Leaderboard

Wee test ride conpleteed on the ST. Headlight flickers like fuck, it’s astonishingly loud, like wear earplugs, feels sketchy as fuck to ride and I think the skinny 14” rear tyre will be ripped to shreds by the end of the ride. im ready for east cape

Picked up ammo tin from bunnings this arvo for some ADV bike pannier stz. Will figure out how to bolt it on the side over the weekend along with mount my light bar. Fits a 2T oil bottle perfectly with plenty of room for spare tubes plugs and a few tools, thinking of hiding a USB charging port in it too for the phone/bluetooth speaker 15 tooth sprocket is on and hopefully its not raining tomorrow so I can go for a top speed run.

That would be 300% more fun than parking in a carpark and looking at mustangs

Take them in to CDL’s work and they will tell you everything you need to know. They probably have some NOS pistons tucked up on the top shelf of the smoko room.

looooong overdue update. got the old girl all legal in August a week before going away on holiday last month. so with the steering joint done i did some of the other failed items which was the brake pedal rubber being worn on the edge so new one of those got put on and rear shock bottom thread bent. so out came a socket and hammer and job done and they also failed all of the rear spring bushes incl the rubber spring pads so replaced the rear shackle ones as had them in stock already but as you can see the bushes are more perished than worn due to the Arizona heat and the spring pads and front bushes on the rear springs i pulled out and showed the compliance inspector that they are cracked from age and Arizona heat. so politely showed him and told him that he doesn't really know what hes doing. Not bloody worn and as you can expect i was not impressed being a mechanic myself and them inspecting the car twice before. so lubed the bushes and spring pads and put them back in. and that fixed the rear end squeak too! took the car back and got the wof label on the window. then took a old girl home after a bit of a drive and made a floor bung and placed the carpet and other trims back in.

Drive belt arrived. I worked out the length using some 7th form mathematics I kind of remember. I then had to order the closest thing to it size wise. Problem is my maths was in between sizes available. So I went bigger. Logic been worst case it should still work versus not fitting at all. My remote oil filter is a bit close to the belt. But I have an easy solution for this. I'd like another 5mm of clearance to avoid potential issues.

Hi guys. It's been a while since last post. The car has been performing great and I'm still getting out an about in it, mostly on weekends. There's always something on at the local track every couple of months. I really wanted to get back onto the forum after growing somewhat tired of facebook and all the crap it can add to this hobby. Anyway... as far as developing the car. I have learned that gearbox ratios are very important. The W58 I have is quite low in first and second gear and a bit of a gap to third. Typical of road ratios. Well, a 600hp XR6T i've not been able to beat at roll racing finally fell behind me the last time out because I rolled on in 3rd instead of 2nd. 3rd has much longer legs and I didn't lose the speed changing from 2nd to third. So I looked into close ratio gear sets for the W58 and turns out they are available. At a cost of around $4500. Needless to say, the CR gearbox can wait. But gee it would make a difference. Also, the temptation to add more power has gotten the better of me. I have bought a used HKS GT2835R-56T , it's a Garrett GT3071R with a back cut rear wheel so it fits in the T25 exhaust housing. Compressor wheel will go from 47mm-60mm 62 trim, to 53.1mm-71mm 56 trim and more importantly the turbine, from 54mm-47mm 76 trim to 56mm-53mm 90 trim. I'm aiming to add around 30 or 40hp so 330~340hp at the wheels. My current GT2860RS is pretty much out of puff @ 300whp. At first I was going to fit a 67mm GTX billet wheel, effectively turning it into a GTX 2867R. It could probably make that extra power but nowhere near as efficiently as the GT2835R-56T. The larger turbine is where the benefits will come from. A larger set of Siemens Deka injectors will also be fitted. Jumping from 60lb (630cc) to 80lb (840cc) I took it to the drags a few months ago and it went 12.75 @ 113 mph (2sec 60ft) . Hoping with the new turbo and tune to crack into high 11's. If not I will just live with it because any more power will result in problems like gearbox failure, clutch failure, cracked block etc etc. So here's a pic of the car launching when I ran the 12 with 205 60 13 rear tyres. I was only able to achieve low 13's with 185 60 13 tyres, as soon as the 205's went on it was into the 12's. I might put in some 3.45 diff gears with the 185 tyres which would work out about the same as 205's and 3.9. Cheers

