This happened to my son Matt a few days ago when the temps were way below freezing... Matt gets a ride to college from friend Ricky. Around 2;30 classes get closed early due to snow, transit service stops within the hour, people are in a hurry to get off the mountain where the campus is. M&R get back to Ricky's car but locks are frozen. Tried heating up the key by warming with palm of hand, no joy. Tried warming door lock with lighter, no joy either. Found somebody with lock de-icer, tred that, no joy. Tried a ballpoint pen which breaks, that they manage to remove from lock, but no joy. I guess they missed that day in college where they were taught that pens don't unlock cars. Managed to get some boiling water - a ride from another friend and some convoluted story about getting a kettle going. Boiling water didnt do the trick. Suddenly BCAA (AAA equivalent) is circling the parking lot. BCAA driver has a go and spends 10 minutes only to pronouce that they're hosed. The lock is siezed. They are now 90 minutes into the process, snow is accumulating, temperature is dropping, night is falling and transit has shutdown for the afternoon. Things are not looking good. Matt notices and exclaims, "hey thought you always lift your wiper blades up to prevent ice and snow from seizing them up when you park". Ricky replies "I do". Wiper blades are glued to the windshield with ice and snow. Ricky's looking down on the ground rather dejected and says "These don't look like my new rims, somebody swapped my rims?!?!?". Then another thought, "hey wait a minute, this isn't my car, there's my car, 10 stalls over!!!!" "What the...?!?!" Good thing nobody got arrested for attempted B&E That was the funniest thing I've heard in a looonnnnggg time. Had to share (don't tell Matt and Ricky though) :lol:
I confess I have a college parking story as well... I was late for class, as usual, circling the lot, over and over again. It's worse than the mall on Black Friday. Round and round I go and absolutely nothing. Class has already started so whomever left from the previous classes their spots are already taken. Then I see it, a orange and black "No Parking" sawhorse stand that doesn't belong. I say that because from my perspective how could it belong. There's no construction, sinkhole, fire hydrant or any other reason for it. What's more its the only potential spot I can find. So I did what any other normal college student would do, I moved the "No Parking" somewhere else... Later that afternoon when I returned to my car, the two cars that were sandwitched between where I'd moved the "No Parking" to, each had campus parking tickets on their windshields for parking too close to a no parking spot. If that was you at UBC many, many years ago. I'm sorry.
I thought it came standard with each build. I only mention it because it is always on when we go for a romp, even with the top up. A couple of un-suspected owner's manuals might help locate the function: Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Repair and Blue Highways.
Even tho it's a wonderful book full of lots of insight, I never thought of "Blue Highways " as smile inducing.....definitely road trip inducing tho - that's for sure! Might I suggest "Side Glances" instead? Or any of P.J. O'Rourke's writings......
It's not so much a get your grin on book as much as a where to go to find the grins. You sure won't find many on the 4 lane ribbons of despair though just runnin' loose on the world in a MINI is reward enough. (New resources duly noted, thanks). Hope you enjoy and take good care of your XK-E. I had a '64 BRG roadster that I just loved but had to let it go with a blown head gasket I couldn't afford at the time.
I've had my E-Type for 21 years now (! .... Man, time flys!) so it's pretty well sorted tho it doesn't get a lot of road time these days. Go here for the sordid details......http://www.cardomain.com/ride/505677/1969-jaguar-xke
WOW!! You gots more guts than I don't know what to tackle that job and what a result. I envy you every minute you spent and are now enjoying. I sure wouldn't make that a daily driver but there are some great 'just what that car was built for' alphabet soup back roads in MO. to explore. (a whole bunch of that l'il blue thumbs up guy)
There are lots of very fun roads in Missouri, of course they're about an hour's drive or more from where I live in Kansas..... The other problem with living here in the middle of the country is weather. I was living in Sandy Eggo when I did the work, and built the car with that area in mind. Here we have snow, rain, hail and heat and humidity - none of which are very much fun to drive an old Jag in - especially a black/black one in the heat of summer! So it doesn't accumulate a lot of miles yearly here...