay was also saled
	Eric seen here applying the  first pass of British Racing Green	Another coat of base will be  followed by two clear coats on  the inner areas
The first pass of base in the engine bay	Time for some clear...
		Colour is darker without the flash...

Repairing the lower valance beneath the grill. Your car will be immediately following the 63 roadster that is scheduled for painting on Friday of this week. You can also see from the photographs below that we have been steadily rebuilding and repairing all the various ancillary mechanical components ready to put the car back together once it is painted. The shelves are getting pretty stacked!

The following photographs show your car receiving its last coat of K-38 high build primer and 3M rocker shutz in the engine bay, wheel arches and boot compartment.

As you can see, we have now removed the front subframe, almost finished the IRS rebuild, and repaired the rusted panel on the firewall.

Cutting away rusted firewall panel		This panel salvaged from a Mk II
The finished repair	Stainless steel pistons	Drilled and slotted rotores
	Front subframe removed

Assembling your Stage One the engine.......a thing of beauty!

Measuring deck height	Compression is 9.425:1
	ARP rod bolts and main bolt lock washers	Installing the new head studs
Teflon front seal	Time to install the head!
Safety wiring the cam sprockets	Finished engine a thing of beauty!

Blocking the boot lid	Diff rebuild underway
	Plating company short changed us..

Starting to go back together with your engine....

Glyptal paint sheds oil  efficiently	Rebuilt and balanced rods
Beautiful machine work		Powdered, dry rust collects behind the main brass plug in the block
Plug replaced - after being polished for good measure!	Also important to remove distributor driveshaft for proper block cleaning	Reinstalling distributor shaft

As the bodywork proceeds, we have begun rebuilding your engine and IRS. I have commissioned a 'one off' set of Team CJ shocks for your car, as well as a new aluminium expansion tank. The flow results for your cylinder head were oustanding, with a 35 cfm gain combined with a significant increase in velocity.

Trial fiting chrome	Latches and seals are also installed at this stage	Installing the bonnet
Tappet hold-down kits on exhaust side	Stage One cams	Note large intake valves and polished domes
Painting the engine internals with special paint		Time to start reassembly

Over the last couple of weeks we have been doing lots of blocking and sanding, which isn't particularly photogenic, I'm afraid! I am particularly pleased with the way the door fit is working out, however, and thought you might like to see a couple of photographs of the trial fitting process.

With rubber seals installed, the  doors are adjusting out nicely	Gaps are nice and even,  front and rear	Matching door height with centre shut pillar
Important that front doors match contour of front wings

We now have what little panel replacement there was behind us (except for the water damaged firewall) and the car is now in high build primer. The doors, bootlid and bonnet will be primed later today.

As you can see from the following photographs, your interior wood trim has now been completely restored and looks absolutely beautiful. Saul Chaplin (British Autowood) did a superb job for us - as he always does.

I hope you can find time to pop in and see the wood in person, as the photographs really don't do the finish justice.

I thought you might like to see the new custom aluminium radiator we had made for your car by Ron Davis Racing in Arizona. It is truly a thing of beauty!

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As you can see, the car has now been plastic media blasted (outer panels only) and the sheet metal is in truly remarkable condition. It isn't very often that I can say that a car is in better condition than I though it would be prior to the bead blasting process!

Bodywork 99% rust free	As are all the major panels	Priming bonnet, doors and bootlid
Bootlid is in new condition	It will be a while before we get to painting stage, so....	we went ahead and sealed the bodyshell to prevent it surface rusting
Engine was very grimy!	Starting to come apart..	Stage One rebuild underway
Valve covers unrecognizable!	All latching assemblies carefully labeled	Gauges restored/rebuilt

I am happy to report that (so far) your car is every bit as rust free as we thought it might be. I'm not sure I have ever seen better original floors in a 1967 motorcar!

Everything is carefully labeled	Even trim pieces that will be used as templates	Upper floors are in amazing condition
	More evidence of the original  BRG colour	Spare tyre cover is absolutely perfect - literally as new!

I am delighted to report that we now have the total restoration of this classic 1967 420 Jaguar saloon underway. The finished car will feature a Stage One engine, upgraded cooling, ignition, brakes, AC and suspension - as well as a custom built CJ5 five speed gearbox and much, much more!

I hope you enjoy watching the work in progress!

420 interiors were beautifully trimmed with walnut and hides	Great care is taken removing all the wood trim	On this car, wood in unusually good condition
Removal of the screen makes dash disassembly easier		Almost complete original tool kit in the boot
Gauges now removed	Wiring will be replaced	Dash now out of car