Well, it’s finally happened – all the parts I actually need off the Jag are off the Jag and sitting in the garage in a heap organised pile. Took a while as the last lower wishbone wanted to put up a proper fight with me – in the end it took the purchase of an air saw and the 115mm grinder to get it off, but it gave up in the end.

The only trouble now is that the remains of the bolt that would normally hold the two halves together is firmly entrenched in the forward half of the wishbone and I went and snapped a 2.5mm drill bit off inside it to add to my misery. Still .. I’ll attack that again tomorrow.

Once that’s done I need to break the rear subframe down into constituent parts, and once again rusty bits of Jag won’t give up without a fight – the disks are firmly welded to the hubs just like the fronts were and I can only back off the handbrake shoes on one side thanks to the previous owner putting one disc on wrong, preventing access to the adjuster (can you hear my eyes rolling?)

I might pull the interior out next week (seats, at least) and a friend has expressed an interest in the engine & box, if he can get here before I have it collected..

 

In the mean time I’ve also had a QuickTime shatterproof bell housing delivered from the US to mate the T56 to the 428 FE and taken the gearbox & bell housing up to Dax so they can get everything lined up. No pictures of that because, well, I forgot to take any – a shame as the bell housing looked really nice in it’s pristine powder coat. With a little luck I might see a chassis before I have to go back to Seattle again..

 

And here’s a quick picture of the wishbone that gave me all the trouble: