1968 Jaguar 420G Restoration || Part 7: Starting floor repairs

Before we can work on the brakes, the chassis and floor need to be repaired so the car can be jacked up safely. Starting floor repairs
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Its a little under-edited because Premiere crashed like 60 times and failed to export 10 times, i need to get a computer that isnt a nugget

[@markbehr88]

Enjoying the series.

[@gregharvie3896]

Re the thick steel and massive overkill construction.
Hi there , I own one of these , a 1967 420G , have since 2012 , however , when i was 19 in 1975 I bought a Left Hand Drive 1965 4.2 ltr mk10 , same car , just its original name before the public share float with BMC & Leyland buying the controlling share float and randomly deciding to rename all the cars , with MK2's being renamed 240's & 340's , the updated S-type was re name the 420 , the Daimler version of the Mk2 was renamed the Daimler 250 instead of the 2.5 ltr V8 . Plus BMC-Leyland decided to make a Daimler version of the smaller 420 calling it a Sovereign 1A. Re the strength of Mk10/420G's . They were being designed in the 1950's along with the Jag D type race car was the first race car with a driver safety cell , same with the eType. The mk10 would have been the worlds first safety cell passenger car if they did not have to redesign the rear of the "baby" Jaguar we now call the mk1, because of its quirky narrow rear track , jaguar's owner William Lyons realising he was going to sell a stack of the bigger engined 3.4 litre cars and could even fit the bigger new 3.8 litre engine. So the big new but double the price mk10 was put on the backburn for a while, so that Mercedes Benz beat them to the market with the new W111 (fintail model) . So as a early occupant safety cell carthis is the reason behind the massive firewall , boxed side sill rails and all the reinforced transmission tunnel and the cross sills under the seats , also the DISSASTER at Ford USA's premium brands in 1958/59 .
In 1958 the new top end Fords , Thunderbird & Lincoln as shared body platform structure could be found cleverly hidden , but shared never the less, fire walls , front floor pans, front screens , body sill rail shape and design , the 2 lincoln ranges the slightly shorter cheaper Capri's coupes & 4 door sedans , plus the longer Premier's in coupe, convertible & pillarless 4 doors , plus the new Bigger "square" bird Thunderbirds with seats for four , ALL had structural strength & body warp issues , Budd steel that made all these gigantic mono construction body shells for Ford ended up going head to head in the law courts . As not only was there super bad body flex you could pop a screen front or rear wrap around glass would pop out where a front wheel was up high on a kerb with the opposite rear wheel pushed up in the wheel housing , or if the car was jacked up at an extreme angle on a trolley jack . Additionally on the rear coil sprung Lincolns a coil spring could tear its way into the boot compartment causing massive harm to the body structure of these expensive Lincolns. For the final 1960 model year there were major body integrity revisions and all the Lincolns received rear leaf springs once more, which continued on the smaller 1961 to 1969 mono construction Lincolns .
William Lyons , Jaguar cars owner was well aware of the farce in the USA between Budd & Ford . There was also an issue with France's most expensive car the giant Chrysler 383 hemi powered big 4 door Facel Vega Excellence a VERY American-esque looking design this cars suicide door style also had flex issues but nowhere near as bad as the Lincolns . Lyons wanted zero of these issues with his big new flagship car and his and Malcolm Sayer's answer was to build a "road fortress" the MK10.
Long after the XJ6 was released . mk10/420G's were being built , with the draconian new frontal crash test rules in the USA becoming more and more extreme, Jaguar kept the mk10/420G's "simmering" as if need be they could have a minor sales/marketing face lift , but a zero structural engineering change , as their innate strength far far exceeded the coming USA crash test rules intended for the mid 70's & beyond . So if need be a quicky make over could be rushed to the market until a new successor could be engineered, designed & sold.
Having been involved with mk10/420G's for so long , I have seen ultra late versions, eg as a young adult in Sydney , the Malaysian High Commissioner received his new 420G in xmas 1974, just 2 years ago a friend here in Melbourne bought from an elderly Englishman a pale blue 1972 420G with all documents going back to its order form in september 1972 , built for that guy when he was way younger and the Head of Britains AA ( automobile association) ie the breakdown /roadservice people , like say the RACv, NRMA , Racq here in 'OZ.
As in popular belief they finished production in 1970 . However my mum had 2 from brand new, both built in November but 10 years apart a Black 1961 mk10 and a new Opalescent Gun Metal Grey 420G built November 1971

