If there's anything that detracts from the appearance of the later Series 3 E Types more than the Federally mandated overriders, I don't know what it would be.
I had read on the UK Jaguar site about how to replace them with new blades and overriders which is expensive and difficult to reverse. Then at the bottom of the link there was a brief reference to Kjell Eriksson's approach witch required minimal body work and was reversible however there wasn't much information. While it is pretty straight forward I thought it might be helpful to outline how I did it in case anyone else want's to give it a try. The overriders are available from the usuals and I purchased mine from SNG Barrett for ~$100 each. The only other thing you'll need is an angle grinder, a few spacers/washers, a bit of primer and some touch up paint.
This is what you'll find after you remove the rubber covers from the '73 style overriders, note that these directions do not apply to the '74 style with the 'nordel' style units. In the foreground you can see the bumper support after the 'hoop' has been removed, this will need to be trimmed off at the top and bottom to allow the new overrider to fit properly.
This is the inside of the new overriders, the flange will need to be cut off to allow them to sit square on the bumper mount.
This is the bumper mount after trimming, notice that the gusset on the outside had to be cut as well so that the overrider could fit up to the blade. Be sure and protect all the surfaces with cardboard and painters tape as the cutting generates a considerable amount of dust that is going to be very abrasive. Also notice that I've marked where I'm going to drill to make a threaded hole for the retaining bolt.
This is the mount after the cutting, I decided to prime and paint it even though it won't be visible, still it looks a bit more 'professional' IMO. I decided to use an additional bolt behind the overrider to give it some support in case I decide to tip the bonnet up on it at some point in the future. One really nice thing about the old overriders was that you could tip the bonnet up on them to remove the bonnet for servicing the engine, I'm hoping that having this support behind the new one will allow me tip the bonnet up on these too.
Here is the new overrider with the rubber on it, it is slightly gappy next to the blad but one could hide that with some of the bumper rubber strips that are used on the S1 cars between thier overriders and blades.
This shot shows how the overrider is mounted to the support, one bolt with a spacer behind it, I had some left over spacers from another project laying around but one could use a stack of washers if they had to.
This is the finished project, my wife likes it so it's a pass!
Cheers,
Lynn
