A spring outing by FABACTRS&PC

      It's easy to be brave when it's someone else's car.   
      Joe made the mistake of thinking that I knew what I was doing as he handed me tools to disassemble, then reassemble his distributor.  Hoping I did actually know what I was doing, I stuck gizmos and thing-a-ma-bobs back where I thought—hoped they went. 
      The previous day I'd gotten a call from Joe asking for a visit from the FABAC-TRS&PC. It seems that the Jag was misbehaving again and needed some lovin.  Sitting back over tea, and a distributor spread all over the workbench, we pieced together the history of the ignition problems.

1.  thousands of parts in boxes needing to be stuck back together. 
2.  one part going back in 180º backwards (easy to do, I've done it twice) 
3.  rewiring the spark plug wires to compensate for the reversed gizmo. 
4.  clampy-thing on the base of the distributor coming loose allowing distributor to shift and screw up timing.

(Click on photo for several more.)

      We decided to go back to zero and even made crib notes to ensure stuff went where it was supposed to go.  We swapped wires, installed new-ish ones, fiddled with the distributor clamp and tried to suck my finger into a cylinder.  Double checking two manuals to verify that yes, Jaguar does label it's cylinders backwards to everyone else, and labeling the darned things so that we didn't screw it up all over again—the re-installation started anew. Parts, pieces, and wires fell into place and in a surprisingly short time Joe's Jag fired right up, much to his (and my) relief.
       Triumphantly, we celebrated by going for a drive up the river for lunch.  I got to drive his Jag and noted how smooth and responsive his engine was.  It was also quiet and comfortable; sporty but civilized.  It's too bad that the prices for E-Types has gone ballistic the last few years since more folks should get to experience them.
       MkII Jags are still a great bargain however, anyone game?
- Bob E.