Thousand Dollar Supercar

Can't you skip it? I always do, so now they're making it a lunch on the 18th instead.

It used to be the third Wednesday of the month, which would make it the 18th of December. At this stage, my Jag is running and legal and I'll be in town.

Big news! I ran over a screw: This meant I had to get a new tyre, so I asked the shop to check the balancing of all my new wheels at the same time. They were all out of balance. With them balanced, vibration on the motorway is finally OK. Then the Jag was due for a WOF, but its handbrake had stopped working. This was a bit annoying after the expense of the rear disc replacements. I took the car to the local one-man-band Jaguar Barry who'd been too busy to replace the discs for me last year. He repeated that only certain handbrake pads could be trusted, but he also basically said that the Jag handbrake is a marginal arrangement. It needs to be set up correctly and used carefully to avoid ripping the pads out. My handbrake cable was rusty, causing a lot of friction and making the handbrake heavy to apply and tricky to release. Barry has sorted it now though. WOF obtained (after a second new tyre). Unfortunately this handbrake drama took a while and meant that my Jag was not available for New Plymboes, so I took my company car. Not only was this not exactly 'limited' personal use, the manner in which I got busted wasn't the best - by some extreme fluke, I overtook my company's human resources lady on the wrong side of the road. Soooo.. I took the Jag on a work trip around the Waikato to make up for it. Although the car feels fine around town and has plenty of grip, at open road speeds it still feels sketchy. Not only is there tramlining from the lower-profile tyres, there's the (excessive) rear steering effect that Jaguar built into the rear suspension. Also, there's this: Whether because my car's a 'sports' variant or because someone already modified it, the steering rack mounts are packed out with these rubber bumpers on the outer side. This looks like it should limit movement of the rack, but I think I'll try new rack mountings anyway. Finally, because of that screw in my tyre, I'm now guilty of violating this rule: On the idle issue, I did a compression test. Ignore the oil on the last two plugs. The compressions are only a bit uneven, but they're all much too high (meant to be 160-170psi). Faulty gauge? Carbon buildup? Just lucky? This ain't no technological breakdown, Oh no... This is the road... ...to Hell!

^ That's just what I was gonna say. Jaguar Barry warned me so many times not to drive with the handbrake on - it either rips the pads out or heats them up and melts the glue holding the pad material to the backing plates. Another problem my handbrake had (which is hopefully unique to the XJ-S / Jaguar installations) was the handbrake cable going rusty inside its sheath. This increased the effort required to apply the handbrake, but more importantly made it tricky to release it fully and quickly every time. That in turn put me at risk of ripping the pads out. It's all fixed now but I had to endure many Barry sharns to get to this point.

I just watched it last night at The Embassy in Wellington, all by myself. I believe it’s gone from theatres soon too. Good movie despite a bit of the usual nonsense that makes a racing film work for a mainstream audience. I’d be keen for movie screenings. My house lacks a screen though.

I just realised @michaelme said Caffeine and Classics (Takapuna) rather than Caffeine & Gasoline (Hampton Downs). I was under the impression that some of OS already attended Caffeine and Classics fairly regularly?

Get up early, sit on the motorway for 1 hour, wait in line 1 hour to buy a coffee, then another hour on the motorway home? I wanted to do the track cruise this month but it's not on because of the 2k Cup racing. I'm not clear on whether there will be a $10 admission charge for Caffeine & Gasoline because of the racing, or whether that only applies if you want to sit in a grandstand and watch it.

Oh well. I'll see it another time. I did manage to get my Jag legal again today, after two weeks of handbrake repairs followed by a WOF failure because of tyre load ratings.... I need to make up the time that took, so I'll stay home.

For this month's nonexistent Burgerfuel meet this Wednesday the 20th, is there any interest in seeing the Ford v Ferrari movie? It's on at 7:45 or 8:45 at Sylvia Park. "I wanta you to beat those Americans, at any cost!" "But Mister Ferrari, my manifold, she's in danger!"

