Jaguar Repair: 69 E type

Question
I have a 69 E-type 6 cylinder convertable.  It jumps out of gear.  and inspection showed issues with striking rod and coupling and a broken spring.  I will need to remove the tranny to address.  Can the trany come out without pulling the engine?  How long is the process?

Thanks
Peter

Answer
Hi Peter,

Yes, the engine is suppose to come out to repmve the gearbox and it takes about 16 hours work by an experienced Jag mechanic. However. I did figure out how to do "R" and "R" one in six hours. Providing it is not a 2x2

Here is how I did it. Remove the check straps that prevent the hood from tilting too far forward. Put the car on stands. Get two 3/8" x 10" hardened steel rods and grind points on both. (do not use cold rolled steel rods) Remove the furtherest 3/8 bolts from the tortion bar mount on the steel cross member between the engine and trans. Drive the hardened steel rod in the bolt hole just enough to hold the tortion bar mount so the tortion bar does not unload when you remove the other bolts in the steel cross member.

Then you can remove the other bolts and knock the cross member off of the preloaded rods. Thus the cross member can be removed. Now remove the air cleaner connection and remove the exhsust system at the manifolds.

Tilt the hood forward and set the nose on a box or such with a pad on it. Use an engine hoist on the engine hoist mounts on the head to support the engine and trans while you remove the rear trans mount and cross member, drive shaft, shift knob, Speedo cable, radiator hoses, fuel line, slave cylinder and anything else that would prevent the dropping of the engine straight down.

The engine will not come out the bottom due to the "Bird cage" front frame. But if you remove the motor mounts and adaptors the engine will drop down several inches. This will allow you to remove the bellhousing bolts to the engine and thus pull the trans from below. I would set the engine pan on a stack of Coke crates but Coke crates are more rare then your car today. ha!

The factory would pay me 16 hours to put a clutch in an "E" Type and I could do it in 6 hours.
I could not do it this way on a 2x2 because they had a welded in cross member under the rear of the trans which prevented doing it this way. The factory says to remove the engine and trans as a unit and that takes about 16 hours work by a Jag mechanic.

The reason you need to use hardened steel rods to preload the tortion bar mounts is because even with the front wheels hanging, the load on those rods when you remove the other bolts is so high that the tortion bar will almost shear off a cold rolled rod. I know this because the first one I did I used cold rolled rods and it almost cut the rods off when I removed the other bolts. (also don't get those tortion bar mount bolts mixed up with other bolts as they are grade 8 or better and must be high grade bolts.

Let me know,

Howard