Barn find 69 Jensen FF

[BKBridges]

Anything new on this? I think this is the coolest car on here. What would you sell it for do you think?

Why Thanks! I think its pretty cool too. We have done more to it in the past month! We removed the rusty boot (hatch) from the rear and after doing some careful measurements decided to try to fit a very nice rust free boot from my parts car (73 Jensen Interceptor III) on it. Despite all of the naysaying from the gallery the boot fit perfectly! Hand made or not, I think the glass was the driving force for the boot sizing and it was dead on! Whats left you may ask... We need to re-assemble the interior and get the tach working properly, Put the front suspension back together and align it, put some tires on it and see how it does on the open road. Once that's done, Its either sell it or get it ready to paint. We are interested in selling it as both Tim and I have extreme project overload. Due to the nature of the car and us being custodians of the marque in a small part the price will be realistic but not cheap. PM me! I attached a couple of pics of one of my other Jensen Projects: Getting Bob's car (74 Interceptor III) back on the road after his big engine fire 8 years ago. Bob is 83 years old and one of the few original owners still with original car, hence the decision to rebuild it. The project stalled about 2 years ago when Bob's ( and my) friend and super mechanic Dr. Dave Crowne passed on. I decided to volunteer when I can to help finish the car off. Bob and Dave and I got it off to the paint shop 7 years ago, and the motor off to the rebuilder. Both paint and motor look/work great. Dave and Bob got the motor in and sort of hooked up before things went south health wise. I stepped back in the project to start putting the interior back together (heating and AC system first, dash and wiring second) and hang the doors. The used and badly modified wiring harnesses Bob scrounged turned out to be the real stumbling point of the project (for me) until I realized I needed to suspect every electrical part in the car...(burnt switch grease, missing terminals, burnt off and missing wires from the cobbed harness). Its almost ready to button up as Ive finally got all of the lighting and etc working properly after digging deeply into my personal spares collection. One more weekend and it will be ready for its brake and light inspection (I hope)...Pics below not for the faint of heart wiring wise...

[DanStokes]

Nice job - and a tough one, too. Looks like someone's granny was knitting a sweater out of that wiring.

Dan

[BKBridges]

Nice job - and a tough one, too. Looks like someone's granny was knitting a sweater out of that wiring.

Dan

Dan,
Thanks! For a long while that's all I thought the wiring harness was good for... The previous owner of the harness/s is now the head of a large aerospace company. It was interesting to see how he "modified" the harnesses to bypass things that should have been fixed properly (Im gritting my teeth typing that) We would have been way ahead by purchasing new harnesses (They are available but kind of $$$). No wonder new planes have electrical problems if this is their leaders idea of repair. Bobs car fire cooked everything back to the drivers seat so most of the orig harnessing was destroyed (along with all the aluminum parts). Bobs car will be quite the looker when we are finished, but I wish I could have gotten more volunteers to help it along as Bob isn't getting any younger waiting. Below find a pic of Bob's car and Bob!

[TheSilverBuick]

Looks like I wired that car

[Scott Liggett]

Looks like I wired that car

Take that as a warning. Don't let Randal near your car with wire crimpers.

[TheSilverBuick]

Wire crimper's are for the pro's, I use channel locks!! Ask DG or Bob Holmes

[DanStokes]

I actually PREFER Vice Grips. Even when I had access to the grooviest crimpers on the planet I used Vice Grips. When I chimp a connector it STAYS crimped! Vise grips multiply your hand force beyond anything a crimper can deliver. And I always use shrink wrap over the crimp, too.

Dan

[BKBridges]

I finally got another day to work on the FF last week. We had temporarily replaced the coil over set-up on the drivers side with some steel tubing to allow us to move the car around the shop. Not very compliant. We hadn't dug into the right hand side yet, so we started there...one of the shocks looked kind of bent... hoping its not completely broken as that would make removal a bear, just like the left side... ~~ this is what the FF looks like without the shocks and a arm. while the front shock was bent, it wasn't broken, whew...~~ so we took them apart with my home made FF spring compressor. The bent shock was hammered and had no damping left. the other unit was in great shape! We cleaned everything up and painted the good shock with "Armstrong blue metallic" and put it back on along with one of the new shocks. Each side of the car now has a new unit and a tested good old unit in place.~~~~] We also cleaned up the upper A arm and lo and behold we discovered a huge deposit of Unobtainium! ~~ A silicon bronze upper ball joint/a arm component... luckily both the ball joint and the boot were in good shape, so we greased them up and put the a arm back on with new bushings made from 98 Dodge Dakota rear spring bushings cut down in length. A perfect fit. As we were working on the right hand side I couldnt resist using the wire brush on some shady looking metal on the front valance... P!ss poor previous repairs raised their ugly head as well as more corrosion... Another day with the tin snips and welder appear to be in order ~~ the associated debris ~~ I leave it with a pile of debris as usual.

[Shelty]

dual front coilovers? thats a pretty wild front suspension setup.

[milner351]

These cars appear to define "out of the box" thinking for the time... thanks for taking us along on this project with pictures, these cars require a giant pile of patience.

[BKBridges]

This may sound a bit twisted, but I really enjoy working on the FF. I wish I had more time to do more on a regular basis. I cant really put my finger on why its always a good time working on it, even when you stumble on a pile of serious corrosion, but it is. I feel lucky. Its not like doing a timing belt on a PT cruiser, that's for sure!

[BKBridges]

I think Ive convinced Tim to start working on the FF again, so I thought Id post a couple of pics of another FF project (not mine!) that is looking kind of interesting. Not sure if the Ferguson Formula transfer case can hold up to the blower's torque potential...nice, rust free steel body...

[BKBridges]

Back to the FF...
As the Holiday season approached I decided to start on the FF cosmetic restoration. The walnut burl veneer dash panel had seen better days, and I can do the "wood" work indoors in my spare time between eggnogs. Heres the pictorial (above):

[DanStokes]

Good to see the Jensen coming along. The walnut looks great!

Dan

[CTX-SLPR]

Where did you get the veneer? I need to do the same to the interior of my Riviera.