Dammit, I have to work from 6am to 2pm on a job that would normally take 2 hours. I might be able to get away before 2 but probably not by midday.

So I did the upper ball joints as well.. ..but it wasn't those. The push/pull play at 6 and 12 o'clock was still there. So I looked at how to adjust the wheel bearings.. I was expecting it to be horrible but it was easy, and now the play is gone. Should have done that first. Alas, the vibration is still not quite gone. It's probably just something I have to live with in a British car which has made it all the way to..... 200,000kms. So I got a new obsession instead. The engine doesn't run all that well - it has a random half-stumble at idle and low rpm.. You can see the misfires by watching the shaking of the motor, and although it appears to smooth out if you raise the rpm sufficiently, the higher engine speeds could possibly be disguising the problem. The car has also never really started that well from cold. I checked the spark plugs and they looked amazing to someone who has never owned fuel injection before. I looked for bad connections and vacuum leaks, since the ECU directly reads manifold vacuum (in V12 cars, the ECU is in the boot and its vacuum line has to run the whole length of the car, because why not... ). Nothing stood out though. Several tanks of fuel system cleaning pills didn't help either. Today I took off the airflow meter and cleaned it, and this did make an improvement. The raise in engine speed on startup is more pronounced, and the idle speed seems to have raised slightly which makes the car coast better / makes it not decelerate as aggressively when you lift off the accelerator. But just like my reduced 80kph vibration, the shaky running issue's still detectable. I'll try a compression test and then randomly change every ignition system part, idle valve, fuel pressure regulator and injector before giving up in 6 months from now. The Jag let me know what it thinks of my diagnostic skills:

The next one would fall on the 16th of October, but it's looking like I'll be working in Wellington that week. =( I should be around for Mercury Plaza on 5th/6th October though (see https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/61105-last-orders-at-mercury-plaza/page/2/#comments )

Hello again from the nonexistent-Burgerfuel-meet thread. Here's your monthly pic for September, brought to you by the third Wednesday of the month: This month I've booked a dentist appointment for earlier in the evening, so if I'm not at Burgerfuel, know that I'm suffering.

Thanks for checking in on the nonexistent-Burgerfuel-meet thread. Here's your monthly pic for August, brought to you by the third Wednesday of the month: My Jaguar is blocked in by my pranged Alfa, which is running on about two cylinders these days so isn't easy to move out of the way. Could be a challenging burger.

Okay.. Last call at the plaza on a weekend then?

Actually you can see Liv and Seedy are both looking at a pink phone. The same phone? It probably went like this:

I'll be out of the country. If it was on a weekend, I'd be down for some roast duck and lychee drink and my last chance at food poisoning. How did you guys first come to pick Mercury Plaza for business synergy meetings? It's such a random "Wow that place hasn't been bowled yet?" kinda place.

You might be wondering.... It's coming up to the third Wednesday of the month; is OS burger night on? No, of course not. But if it was still on, we could take in some culture by going for a look at this: https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2019/ellerslie-winter-nights/auckland/ellerslie ....Or just eat a burger, get a selfie for your Instagram and get outta there.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but if the wheel bearings were worn, why wouldn't I be able to move the wheels equally in any direction? Or maybe hear some grumblings when spinning the wheels? WOF people would often pull me up on my Alfa 33's rear wheel bearings, which were tricky to tighten the right amount due to the staked nuts they used. This is my only reference and I haven't done my homework on Jaguar's setup yet. Never. That was the idea behind getting a not-too-rusty car that's hopefully always going to be worth something - I was supposed to find it easier to swallow each time this one put its hand out for more money. The original thousand dollar supercar was great, but it used to take a thousand dollars in rust repair every few years only to still be worth a thousand dollars.

