3.4 head colours

[John Quilter]

And speaking of colours, when my shop overhauled my 3.8 engine last year they did paint the head the proper metallic blue but for some reason they painted the oil filter canister turquoise! I am virtually sure that it was black from new in 1965. Obviously not a critical issue but strange.

[Glyn Ruck]

The only 2 original colours I've ever seen the oil canister on a 3.8 S Type painted are Opalescent Silver (Mine is an example of many which I matched) and Opalescent Pale Green. Some of the older XK's were Opalescent Brown. These are not heavy metal flake like some modern paints. They have never been heavy Hammertone. Green seems to have been on earlier cars. Never seen black & never seen non Opalescent finish.The NOS canister is not as well painted as original Tecalemits.

Oil canister..JPG (146.66 KiB) Viewed 1803 times

oil canister NOS.JPG (48.62 KiB) Viewed 1803 times

Oil canister 1.JPG (36.31 KiB) Viewed 1803 times

[David Reilly]

P1B79909DN, built June 21. 1966, has the hammertone green shown in Glynn's last/bottom photo.
Cheers
David

[Glyn Ruck]

Thanks David. So some later cars also had Opalescent Green. I consider this to be Hammertone. A matter of terminology.

Hammertone1.JPG (78.85 KiB) Viewed 1779 times

[RollyTG]

The head on my car (1965) is unpainted. Could this indicate yet another part that is not original?

[cass3958]

Not necessarily. I read somewhere that Jaguar did not paint all their heads but it would be unusual for an S type not to be painted. The paint might have been flaking off and a previous owner might have removed it rather than repaint it.
The Engine number on the VIN plate should match up with the number on the head. On most heads it can be found at the front of the head between the last plug hole and the valley between the two chain covers I think.