1961 Jaguar E-Type FHC #43 – Rear Hatch Drip Channel

If you look closely at the photos, you can see that based on what is going on in the background, this E-Type has been underway for a while now… There are alot of reasons for that – it’s been busy here, but one reason for this is thatthe next step was to repair the rear hatch drip channel – WITHOUT screwing up the roof panel, and that was a daunting task…

Finally, I mustered the courage and dove in.  It turned out very well – just the way I had hoped, so I guess the big surprise was that it was not as hard as I feared.  Now that this is completed, the rest of the project will start moving along at a VERY rapid pace!

This is probably a good place to talk about the body shell of this early coupe a bit – it is COMPLETELY different than the later cars.  It looks the same from 5 feet away, and basically is the same, but you cannot cut a section out of this coupe shell and weld it into a later one – they were made with completely different tooling and methods.

The later coupes have the roof and entire area surrounding the rear hatch stamped as one giant piece.  There are NO SEAMS whatsoever in and around the rear hatch drip channel – it’s really an amazing pressing!  The later cars then have the rear wings attached on the sides with a long welded seam that is hammered and finished on the top with a sanding disc to a very high standard, and finally, a short curved overlapped flange that is spot-welded and leaded over directly behind the rear 1/4 window.

The early coupes, on the other hand, are made out of MANY pieces back here.  Instead of the roof and rear hatch surround being one giant panel all the way down to the rear bumper, that assembly is 4 pieces – the roof, side pieces, and rear lower tonneau panel, with spot-welded and leaded seams radiating out from all 4 corners of the rear hatch opening.  These pices simply fold inward toward the rear hatch, and the actual drip channel around the hatch is a series of seperate pieces that are spot-welded to the folded over edge on the outer skin pieces.  This is basically the same design as an OTS – with the 4 welded and leaded seams in the 4 corners of the boot lid, and the drip channel being seperate pieces.

Other internal features of the entire upper structure of the shell are different as well – although again, similar in design to the later coupe shells.  What is interesting is that all of these panels are riveted into place with pop rivets first, and then welded in after they are assembled with the rivets.

Finally, because of this, most fittings in the upper half of an early coupe are specific to those cars.  The rear 1/4-window frames, glass, and pivot mechanisms are different.  The interior cantrail trim pieces are different.  The hatch itself is different, with different hinges and hinge mounts.  So if you buy an early coupe, you better make sure ALL of these fittings are present, because if they are missing, you are in BIG trouble!  (By the way, I do have an excellent rear hatch for these early FHC shells if you need one…)

I have read in the books that there were alot of issues with the early coupe body shells, and that is why they made so may roadsters versus coupes in 1961.  For example, there are over 300 LHD outside-bonnet-lock OTS E-Types, but only 19 LHD FHC’s – that’s how many of each model had been made by the day they switched to inside locks – that’s almost TWENTY TIMES as many cars!  Well, when you look at all of the separate panels, rivets, and leading of an early coupe shell, you start to understand why…