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1976 Daimler Sovereign - £1500


RobT

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I don't think that there's a bad camera angle on those. It looks wonderful- especially for the money. It's probably only going to be a couple of hundred to paint the roof properly ( i can recommend a place in chobham, Surrey, if that's any use). Vinyl could be more, but a lot quicker to do.

 

I love the velour interior too- very Daimler. I do agree that blue would have been better, but you can always spend your weekends doing weddings for £400 a throw.

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I look forward to seeing if you can slowly refurb the ol' girl without ending up bankrupt. I know it'd be financial ruin if I'd taken this brave step! All the best with it. They are superb and that price must be considered good value.

These may be famous last words, but unless the engine is totally borked after a fortnight of use I'm not sure it will cost mega to keep going, bar the fuel costs. I took the rear bumper and RH fuel tank panel off this weekend, more of that later, and the nooks that I could peer in to seemed solid so the body shouldn't give me many headaches. Also, some parts seem oddly cheap, such as a windscreen rubber for 30 quid and brake pads for 12. This will be a rolling resto on a budget, so for a change I'm going to try and do most stuff myself.

 

The Rover 75 frightened me more than this does as i couldn't do F all to it, and stuff was expensive like 50 quid for 6 fuggin' kryptonite tipped spark plugs and 80 for a thermostat housing. Bollocks to that, no more moderns for me!

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The Rover 75 frightened me more than this does as i couldn't do F all to it, and stuff was expensive like 50 quid for 6 fuggin' kryptonite tipped spark plugs and 80 for a thermostat housing. Bollocks to that, no more moderns for me!

That's why I got rid of my Citroen c5- the €900'for a fuel pump at 75k was a bill too far.

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Prompted by my idiocy, the RH fuel tank started working again but now I know why the seller said leave it alone as it leaks. So last night I took the bumper and tank panel off and drained it overnight, moleclipping the pipe. It had been drawing fuel in from the other tank for some reason.

 

So this morning it was like this.

 

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After a trip to Halfords for fuel pipes where I also bought a fire extinguisher, just in case, the plan was to isolate the knackered tank by disconnecting the fuel pump and blanking it off.

 

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The metal pipe in the middle and three point join thing were removed, fuel pissing everywhere despite the clips, and new pipe in place by-passing tank 2 which I blanked off by shoving a bolt in the end. The LH working fuel pump was also weeping a bit from the gasket, so I tightened up the screws which seems the have helped.

 

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A few squirts of Waxoyl whilst the panel was off (those aerosol ones are a bit shit with their 2 inch long probe, 2/10 Mr Oyl) and ready to put the bumper back on, which was a PITA as 'er indoors was having an afternoon nap so had to do it solo. Use of chair helped a lot.

 

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I know it doesn't look like a massive task, but I spent 5 hours on all that, taking my time not to break anything or set fire to myself. So I now have an intimate knowledge of the fuel pump and tank set up in these. Next potential ballache is to check the brakes out, although they seem to work OK at the moment so went for a tool about locally and all seems good on the fuel tank front. SWMBO had a drive too and she loves it!

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Good excuse for a trip down to yours then Matthew!

 

I'll probably leave the roof as is for now, but some of the original blue is showing on the boot floor. Looks a lovely colour and I remember having the Corgi toy in squadron blue as a kid. Never did I think I'll be owning one for real, I still can't believe it in a way. It's like that 60s class sketch with John Cleese and the Two Ronnies, with me 'knowing my place' in the pecking order.

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Bloody lovely, well done!

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Here's one I prepared earlier.... mine in 2002-3.  Squadron Blue LWB Daimler.  I loved it.  That lovely peculiar hollow clang when you start up; the fact I could fling it about like a rally Escort; the big comfy leather seats; mind you, 14 mpg (on a good day) was a bit of a shock after my 7 litre Cadillac!

You should definitely go for a vinyl roof, preferably blue, and raised-digit plates in white and yellow.  It'll look a treat (not that it doesn't already.  Top buy, I approve.

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Cool. Apologies for the concern. After all, I risk life and limb with hydraulic Citroens. If the general knowledge* is to be believed, they go wrong all of the time.

Your concern may end up being valid Ian, I'm still in the honeymoon period at the moment where everything is great, even leaking fuel tanks and dodgy brakes. The tappety noise bothers me a bit, seems a bit too audible despite The Internet saying they tend to do that. I'll take it to my old school mechanic bloke to get his opinion, and read his face carefully when I fire it up...

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  • 4 months later...

Seeing Breddie's Sovvo collection capers has got me thinking about mine again. I'm dying to get it fixed up, but my total inability to save money these days has prevented me from doing so. That problem is now solved though as I got a new credit card through the post this week!

