Stripping and rebuilding an XK engine

THE OWNER of an XK 150S has decided to have the bodywork resprayed, whichmakes a good opportunity to remove and strip the engine. It has only covered 22,000 miles since P&K Thornton Restorations last rebuilt it in 1993, and has been regularly serviced.

“Sometimes you have to suspend the engine by the cylinder head and leave it for a few hours before they will separate,” says Steve, one of P&K Thornton Restorations' technicians. That’s almost certainly going to be the case when stripping the engine from the company’s own barn-find XK 120, which we featured in June 2019, but we are hopeful that