These new wheels have a tyre diameter 3% smaller than stock, so my speedo is even further out than before. It now seems to under-read by around 10%, officer. I went looking for more reasons for the vibration at 80kph, and found the diff seems to leak oil from the input seal. Probably explains its woooo noises on deceleration. So many things to fix! This car will keep me entertained for many years. I found a bit of play in the front wheels when rocking them at 12 and 6 o'clock, but not at 9 and 3 o'clock. I ordered some lower ball joints (an unscientific guess) and installed them this weekend... While doing this, I found the shock absorber top mounts were loose, one by a reasonable amount. After replacing the ball joints there was still some play in the wheels, so I think I guessed wrong. The vibration situation seemed to have improved for some reason though. Maybe I need to do the upper ball joints too / I don't know what I'm doing.

I took the car to the specialists where they rebuilt the power steering pump and rack (which was also leaking). This was not very cheap, but now the pump leak will not damage any more suspension bushes and the rack leak won't risk me failing WOFs. The specialist told me that some of my whines and clunks were the auto transmission (ZF 4HP22), which had good fluid so wouldn't improve without money being thrown at it. One of my rattles was the clips on the airbox - some idiot had taken the front cover of the airbox off for extra induction noise and hadn't figured that the resulting loose cover clips would rattle at certain engine rpm. Another rattle is either the engine fan clutch or the water pump, so I'll look into that myself at some point. I got new bushes for the front sway bar drop links. Here are the old bodged ones which are too thin and too large in diameter: And here are the new ones which don't really look any better! Oh well. Apparently you can get spherical bearings to replace these bushes if you're hardcore, but I think I'll pass. Anyway, the Jag specialists got someone to do my wheel alignment after they'd rebuilt the steering rack. This resulted in improved steering self centring, but the feeling of square wheels at 40kph and the vibration at 80kph did not go away. So I started looking at replacements for the Linglong directional tyres which were on my car when I got it. Other than more Linglongs, the only other tyres available in the right size are reproduction retro hotrod stuff - BF Goodrich Radial T/A, Cooper Cobra Radial G/T, Hercules H/P 4000, Galaxy Radial G/T... all tyres that OS report as being a bit average ("harder than a whore's heart"). I looked at going to wrong-sized tyres on the stock 15-inch mags, but this doesn't expand the tyre selection much. Jags of this era have a bolt pattern of 5x4.75" / 5x120.65, which is what a lot of old GM cars used. This means most aftermarket wheel choices are stuff like Cragar SS / Torq Thrusts which look wrong and/or only come in small diameters. But then some 17-inch "Performance" brand wheels came up on TradeMe, so I grabbed them. The seller had taken them off his old Jag to upgrade to 18s, so I knew they were gonna fit my car. Surprisingly, I could buy wheel nuts off the shelf at Repco with the right imperial 1/2" UNF thread pitch and tapered seats. I just threw the wheels straight on with no issues. I didn't have to take the dust caps off the front hubs to allow the wheels to fit as the seller said I might. I haven't even noticed the wheels rubbing so far. The fronts will be easier to clean than the original lattice design, even if the rears look a bit weird with no brake discs visible between the spokes. Dish photo! The improvements and compromises are all as you'd expect. The Potenza RE002 tyres on the new mags are obviously an improvement. Their lower profile doesn't magically give the XJ-S any steering feel though. I can't benchmark the lateral grip against other cars I've owned - when going around my 180-degree test curve, the Jag's speedometer reading decreases significantly for some British reason, only to increase once I straighten up again. Also, the vibration at 40kph may be gone but the one at 80 remains. Back to the drawing board.

^ Not this month unfortunately. I've gotta be ready to start a job at 8 in Manukau so it would have to be a very early burger. @Ghost has to carry the torch this month.

It's even a pre spindle grille model for the eyes of a man who is not blind... Maybe it is all things to all people.

There's a guy on here called MIRAGE-MAN, and the reason his car has these funny-coloured doors....... .....is because his original doors were in good condition. He took them off to save them and put crappy ones on instead.

Those are nice tiles! Yours looks better for being bolder and going full concrete, and the lighting seems more dramatic too. Also your tiler seems to have been smart enough not to put two tiles with corresponding patterns adjacent to each other and in the same orientation. Make the top of your vanity from something like rustic old rough-sawn timber planks so you barely have to clean it because rustic.