 

The main issues are lack of rear brakes and a sticky front caliper, an exhaust that is held together by copious amounts of gun gum, one steering gaiter is split, and it needs a few bushes replaced. There's also a few oil leaks but I can live with those for the timebeing. Rather than follow my usual bangernomics principles of minimal spend, I've already sourced four new calipers and discs all round as I just want that aspect sorted so I don't have to worry about it for a while. Mild steel downpipe and intermediate exhaust sections have been sourced, the latter being a pain in the arse which I bought from ebay Germany in the end. UK suppliers would only do stainless sections, so sod that considering how much they were.

 

There's plenty of other issues such as a leaky windscreen rubber, no heater, AED blanked off so manual choke conversion required, one fuel tank out of commission and so on. But that can all be dealt with later, I'm just after an MoT pass seeing as it's due in April.

 

Plan is to get all the work done in March, then hope it sails through the MoT.

 

Here it was last year at a Brooklands autumn gathering next to some massive yank.

 

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Once sorted, it's available for Autoshite weddings! Your marital bliss is our concern.

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beautiful, my old one many moons ago shat the core plugs out on the motorway one time, blowing the 4.2 engine up, and I had a 3.4 fitted for the princely sum of four hundred squids - not much difference in performance really, and went well :-D

 

It was a source of many mechanical repairs mind you, just about everything that could go wrong over a couple of years did do - and that was about 25 years ago - good luck with yours now :shock:

 

I would have another in a heartbeat having said all that, the front end used to properly rear up under acceleration, unbeatable fun 8)

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beautiful, my old one many moons ago shat the core plugs out on the motorway one time, blowing the 4.2 engine up, and I had a 3.4 fitted for the princely sum of four hundred squids - not much difference in performance really, and went well :-D

 

It was a source of many mechanical repairs mind you, just about everything that could go wrong over a couple of years did do - and that was about 25 years ago - good luck with yours now :shock:

 

I would have another in a heartbeat having said all that, the front end used to properly rear up under acceleration, unbeatable fun 8)

 

 

Do you prefer the Series Jags to the XJ40, having had a number of both?

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Do you prefer the Series Jags to the XJ40, having had a number of both?

 

My heart says series, and my head says '40, due to the excellent reliabilty, especially as a daily driver :-D

 

If I was rolling in dosh, then I'd have another series Jag/Daimler, but I'm not, so probably my next Jag will be an S type, continuing my tradition of buying the unfashionable offerings whilst the prices are rock bottom :-P

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  • 4 weeks later...

My V888 request on this came through the post yesterday, with some fairly interesting reading.

 

First registered to Mann Egerton Ltd in Colchester and six months later to John Hammond Mann, so I assume it was a senior management car then taken on by the eponymous boss as his own motor.

 

It actually started life as NTW 565P but then had a private plate for three years in the eighties, and became OKL 964P in 1986.  Apart from a couple of years in Swindon, all previous owners have been in Essex and then Kent.  For the first 16 years no one kept it longer than 3 years, and has had 13 owners in total.  No peers of the realm or knighted bods alas, although a few of the PO names sound quite posh as you’d expect.

 

Despite what I thought, it was originally Old English White rather than Squadron Blue – it was changed to blue in 1988.  The guy who bought it in 1992 (for £200!) then restored it and changed it back to white in 1993, plus changing the engine from a 3.4 to 4.2 in 1995.  He owned it the longest of all the previous POs, from 1992 to 2004, so I’d be interested to know what he got up to with it , such as wedding work or whatever.  I should have twigged the colour thing from this 90s resto pic, as you can see the original white here in the light cluster surround.

 

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I’m wondering whether to contact the chap who restored it, as from a previous search I found he still lives in the same Kent village that he did 20 odd years ago.  Electoral records show him in the 55-59 age band which also fits with my assumption about him i.e. bloke in his 30s, finally has a bit of disposable income so fancies a project.  Worst case he just ignores a letter, but personally it’d give me a warm feeling knowing a car I restored is still knocking about.  He didn't do a great job at putting the interior and front screen back in, but the bodywork repairs have stood up well.

 

On a practical level, the bugger still isn’t starting (even after applications of Start Yer Bastard! last week) so I need to check for a spark as it cranks but there’s no feeling it’s about to take.

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These are such good-looking cars and properly classy, with all the XJ6 shenanigans on here lately we'll have to get a Jag meetup going!

 

Got to be worth a letter to the previous owner, if he had it 12 years and did all that work on it he must have liked it a fair bit.  Hope you get it going soon, nothing to do with the choke is it?  Your previous update says the AED is blanked off but it still needs a manual conversion so is it running without a choke at the moment?

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Not sure what it is Phil, as even with the AED blanked off it used to start up fine.  Maybe it just doesn't like the cold weather!

 

I will get a manual choke conversion same as Breddievan's, once I've got the myriad other bits fixed in what is soon to become Project Overspend...

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Great detective work! What was the private plate it had on for a while? The V888 is a good thing to do on any old motor, Interesting to see what lives it's lived and for ££ OMG celeb history there's always the possibility that Cliff Thorburn was a previous owner or whatever. Deffo write to that PO, the longer term ones usually have a story to tell.

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