The Jensen Owners' Club

It has been brilliant to see the quality and progress of your work on this over the months. It really is your car now after all this! Congratulations, as has been said, but thanks for taking time and documenting it all like this! Things I especially liked on this rebuild are the way you have done the wiring terminals, details like re-plating the relays, bonnet catches, etc, the bracket for the heating thermostat, the dolly, and the rig for running the engine and transmission out of the car which is on this video if no one has seen it. https://youtu.be/ff2SAX7b_N4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Hooking the transmission up for the test was something I wouldn't have thought of. That was great and it found a leak. So thanks as well as congratulations!

Sensational...amazing job

The last couple of days I have got stuck in to getting the tailgate stainless finishers fitted. The tailgate is not from this car as my original was way too far gone to repair.
I started by drilling through the plate location holes up through the window rubber to expose any covered holes. I then taped either side of all the holes where the trim would siting and then offered up all the trim to work out a best fit for the finishers. With this all held in place, I marked on the tape the edges of the finishers so I could see where they all sat once removed.
The finisher locator plate studs all snapped when the trim was originally moved and wouldn’t have been any good any way due to stud positions not being correct for this tailgate. I made up a load of stainless steel 25mm wide plates with a countersunk M3 screw welded into the plates. I then fitted all of the location plates to the tailgate and marked on the plates where the edge of the trim would be and also made a note on each plate it’s location on the tailgate.
I then removed all the plates and cut the plates 2 mm short of each mark so they would have a little bit of movement within the trim. Some plates had to have radius’s ground on diagonally opposite corners to enable them to be fitted into the back of the finishers and then twisted round into place.
I trimmed any proud edges of the window seal that were causing the finishers to ride up or rock and I also recessed the seal where the plates all sat. This would enable all the finishers to be pulled down tight on to the seal before the plates bottomed out on the seal.
I then fitted 6mm x 3mm rubber U channel to all finisher edges that were going to be in contact with paint work to stop it cutting in.
I then did a trial fit and pulled all the finishers down to double check the finisher ends all lined up and at this point made joiner plates for the finisher ends that had countersunk holes to fit through M3 countersunk screws.
The final stage was to remove all masking tape and then fit all the finishers. I put a small rubber washer on to the studs of thos plates that the studs were not pulling through the window seal, then progressively tightened all the plate M3 nylock nuts and checking that all the finisher ends came together in line.
The last thing was to silicon in place all the finisher end cap covers which had all lost their studs when removed.
This has probably taken 20 hours to do but I couldn’t see any other way of doing it quicker without getting a good symmetrical fit of the finishers. I thinkIam now going to have a little break as after the last couple of months, I am Jensened out!

You are a real clever and patient chap Gav that always wants the best results and your input reflects your excellent top notch results Gav My Ole Fruit Bat, in life you only get out what you put in, and what you have put in could only give the excellent results on your car that we all can see, so this is for you>>>..What I admire about you GavMan is this..you are not copying other peoples ideas, this is all thought up and worked out by you, so now you get an extra Medal ontop of another medal after the previous Medal...............Well done sport>>

Well done Gav, this is one of those really awkward jobs that to anyone not trying to do it looks like a 5 minute job.

Even to get them on fitting badly takes time, but its worth the extra effort you have put in to get a good fit. They really do finish the tailgate off and make the car look complete.

Lots of good tips for us there Gav, thanks for sharing. Photos are really helpful. With those new rear lights and new bumpers, it really sets the car off now!

Sometimes you do something so intensely that it’s starts to become a bit of a grind and you start to not enjoy it. So I have had a break not least to try to deal with the huge business fall out caused by Covid and Brexit! I have started back on the old girl by getting the bonnet fit, trim and accessories fitted and the final odds and sods such as washer bottle, radiator ducting, butler light and any under bonnet wiring that needed finishing. The gearbox tunnel was grim so cleaned it back to bare fibreglass and then insulated it top and bottom and is now ready to fit. I also got the number plates on which just look great. The door handles and door catches are all now fitted and the next job is going to be building up the window frames and fitting out the doors which will be fun as I have no idea of the order of build. A bit of trial and error coming up I think.

Gav wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 7:28 pmthe next job is going to be building up the window frames and fitting out the doors which will be fun as I have no idea of the order of build. A bit of trial and error coming up I think.

Yes you can say that.
The doors are an excellent example of why these cars are so labour intensive when it comes to finishing off. A hand built car, and because the door frames are not a big mass produced stamped item they need to be adjustable in every direction.

The previous owner of my car got new doors for the car when it was restored in the late nineties. I think the amount of hours needed to get all things aligned up correctly is the reason he never really finished the car. I got it without the door cards on the doors, however they were with the car. In my car I had to re-mount the glass guide frames to the door shell. Then by trial and error put in distance pieces / shims. I could never reliably get the electric window motor running the glass up and down so, with the tip from a fellow forum member, installed a shortened modern Jaguar S type rear door motor. Which again needed careful mounting and shimmying. Plus getting an extra live wire to the doors. I also mounted a central locking servo which locks / unlocks the lock so I do not have to use the fragile key.

Have fun!