New Sheet metal

When I first purchased the car I had a concern about getting replacement parts, and especially new sheet metal. I found an article on the original JANE site and contacted Adam Owens. I attended a meeting and joined JANE immediately. The amount of knowledge sitting in the back room of Skip's that night was incredible. I would never duplicate it on my own. If your reading this and intend on doing a ground up restoration on a Jaguar, join your local club now! Through the club and on the web I found several vendors where one can purchase brand parts and sheet metal for all Jaguars. The original sheet metal stamps were bought from Jaguar by a company in England, and there stamping out, or reproducing most any part you'll need. I actually found the front floor sections on an e-bay auction. The seller had bought a second set by accident, and the price was well below market. Most of the parts I needed came from SNG Barratt in Manchester NH, with a few from Terry's Jaguar Parts, Benton, Il. The fit on all parts was exceptional. I've replaced a few floors in my time and this was the easiest as far as fit up is concerned. This picture shows the front, back floors , gearbox surround, inner sill (rocker), and firewall tacked in on the drivers side. I also fabricated several pieces on the gearbox tunnel. Because I left in the floor on the passenger side I was able to use it as guide to tack up everything on the drivers side. These shots show the firewall from the front , the outer sill , and the floor looking forward and back . I decided to leave off the outer sill (rocker) until I do a fit up with the hood. This way I'll make sure the lines between the panels look correct before I weld the sill up. I had to trim a few of the sill support pieces to acquire a good fit, but all in all the job moved along smoothly.

The passenger side floors and sills went in just like the others. The below pictures shown the old sheet metal I removed l from the car . As you can see the New England weather and rust had reduced then considerably. Again I used my trusty saw-all to hack out the old metal. All the major pieces went in fairly easily and again I fabricated some of the smaller replacement parts. I found the best way of doing this is to create a template with poster board first, and after you have the desired shape completed, transfer them to sheet metal. I bought a small bench mounted metal brake that will bend smaller pieces quite nicely. As with the drivers side, I started with the inner sill, front floor section and firewall . You can clearly see the brace I welded in place to maintain the correct door opining. After I installed the rear floor section and before I welded the floors up solid, I installed a new floor brace. This is the piece the goes from side to side, right in front of the seats . Since I have every intention of rallying the car when its completed I decided to use a piece of 1 1/2 square box section for extra lateral support. I used several clamps to hold the piece in place correctly before I tacked it up. After it was tacked in completed, and all fabricated pieces were in place I welded everything up solid. This is a shot from the rear hatch looking forward at the completed front floors and cross brace .