Gettin' Stoopid 66G

Ive been collecting parts and pieces since last summer. I'm starting off with this 66 my cousin Pete found for me near Ionia, MI. A friend of his was cleaning out his garage and it was going to head for the scrap yard.

150$ and a short 40 mile drive for a reasonably solid MI? van. It definately has some problem areas created from a leaking sunroof in it's past but the rest is mostly dents ,small tears and some old bodywork.

The inner valance and rightside upper door frame seems to be the worst of it for rust.All the holes in the roof for vents and the sunroof will be a priority, so I can roll it outside if I need to. Got a roof from Gotavan that made some good patch pieces for the vents.

My goals here are to stick a 454, now 468, in it . thats where the Gettin' Stoopid comes in. I had picked up a supposedly good running engine that turned out to be a runner that wouldn't have lasted very long. Smart thing to do would have been to put it aside and look for another,, for some reason I ain't wired that way! That is still in pieces, but have the rotating assembly ready to go in, The heads are currently getting checked to see how much attention they will need.
I am going to try to mount a Vac booster for the brakes right off the pedal arm, thinking an 8" single right at the moment, this might be only possible because I am not mounting anything where it normally goes from this point back.

Also I am going to try sticking this in.

The one I picked up of course doesnt look that pretty (and may never) but its a good pic. I am disassembling that and will put new seals and such in it. The gear ratio is 2.88 it has disc brakes, the X member set up is relatively easy. Might have to play with the width abit but not sure as the right back spacing may take care of it, and it is the same bolt pattern

It's just something that I hope will be fun to try.

Very cool Joe!!!!

I trust you are gonna pretty that rear assembly up... It would definitely deserve detailing that curious onlookers will be drawn to! Are you planning IFS too? That could be tricky! Good luck! Looking forward to this next one as I enjoyed the last one!

Going to be another cool van when your done Joe, Let me know if you need anything else

Thanks Tom, those doors ya got me will let me put the correct ones back on the side. No IFS on this one Corey, that's a whole 'nother nightmare and a lot of coffee !!
I've been doing some disassembly and cleaning on the pig for inspection and so far it looks like a new pinion and axle seals will do that up. I didnt have the camera the day I put some 15x10's on it to get an idea of width,, and man it's wide, was 3 inches wider than the tires I have on mine which stick out a couple inches on each side now! So narrowing the half shafts and control arms will probably have to happen. I want to tub this one in anyway a little. It'll be interesting,, it's definately nothing I have done before.



We finally got a couple more "needful" things moved down to our shop. Our Old mill and lathe, just gotta get the 3ph run over to them now.

Digz wrote:It'll be interesting,, it's definately nothing I have done before.

Kinda like taking requests at a gig and playing a song you have never played before, but somehow it just flows and works out... "Well folks, if you liked that song, we're gonna play another one that we don't know!"

I know IFS would be a scary undertaking, but hey... it wouldn't surprise me if you did have a plan! Never seen IRS before either!

Joe after see your last built I know this is something you can handle. Going to be bad a$$

Tell Randy we need a update on the A100

That rear looks awesome.

Got the BB heads back the other day. Replaced all the exhaust valves and they knurled the guides. Came in at 354$ with inspection cleaning and parts/labor.

Gotta put an oil pan and pump assembly on my shopping list now. Also still picking away at the RA assembly.

Thought I could do some onestop shopping for parts but that company didnt last to long I guess. Parts are out there just gotta hit a few different resources. The Drivers side was really crusty at the hub, that took some effort and I ruined the lower cross shaft getting it out. There are small taper roller bearings there and they were siezed up terribly. For some reason I dont have a small arbor press so I improvised. Sometimes I'm patient sometimes not ,lol

Stuck these 15x10's under it to get an idea of how much I may need to narrow things. this is just rough idea stuff right now but it looks like I may need to hack 6" out of the width, originally the RA is 61-3/4" wide, I think I'm going to be shooting for the 55" range. Need to tub out the wheel wells and see how much room I have to get a final decision there.

is that a jag rear? what parts you need?

JR, yeah thats what I bought it as and it seems to check out that way,, but I am having a hard time pin pointing the year and model it came out of ,, they used this "style" for what seems like forever. Maybe (I hope) you have some insite to this. I have about 2 pages of notes and have spent a few hours net searching. The original width and the gear ratio of 2.88 has me thinking something from the 82-87, but doing a parts search on RockAuto I'm coming up with something that may be out of the 60's? The rear end housing itself is the 4HA carrier and the newer stuff seems to run a 4HU. right now I'm only needing the pinion and axle seals and that lower fulcrum shaft I messed up. I think I can get any bearings seeing as they are mostly a combination of SKF and Timken numbers so far. I haven't gotten the hubs fully disassembled yet to know what I may need there. This may be something that someone has already worked on. I have tried places like DTS and they have nothing on these ,, even tried a jag dealership, but got the cold shoulder there. The one company I was kinda counting on, CWI, has already went belly up. I guess the problem I am having mostly is there is so much info it is very confusing.