My Jag has finally been returned to me! The bill was very scary , because.... I ended up having to cover the funeral expenses of the mechanics who decided to try their luck in the next life. And then the rest of them went on trauma counselling / bereavement leave*, so the job took two months... I listened to the survivors tell their tale. Every nut and joint put up a fight and had to be soaked overnight, the whole rear subframe ended up coming out, and it was all because someone had apparently installed the handbrake pads upside down! This allowed the pads to move such that the backing plates were grinding away at the discs and starting to chip bits off. Jaguar changed the rear suspension for the last four years of XJS production, moving the rear discs outboard. Can't think why. After having not exactly the kindest introduction to the costs of old British luxury grand tourer ownership, I've made myself a new t-shirt design out of owners manual images: Still, I can't say I didn't warn me. And now I have nice brakes, a new WOF and reg and my 'zorst volume is turned up! What does an AJ6 ('the other Jaguar engine') sound like with half its mufflers removed? Not as good as a garbage Rover straight six ironically, but stay tuned! * Not really. Nobody died. Geez.

I'm back, ...and I've got a Jaaaag. "He's bought a grandfather clock!" 1988 Jaguar XJ-S 3.6L six cylinder auto - not a V12 big cat, more of a house cat: Such car, much pussy cat.. but why? I bought my poor Alfa 33 as a budget daily driver 14+ years ago. This time I was buying more of a weekend toy, so I decided I should get a midlife crisis an old man's car a hopeless British Leyland anachronism a coupe with at least 6 cylinders and maybe even some market value. I considered the Z31 300zx, C4 Corvette, third gen Firebird / Camaro, BMW 635CSi.. and then I realised none of those are in my buyers guide, "Lemon! 60 Heroic Failures of Motoring" by Tony Davis. Where's the fun in that? With the XJ-S, I'm on my third Heroic Failure car in a row! Also, why wouldn't you buy one of these. DOHC 24 valve, all alloy fuel-injected motor, independent rear suspension with inboard disc brakes and a limited slip diff. it's basically a high performance weapon. It's so awesome that it needs six shock absorbers and six coil springs. It's got luxury covered too - climate control air conditioning, heated seats, heated electric mirrors, leather, wood, chrome, and a trip computer to impress your stockbroker mates. All this for similar $$ (today) to an old Ford Escort. Best of all, because it's only a 2-door 2+2, it's so compact that it fits in my garage very well... I don't have any good photos yet, but it's a stock '88 hardtop in Arctic Blue with the mesh alloys, blue leather seats and no rear spoiler. Impressions: A barge. Smells like an old car. The long bonnet look means the windscreen is in your face. The low roof means you sit on the floor with the seat reclined to get enough headroom. The exhaust is too quiet, so the soundtrack is mostly a bunch of mechanical whinings and grindings and miscellaneous grumbling and wheezing. Plans: Fix stuff, fix more stuff, fit soundz, work on making it better to drive and subtly hot it up enough that classic car snobs disapprove of me. Oh the fun I'll have. Discussion: https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/58671-thousand-dollar-supercars-1988-jaguar-xj-s-36/

Hi quick intro ( your intro post feature didn’t work) Rob here Current build project, bike engined hillman imp with yamaha xjr1300 engine in rear driven thru a quad diff. Pics will follow as soon as I get them from my ipad

You can halve the surface area straight off as 50 % of the bar area has the external cooling air passing through to the radiator. Then take a look inside at the amount of vane material which extends into the airflow, minus this off next. Then take off the bar (or tube) thickness (top, bottom, and side material each bar is made from) as this is another reduction of internal surface area. @Beaveris right though it will work, (so would a straight piece of pipe though) it just may not be optimised. Just to clarify I'm not trying to be negative - just trying to educate from my own experience.

Because Cletus reckons drum brakes are lame. I bought some VJ valiant disc brakes, different stud pattern (5x4.5 instead of the 5x4 the vehicle currently has) but hoping I can make Something work from them, got 4x callipers, 2 Aussie A body Disc brake spindles, upper an lower control arms, torsion bars and steering linkages. Really only wanted the spindles and 2 callipers, but for $350 (including shipping from Dunedin to Auckland) I couldn’t complain, once I’ve used what I need, I’ll stash the rest for a rainy day.

You can get new discs, I assume you have the single unit hub and disc setup? The disc surface of the new zinc plated cast iron ones is a bit rough, probably worse than your pitted OG items

for those wondering what became of the old Tranny.............. My brother bought it, and took it to Tauranga. He has fixed the brakes, and a few other bits and pieces, given it a good clean etc. and got it running and driving well. As I type it is now on its way to Avalon TV Studios in Wellington for its first job, starring in a NZ film about gang life in the 60's and 70's, as a Police van!

