The Jaguar rear axle became a popular high-end T-Bucket option in the 1970s. Today, a properly installed and detailed or chromed Jaguar rear axle on a T-Bucket really makes it stand out from the crowd. Our California Custom Roadster T-Bucket Chassis Plans are very popular because they include detailed measurements and templates for installing a Jaguar rear axle in a T-Bucket.
Dave Melling‘s T-Bucket project car came with an early S-type Jaguar rear axle with a 55″ width that he felt too narrow and here’s how he replaced it with a 60.5″ wide Mk 10 Jaguar rear axle.
These photos show the Jaguar Mk 10 rear axle in the state in which it was purchased.
I bought it from a bloke in Basildon who had a load of old Jaguars he was breaking. He lifted the rear of the Jaguar up so that I could cut the axle free, but the Jag was so rusty that the axle just broke away!
This photo shows the axle removed from its cage.
This is the cage itself.
Next thing to do was to clean it up and try it for size on the car. When you remove a Jag rear end from its cage, you have to replace the lost strength with tie bars, torque straps, radius rods and a bottom plate. See later installments for full details.
You wouldn’t believe how heavy a Jag back axle is until you try to lift one. The central lump in the photo above weighs nearly as much as the Rover V8 engine that is being installed up front.
Here is the Mk 10 back axle from the previous photo after it has been de-greased and put back together again.
Cleaning it revealed a considerable amount of rust on the various components, which, in retrospect should have been the reason for finding another less rusty one; it took ages to get all of the pitting marks out when I tried to polish it at a later date!
The photo above shows the axle in place on the car, giving me the sort of width that I was after. I discovered for the first time the joys of trying to fit something that was too heavy to lift. Eventually, I lowered the car onto the back axle while it was resting on the ground, bolted the car onto it, then jacked-up the car and the axle together. At this point in time, I had only degreased the axle, I had not fitted any new bearings or seals, etc.
The photo below of the original Jag rear axle will show you the improvement in width and also hub carrier appearance that Dave achieved be replacing it with the Jag Mk 10 rear axle.
Stay tuned, because the next order of business is the beautification of that mechanical masterpiece of independent rear suspension.
TBucketPlans.com originated in 2005 as a personal blog extolling the virtues of T-Buckets. In 2009 I blogged about Chester Greenhalgh, the "how to" genius who wrote the legendary, out-of-print “How to Build a T-Bucket Roadster for Under $3000”. That led to a friendship with Chester and our partnership in marketing the updated eBook version of his T-Bucket building bible. The T-Bucket fire burns stronger and stronger.
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