I attend several classic car shows where I live but meet up with other S Type Jaguar owners very rarely as the S type is quiet a rare car in the UK now. Normally if there is another S Type they are parked in a different part of the show not side by side. At a classic car meeting last July I meet up with a friend of mine who has a 1968 S type Jaguar in the same colour, Old English white. We are members of different car clubs, living in different parts of Devon and never get a chance to park up beside each other but on this occasion at the end of the show I drove my car over and parked up beside him so we could get some photos of the cars side by side. It was whilst the two cars were side by side that I noticed that the front and rear bumper over riders on our cars were different. Mike's car is an original unrestored 1968 S Type so it was interesting to see this difference. At first I thought it might be a change of design between the years of the cars 1967 to 1968 but looking at other S Type photos I have this is not the case. On close examination I could see that the shape of the over riders were different front to rear and it appeared when I assembled the bumpers I had put the rear over riders on the front bumper and the front over riders on the rear. (Silly me) I put this simple exchange down on my winter job list, took some photos and thought no more about it.
Over Christmas whilst pottering through my winter job list I thought I would tick this one off so got the car up on the ramp and removed the two bolts holding the rear over rider in place and took it to the front to compare it. Low and behold the profile was different as I had thought and the rear over rider was supposed to go on the front as it was more upright and perpendicular to the front of the car. So I removed one of the front over riders with the intention of just swapping them over to discover that the front over rider is only held on with one bolt. Obviously I had put the over riders on correctly in 2015 when I assembled them as the rear does have two bolts to the fronts one which correspond to the holes in the actual bumpers.
Looking at the two over riders it appears that the mounting brackets inside the over riders have been welded in to the wrong shells making the rear over rider shell only mountable to the front bumper and vice verse with the front over rider shell.
I have attached some photos showing the difference between the original chrome bumper shape and stainless steel bumper. It is subtle and only obvious when the two cars are side by side.
In this photo of the front bumpers, my car is closest to the camera and you can see the over riders on the original bumper are upright to the front of the car where as the stainless steel over rider in the foreground is leaning backwards in its profile.
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- IMG_7440 (2).JPG (788.73 KiB) Viewed 2424 times
Today I had an email from them and they agree it was their mistake and they will supply me with a correct set of over riders but there is a small problem. I supplied them with a complete set of front and rear bumpers back in 2014 which they could copy. This was a front bumper with two over riders and a rear bumper with two over riders. Although they have kept the actual bumpers as formers they have only kept one over rider which is for the front bumper and it is from this that they make all their over riders.
In order to correct their mistake I need to supply them with a front and rear over rider that they can copy again. I have a spare front over rider but need a single rear over rider which is straight and has the two mounts welded inside for the two bolt fittings. Getting old over riders off is a nightmare as the bolts rust in place but it would not be a problem if the heads of the bolts were cut off or snapped whilst removing as long as the over ride is straight.
Does anyone have a spare rear over rider lying around or an old rear bumper with over riders attached and can cut one out for me please.