so i picked this thing up today for a good price, mostly for something to hoon around in over summer and have a little bit of fun. we will see where this goes. has a rebuilt engine, new crank, rod and piston. all pretty tidy but deff needs some cosmetic stuff sorting out and a good clean as its been sitting for awhile tonight i got it fired up and ran like a dream after i cleaned the fuel tank out. This is the only photo i have of it currently as i picked it up today. Main things it needs for summer hoons is: - new choke cable -dead mans leash -new hydro turf -main body seal and the gayest part of all, fired it up afew times tonight. went to start it just to make sure it was starting easy and running fine and the starter was just spinning... turns out these things have a super wack setup where the starter motor doesn't actually throw out, a gear on the crank does and i am thinking that that is sticky.. i pulled the starter off tonight and all the gears look a' okay so thats a plus. to get to this starter clutch gear i have to pull the engine which is a 10min task but mostly just annoying. Any help with parts etc would be awesome if people have them laying around. some pj's or westcoast ride plates and an exhaust would be cool

Got a WoF for the Starlet today, it went through without any hassles. After the WoF I hit up Butler Auto Mart and found they had a set of NOS headlight covers for slant front Starlets in stock. They'd been on the shelf for a pretty long time (4 years in the computerised stock system) and the cashier threatened to charge rent on them. They're stupid and ugly but I just had to have them. Who knows, they might even offer improved fuel economy from reduced drag - it's practically a Prius.

Finally got the car back from the panelbeater, am very happy with how it’s come out, still need to move one more wall in the garage so I can get the hoist installed, but I’m currently swamped by the multiples of jobs that need doing when you first move into a new house, also we have a 1978 Anglo caravan that we are making useable for the family Xmas holiday so hopefully I can find some time to do more work on this haha

So yeah. It was just manky old fuel. Lesson learnt there; drain you crabs and use fresh fuel if it's been sitting over winter. Also, testing for spark with dirty plugs can lead to false-positives. Thank for your help @aja540i

Here's what's inside a Jag electric mirror: I opened it because the mirror glass shook around too much to see anything while driving. On the left of the photo is the glass backing plate (complete with heating element because England), and on the right are the two motors. The 'fixed' central ball-and-socket pivot mount with the yellow arrow had in/out play for some reason. I put a washer down its socket hole to pack it out and take up the slack, and it's improved. Another even more important thing I needed to fix was the radio aerial. The original motorised one had failed (big surprise) and the previous owner had replaced it with a manual one. This made me die a little bit inside, especially as the aerial is out on the rear wing. One does not feel very wealthy pulling over and getting out of one's car to go and extend the aerial in view of passing commoners. I bought a new electric aerial (universal, not Lucas) and fitted it with much excitement. Antenna goes up, antenna goes down. Antenna goes up, antenna goes down. I feel like a yuppie. Antenna goes up.. ..and thankfully stops short of my very low garage door. Just need to find an adapter for the annoying coaxial connector on the Jaguar cable back to the head unit. Tomorrow the Jag is going away for a while to get those inboard rear brakes and their awful grinding noises sorted out. Expect some horror stories, but also expect some form of exhaust modifications to be done at the same time.

