Jaguar Repair: E-type Air rail

Question

Air pipe   QUESTION: Howard,

 Thanks for the help with my starter - I'll get it bench tested.  I may see if I can get an aftermarket, lighter and more modern starter if there is one available for my 73 E-type. Any comments on that ?  My question now is the air injection system on my car was hacked off by an previous owner, remnants of the air pipes stick up from the intake manifold and were crimped and welded closed.  I was going to remove the intake manifold to check the valves and thought I may remove those pipes and drill and tap the holes to take a short bolt to act as a plug.  Any other suggestions ?

  Thanks again,


  Steve

ANSWER: Here in the US when I was working in Jag dealerships we were not allowed to modify any emission control as it would be a Federal offence but the owner could do it to his own car. Most did block off the AIR injection with a screw in plug. It had no effect on the engine running.

Howard

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Howard,

  After all these years, it's pretty hard to find any car from the 70's with it's emission systems intact.  I don't know what the laws were in Canada but every 70's car I ever owned had the air pump removed.  My 84 Xj6 still has it but it started squealing so I cut the belt off it, and I still got it through the emissions test here.  It must have been a difficult time for the manufacturers, trying to comply with changing standards with various mechanical solutions.  I don't want to change my E-Type from stock, but what I have now is the dead bones of a butchered system, I just want to clean it up.

Thanks again,

Steve

ANSWER: Early on in emission control no one was very good at meeting the standards except Yamaha motorcycles who were years ahead of all the cars which was year before the auto industry spotted Yamaha.

Much of the goofy things tried by BLM at first were finally dropped. The Series III XJ-6 that had AIR injection was one of the goofy ones. Get this, the air pump (a GM pump) was only injecting air in the first few seconds of starting and even though the pump was powered all the time it never pumped air in the rail after the first few seconds. I don't think any state in the US ever tested it because it was never injecting after those first few seconds. So no one ever seen it operate. ha!

look at EGR. They tried to raise the combustion chamber temp to get a more complete burn but in doing so they started to burn the Nitrogen in the air and that made NOX a more poisonous gas then they had before raising the temp. To try to cut down on the NOX they diluted the combustion chamber mix to cool the temp thus lowering horse power so people had to use more throttle to go the same speed which raised the level of pollutants. How smart is that?

In the mid 70's the EPA approached Yamaha of the US and told them that they would have to start meeting EPA standards and Yamaha showed them their Emission control testing and Yamaha already was 10 years ahead of the Auto industry in emission testing. And did it with NO emission control devices. Needless to say the auto industry started getting Yamaha to design some of their cylinder heads, Ford Motor company included.

Howard

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Howard,

  It was a tough era for cars for sure with all the system contradicting each other !  It must have driven you crazy working in the industry !  I still have the EGR on my TR7 but the vacuum line was disconnected from it and connected to the distributor vacuum advance directly.  I read that when the choke was on, it's cam touched a valve that opened the vacuum line so the EGR was no longer in operation.  But didn't that then create a small vacuum leak ?  So with my car, I suppose the EGR is permanently not working now ?

Thanks again,

Steve

Answer
If the vacuum hose is off of it you are correct that it is not working. (providing it's valve is not leaking) Yes, some of the TR-7s had a cam on the linkage to open and close vacuum to the EGR valve.
Yes, it was a pain because they would make changes in mid year on vacuum hose routing on all the BLM cars and it was difficult to keep up with each car. I have a 2 inch thick 3 ring folder full of bulletins and a 3 inch thick folder on BLM training fliers. I had to refer to it yesterday for a guy with a V-12 Jag on the hoses on a vacuum switching valve.

Howard