[@cutcat8437]

Awesome information! When reading information about these lovely cars I haven't come across the reasoning why the sills and seat braces are so overbuilt. Its really amazing how far ahead of their time they turned out to be, theyre a really well thought out and engineered car. I think this bloc of information should be pinned for everyone to see

[@gregharvie3896]

@@cutcat8437 When Mercedes Benz bought 10 new Jaguar Mark 10's , some to real world drive and evaluate , some to cut up and examine , some to smash test into walls and early computer controlled hydraulic pendulums (like giant monster punching bags , however these were like 7 foot tall and made of solid steel ) which were randomly fired into the cars , only the computer knew where they would hit . Plus they used their popup ramps where the car was then sent into a dramatic rollover . They performed SO Mega OUTRAGEOUSLY WELL Merc's Chief engineers put a hold on their 2 x Giant Benz 600's the Pullman Limousine , and the standard length one , Merc' Benz dramatically re engineered the stiffening in their 2 x Monster cars , and if you were to see one stripped out their front bulkhead/firewall is near a mirror image of our Jaguar's ones and they made their side rails taller than first planned but not quite as big as our Jaguar's one , but close , plus the monster left to right floor rigidity boxes are a dead copy of the Jag mk10's . Benz engineers were even more impressed by Jaguar's rear diff, brake & suspension system . After a huge Benz management / engineering meeting , just after the random death of William Lyons son & daughter in law by a drunk in a truck in France , Benz heard Lyon's was depressed & shocked by this & with nobody now groomed to lead the Jaguar company Lyon's had a view to offer a share float and make Jaguar a public company . A huge contingent of Mercedes Benz engineering and management came to look at the "books" to maybe even offer an amount to buy the WHOLE share package , to buyout the whole Jaguar company. When the Benz guys arrived and looked thru the mish-mash of aged antique buildings. The Benz guys wanted to see where the R&D (research& design) dept was, they were ushered to about 8 offices, not a 3 floor building with several hundred people working. Instead the Benz guys found that the two Jaguar master stroke cars , the E type & Mk10 were created in their entirety by 8 men, just 8 British Boffins to the Germans this was even more astounding as most were older guys in their 50's or early 60's there was just 1 younger one , Ron "lofty" England (6foot 8inches tall was Lyons son's best mate) . Benz guys thanked them and walked away , WHY , they knew that if Mercedes Benz bought Jaguar they would be buying nothing more than a brand name , as soon , all these men would be old & retiring , then what would happen ?:? how would they make & create fresh new Jaguars with the brains trust that made them all gone . AND consider this , the new Jaguar slant 6 engine designed by these guys was shelved when BMC/Leyland bought most of the shares, (1966) not to see the light of day again let alone fitted into a car until 1983 as the my 84 3.6litre XJS cabriolet , then fitted to the new for 1986 XJ40 where there were 4 sizes, when Jaguar was split by the Maggie Thatcher's government , shares floated & let go as a public company which ran fine , made OK money ,started growing again. These inline slant 6's ran to 1997 when Ford bought Jaguar & forced them to use the bad Ford designed v8's which were DUDs. Jaguar designed a set of their own V engines , a 3 liter v6, 3.5 litre v8 , 4.2 v8, & 5.0 litre v8 that could also be supercharged , just like the Jaguar inline slant 6 (like a valiant , TOO tall to sit upright in the engine bay)