Next was to fix the soundz. I had my aging oonst oonst gear left over from my Rover stashed away and ready to go. I ripped out the Jag's existing head unit and got the door cards off. Check out the little rain hats on the factory speakers: Also notice how they're just mounted directly to the disintegrating door card. I'm not impressed. Here are the old and new speakers: They look about the same size but just like the Jag's imperial bolt sizes, the speaker hole spacing is just a little bit off. If you want to retain the original speaker grilles, you're in trouble because the new speakers have to sit on the bolts which are actually part of the grilles: I ended up slotting the mounting holes in the speakers even further and bending the mounting bolts. Then I had to cut the bolts down short cos they fouled the door metal once I'd splayed them outward. Because I was using component tweeters, I had to run extra wires between the door and the interior. I can report that the Jag is more thoroughly built than other cars I've owned, but no better designed. It was not easy to run these wires. Aaand when it was all back together, I discovered one of my tweeters was blown. Couldn't get identical replacements because obscure brand. Bought some Soundstream ones which are way too loud. I think there is a jumper on the crossover boxes to set the level of the tweeters, so I need to pull the door cards off again to check whether I can tone down the killer treble. Right now I can't be bothered. It's better than it was. Also, there's no room for my amplifier and subwoofer. The Jag's seats are so close to the floor that I don't even think a modern slim active sub would fit under there, so I'm living without a sub. =( While I was hunting around the car for spare space (there isn't any - every little cavity has mysterious relays just chilling in there already), I removed the false floor in the passenger footwell. A chill ran down my spine as I gazed upon the heart of Darkness: I quickly put the covers back, nailed them down and drove a stake into the floor. Next thing: Wheel balancing. Done. This car has actual Linglong brand tyres all round. =| Next: Grinding brake noises. I took it to a shop and they put it on their hoist..... This is one of the inboard rear brake discs. Both discs are similarly unhappy. I was directed to a Jaguar Barry, who says that if you buy cheap handbrake pads, the friction material detaches from the backing plates or the whole lot falls out of the calipers and that's probably why the discs are wrecked around the outer edges. My car is going to be booked in for new discs etc. Apparently the way to work on the rear brakes is by removing the rear seat and getting at them through an access panel in the floor! Next thing: The illumination of the '70s-tastic instrument cluster is so poor I can't really drive the car at night, and the minor gauges are all reading too low. "Experience In A Book - Help For The Jaguar XJ-S Owner" (henceforth referred to as The Barry Bible) told me this instrument cluster is some of the Prince of Darkness's finest work and I'll love it. Barry was right - look at how the electrical connections to the minor gauges are done: You get one-and-a-bit threads of screw gnawing into a copper PCB track and that's your connection. The head of this screw sits against the flexible plastic circuitry on the rear of the instrument cluster, so the screw is the current path. Also, the entire instrument cluster earths through just one pin of one plug, which is predictably prone to being rubbish. There are many reports of XJ-S gauges under-reading by a quarter just like mine were. I even found that someone in the past had removed the bulb from my alternator warning light...... Thankfully the illumination of the instruments is via conventional bulbs and not the weird fiber optic centralised system someone mentioned in the discussion thread. The main bulb for the speedo had just about gone black, so I replaced it with a higher wattage one to offset 30 years of voltage loss. Following the Barry Bible instructions, I put some solder on the minor gauge PCB pads where those screw tips bite, I cleaned every connection and I made up an additional earth for the cluster. Now I can actually make out the speedo at night (just), I've gained oil pressure and voltage and a little bit of engine temperature. The alternator light now works properly too. The Prince of Darkness' crappy electrics driving me to distraction and making me want to put a bullet in something meant that I simply HAD to buy this air freshener - "Driven Into Darkness": Fortunately it doesn't smell like Lucas smoke. I was hoping that cleaning all these instrument connections would make the engine temperature gauge read in the Normal range, but it still doesn't quite get there. A new temperature sender is a hundred bucks and fitting a new thermostat would require me to spill my new coolant everywhere. Grrr. Also, the boot smells like petrol so I pulled the spare tyre and all of the trim out. You can see the ninety-one litre fuel tank (which has already been replaced once), the fuel pump and the battery. The Barry Bible says the battery is supposed to have a special attachment to vent its gases outside of the car to stop them rusting everything. Also, Barry says condensation on the tank or rust around the rear window causes water to sit in the foam pad they cleverly mounted the tank on, rusting out the tank. The tank also leaks from stress on its overengineered and uncommon pipework fittings and basically any other excuse. This enables the XJ-S to guzzle petrol even when the engine's not running! The fix is to rip out the British and replace it with custom. Maybe some other time.

I've been slowly getting to know the Jaaag and to work through some of its issues. I started with easy stuff like blown bulbs and cleaning out the driving lights: Tried to improve the reversing light lenses with Brasso, but they're pretty cracked: Repainting the JAGUAR text so other motorists know how wealthy and stylish slightly caddish I am: Then I started to notice the car was losing its murky 7-year-old coolant. I might have panicked a little bit after my years of being punished by a straight six Rover SD1 with unfixable head gasket issues... However, it was just this bit of hose which was to blame: Jaguar apparently "designed" this part of the cooling system so that one fitting (the block) is larger than the other fitting (the vacuum-actuated heater valve). The previous owner had to replace the heater valve, stressing the hose where it was stretched over the larger fitting. Anyway, I obviously needed to drain and flush the cooling system. No radiator drain plug = remove the underbody aero(!), wrestle off the lower radiator hose and make a big mess. Then I had to look for the drain plug in the engine block. Underneath a shiny chrome exhaust heat shield are these crappy-looking log headers: See how the primary pipes for the front three and rear three cylinders run down next to eachother, giving good access to the side of the block both ahead of them and behind them? Guess where the drain plug is? It's behind the headers where you can't get a socket onto it. It also has the transmission cooler lines screwed onto it, but you can't get a screwdriver onto that screw. It's also a giant imperial size so you can't just go out and buy the right size spanner. This will learn me for buying a British car. I used a ratcheting ring spanner thing with a screwdriver bit to unscrew the bracket from the drain plug, then I bought the closest match of giant metric size spanner, which I had to operate from underneath the car. I flushed everything out and replaced that bit of hose, and now my British car doesn't drip a single fluid or have any warning lights on the dash. =)