Engineering with creative input

Dear Jaguar lovers let me share with you today, a man’s working story; whose work really stirred up my curiosity, therefore in past days I really tried to know much more about his work for Jaguar. Unfortunately, today not so many people know his name, and this regrettable thing also motivated me to write about this Jaguar personality. So I collected as much information as I could, and now sharing it with you, hoping sincerely you’ll all enjoy. 

His name was ‘Gerry beddoes’ and he worked in Jaguar’s engineering department for 25 years and also being involved with the marque’s 9.25-litre V8 engine, C-Type, D-Type Jaguar projects, and a new V12 design of his time. Well, having been asked by Claude Baily, Gerry beddoes decided to join him for working with the contract that Jaguar had acquired to design and develop a 9.25-litre V8 engine for military purposes. He joined two others in the engine design office who were preparing schematic drawing and beginning detailing — Bill Hayward, who was section leader and Alec Forbes.

He began work and, in the following months, he completed the crank design before going to calculate all other aspects of the engine such as bearing loads, camshaft drive gears, connecting rod sections and valve gear, and also to make some of the detail drawings.

For its time to the engine was very advanced, with four valves per cylinder, twin overhead camshaft in each cylinder head driven by gears, an enclosed ignition system to permit immersion, and drives for an alternator, hydraulic pump and power take off. The original version had a carburetor but later engines ran with fuel injection. Power output was targeted at 375bhp at 3,750rpm but both of these figures exceeded as development progressed.

Components for around seven engines were machined, and testing was carried on the Courthouse Green test beds in Birmingham as well as at Chobham. My calculation reports were addressed to Claude Baily and copied to Bill Heynes and to FVRDE Chobham. Regular meetings were held with the Chobham engineers, Mr. Tafft and Mr. Semmonds. Unfortunately, and despite all the work, a full Government order never materialized and the engine was not put into production.

C-type times

In early August 1952, just before the midsummer holidays, Bill Heynes approached Gerry beddoes and few more in the drawing office and asked whether anyone could stay at work to draw up a modified rear suspension for the C-type competition car. He volunteered, as he had no committed plans for the break. 

As originally designed the rear suspension had two blade-type lower links connected to the transverse torsion bar and a single triangular upper link which was offset to the right hand side of the differential and inclined downwards toward the front of the car. When accelerating hard, this link was under tension due to torque reaction from the axle and opposed the engine torque applied by the propeller shaft. Wheel loading were kept the same and wheel spin minimized.

This was effective in its objectives as he had witnessed in acceleration tests at MIRA, but provided poor lateral location when cornering, giving uncertain handling. 

His task was to design, detail and see fitted an upper link for braking and acceleration loads and a Panhard rod for lateral location. This was completed and it was the car driven by Tony Rolt to victory ahead of Moss at GoodWood in September 1952 that appears to have been the first win recorded with the new Panhard rod suspension.  

Gerry Beddoes played a part in Jaguar's winning of the 1953 Le Mans through his work.

The light alloy car

While design work for the Ministry engine was going on he became involved with a project for a successor to the C-type, known within the drawing office as the ‘light alloy car’. He was to calculate stresses and determine sizes for suspension components and torsion bars. This brought him in close contact with Malcolm Sayer who was preparing layout drawings. It fell to him to prepare weight estimates so that cornering and braking loads could be determined and he followed on by completing detail drawings for many of the components.

The 'Light alloy car' of 1953

During construction he got to know Phil Weaver and all the racing shop mechanics well. The layout was very similar to the later D-type and, like the first D-types, was constructed from a 4% magnesium/aluminum alloy. Norman Dewis drove the car for road development, most of which was carried out away from public gaze at Gaydon airfield, then non-operational but later to become a V-Bomber base (and later still a Rover and now Land Rover Engineering centre).

During one of his tests Norman had a front wheel hub seize up at high speed, which must have been a memorable experience to say the least. The car was brought back apparently undamaged and he (Gerry beddoes) was very interested to see whether his wishbone designs had survived. They had, but the mounting bracket for the rear bearing of the offside upper suspension arm had a crack about half an inch long. 

There was much discussion over the relative merits of various remedies such as running a bead of weld along the crack but in the end all that was done was to drill a small hole at the end of the crack and for testing to carry on.   

V12 engine based on two 2.4 cylinder heads

Another of his tasks in 1953 was to make preliminary studies for a V12 engine, based on two 2.4 cylinder heads. The crankshaft stiffness was a concern, but it was felt that with a short stroke design giving good overlap of main bearing and crankpin journals a satisfactory engine could be built. He went on to make a quarter size drawing of the engine and gearbox for use in styling sketches for a large saloon car.

D-type development

Following his work on the ‘light alloy car’ he worked with Malcolm Sayer on the D-type, making weight estimates and carrying out stress calculations for the suspension members. One feature that gave him some thought was attachment of the front torsion bar to the lower wishbone where, instead of a bulky attachment in the line with the rubber bearing, the torsion bar was splined directly in an extension of the wishbone. This meant that as the wishbone moved the end of the highly stressed torsion bar was displaced, adding bending to torsional stress.

He concluded that the clearance around the splined end of the bar would permit a degree of movement and no excessive stress would result. This was born out in vehicle use and, later on, in E-type which had basically the same front suspension. 

One of the very first D-types (XKC 401)

Four-valve cylinder head design

Another project that occupied him was a four-valve cylinder head design by Harry Weslake. This was unconventional in that instead of inlet and exhaust valves down opposite sides of the head, inlet and exhaust alternated down each side, with each pair of inlets diagonally opposite in each chamber. Weslake had made layout drawings only and it fell to him to complete detail drawings for a prototype. 

The inimitable Harry Weslake who had been a consultant to Jaguar from the early 1930s.

This necessitated several visits to his establishment in Rye, always an entertaining day out. Weslake’s knowledge of airflow in engines was huge, although they tried hard; they could never equal the power, achieved from the cylinder heads that Weslake had flatted.

The four-valve head design weakness is that the close spacing of valves imposed by the long stroke XK cylinder spacing meant that rocker arms instead of tappets had to be interposed between camshaft and valve. 

The geometry for these suffered badly from scuffing of the cam face. Several attempts were made to overcome this, including a deposit of Stellite and alternative lubricants, but only bench tests were made. Those indicated that, although low speed performance was good, the extremely rapid air swirl at high speed was not beneficial.