they used the same rear from late '60's to 1987 in the xj6, xj12 and xjs. it is a salisbary or dana 44. xj6 was an open rear the others are posi. 288 is the most common and only a handful of the earlier ones had 331. if yours is not a posi, just throw it away, the posi is very common and i gave away a 288 posi a few years ago. i have a huge write up on rebuilding these somewhere. i will look for it and forward or look for the link. the parts are available at 4wd shops for dana 44

Thanks for the quick reply JR,, It is a Salisbury, it is a PL 2.88 , I have a link that does a pretty good detail on the narrowing and some of the rebuild tips/tools. It's an IRS site/forum Dazecars or something. Im just wondering if the 2 carriers will interchange parts okay, Hoping I can toss some part numbers at my napa guy to ease his pain,,LOL

i have ALL the part numbers, just need to dig them up. dana/salisbury are very similar, one bought the other or something like that. the gears fit either but need a different carrier for anything larger than 288.(lower gears) also, the gears have a different size hole for bolts so either get jag specific, older jeep or plan on drilling. i have a 409 set here i planned on using so i have researched a lot, just cant remember anything so i print everything and save it. now i just need to remember where i saved it!

Can't wait to see it installed

Joe just came across this on ebay, don't know if these pictures will help
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Jaguar-rearend-Inboard-Disc-Brakes-rat-street-hot-rod-/230666422646?pt=Vintage_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item35b4ca4976

Ive already cut all that cage away and eliminated the half shaft knuckle covers. The starting bid on that should be his asking price. And that would be the high end of things by the looks of it. I had some success today with at least the pinion seal ,,lol, and ordered a new fulcrum shaft that I messed up from parts train. I ran into some oddities today tho , The RA I have has been worked on before ,, I think that is some of my parts confusion. Im thinking the center section is older than the frame it was in, When I say "worked" on I mean hack jobbed, it had the incorrect axle seals in it and one of the stub shaft axle bearing crush sleeves was mislocated. Not the fault of the guy I got it from ,,he had just swapped some other stuff for it and not gotten into it. Axle seals are still on the list of "to gets"or find ,,lol Im searching for part #s on line then I give them to my Napa guy, if they dont fit right it's no problem to return them that way. Gaining ,,it's just going to go slow.

Fun and wierdness today, got all of the seals for the carrier figured out and here. That was a good thing. Disassembled the hubs today, fun thing.

Some wierdness, After sandblasting the housing this cracking showed up. Going to consult the local expert (Gotavan) on it and probably just toss some weld to it. To me looks more like a bad casting crack than stress, but I'm still learning on these things as the next wierd thing will show.

My nephew Charlie and I spent some time trying to remove a bad wheel stud. we used some heat and the ball joint press to no avail. Any of you that know jags are probably already laughing. Anyway after cutting both sides down flat with the hub flange I broke out the torch and popped a hole thru what was left and carefully trimmed it back to one edge. Wow,, these suckers are threaded in and then swaged. Anyway learned something today .

Had time to do some odds n ends fun stuff today. Made a mock up of the MC and rad to get an idea of distances, mostly close aproximations.

What Ive got in mind right now is a dual 8" booster and a 24x30 Rad sittin' corvette style all leaned back \

Also decided to do something with the dash. It already had the spot welds busted loose on the drivers side and the face of it was a mess from a hack job of some kind, so...

With it out it will let me do lots of stuff way easier.



There is definately no hurry on this but I had the time. And am still working on ideas and resources.

This the real sore spots on this van rust wise. The lower front A pillars, the inside valence and above the right door from what I am almost sure was a leaking sunroof.

The valence I want to try just replacing it with an integral shelf made from sheetmetal.

This is about half of the rust and dust that came out of the right pillar. Im sure some of it was blown in from the upper door rail but still it kinda shows what may be inside a Okay van. more patchin' lol

Duane's van is pretty bad there also, interested in seeing what you come up with there. Is the motor going to be back more than stock??? Going to be a cool van when finished. Alot of different ideas going on there. This is going to be a fun thread to watch

I have to be careful on how far I set the engine back. I think I can get away with close to 16" as long as I run with the short 350TH. The gear ratio and trying to go with larger dia. tires I think will let me be okay without the Overdrive at Hwy speeds. I really need to get the Booster and MC rigged up to set the final dimensions. I already priced out having a Rad built, 24x30 comes in around 420$. The wallet is thin this year so it's going to take some time. I did pick up a NOS old school Crane cam the other day tho for free. A buddy had a stack of cams I sorted thru , it's an old Powermax grind 216@.05/ .515 lift. Should be good for the RPM range Im aiming at.

Hey Joe, I got the welding done, haven't made the shaft yet.

Wow Thanks !! Better than stock ! I was wondering about the stressproof shafting , I havent had time to get anywhere near Elanbaas Steel, can you get that okay or should I pick some up??

Opened up some sore spots today.





Im thinking Im going to find more bondo than I had hoped on this, it was pretty thick on the rollpan. See what the sandblaster finds when I get that far, There wasnt a lot of rust there, but they hadnt bothered working with dents very much . Windshield valance didnt suprise me any. Still have to pop the spot welds there.