Shandangles '84 XJS v12 manual

[Shandangles]

Its been a couple of years since my last post!

I had a 986 Boxster S for a while ( https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/83711-shandangles-986/#comment-2491579 )

That was great fun before my Daughter was born, However once she was here, as you can imagine a 2 seater sports car barely moved for months on end. So sometime near the end of 2022 we sold it for precisely what it owed us apart from Fuel!! Owned it for about a year, spent +/- $6000 on parts, maintenance, insurance and rego we sold it for $6000 more than we bought it for!! Cant complain about that!

Like everybody the past 2 years have been absolutely hectic, the Mrs. had a knee reco, I had heart surgery, now have a 2.5 year old, with anther on the way and have just bought a commercial investment property so we haven't really had time or money for a toy, until very recently! 

I have been wasting countless hours on various car selling sites looking for something that tickles my fancy that the Mrs. would allow.  I like wagons and with the kids and dogs I thought that would be cool, but "they all look like a hearse" was always the response. So it seemed wagons were off the table. I was back to square 1.

One night I was mindlessly scrolling Carsales.com.au and stumbled across this Jag. I more or less straight away said to the Mrs. "i think this is it" amazingly she wasn't completely against the idea. So a day or 2 later I called the owner, an old bloke called James in Rural south Australia and arranged a PPI at the 1 local garage in town 🤣. I was happy enough with the results, had a couple of oil leaks, the drivers headlight wasnt working and the oil filter was from 2016 were the main bits. 
 

This was the end of October. It took about month to organise the transport from Adelaide to Brisbane etc. Turned up 3rd Dec to my place. Glorious

Leaving old mate James place in Clare, SA

At the Shipping yard

 

[Shandangles]

A little bit of info about the car. 

Its 1984 XJS HE (high efficency) with the 5.3l v12 with approx 130,000km and has been converted to manual using factory interior bits and a later model jag Getrag 265 5 speed gearbox, this is the main reason i bought the car, The only manual V12 ill ever be able to buy.
Has had a bit of suspension work (lowering and swaybars) is run by an  old MOTEC M4, has a full complement of VDO gauges in place of the factory dash as well as dual 6-2-1 headers and a full exhaust. So in theory at least it should be a bit more reliable then its reputation suggests 😅

All of the work has been kept in a folder, the manual swap, suspension TWR wheels and some maintenance were all done at the same time at the cost of $36k AUD back in about 2011 😧

[Shandangles]

Since arriving up to my place in Brisbane, I've given the diff, box and engine oil changes, sorted out the headlight issue which turned out being a dicky contact on the headlight relay and tried getting a RWC which is essentially a WoF which unfortunately it failed on the 30th. due to worn front subframe bushes and has slightly chewed out front tires. So overall fuck all really, was suitably stoaked.

have ordered tires and all 4 front subframe mount bushes, just waiting on auspost so bring them so I can get it sussed!!

Will add more pics while refitting the bushes!!

[Shandangles]

Good old Aus Post and the holiday period somewhat screwed me for my bushes arriving, one of the front subframe bushes took over 3 weeks to arrive!!!!
In the interim i ordered the front subframe rear bushes and the 4 x rear subframe bushes as well, as a "while you're in there" 

It turns out the front (circular) bushes were super easy to change, while both the front subframe rear bushes and all 4 rear bushes were absolutely horrendous to get to. The fronts were easily the worst bolts I've ever had to access, its like Jaguar gave zero thought to the poor blokes that would have to replace them, 0 space to access, get tools in and when I managed to get a spanner on I could only get 1/100000th of a turn so they took FOREVER.
But I persevered and we got it sorted for hopefully another 40 years.

Turns out both front subframe rear mounts were completely shagged, well not the actual bush but the metal frame
 

This is the drivers side  front subframe rear mount in place, the 2 bolts you can see are obviously easy to access, the other bolt tot he chassis was an absolute cunt, Alt and chassis and suspension in the way!!!

These are the front subframe front bushes, easy to access, just 27mm nut / bolt

 

 

And the 4 x rear subframe mounts, in theory it should be easy, but even with a 3ft pry bar creating space everything was just a teeny smidge too fight so took about 4 times longer than i thought it would take

 

 

 

and after doing all of that, I got the RWC (WOF) bloke back out and we passed with flying colors. I got plates last Friday and spent the weekend Jagging about all over the place have done about 100km without incident, Great success!!!!!!

I think next on the list will be getting some child seat anchors chucked in so we can use it for family outings which will be ideal!

[Shandangles]

Hola, so as above, I decided to look into getting some child seat anchor points installed, so I made an appointment with a engineer (essentially cert man who does mods too)
I decided it would be a good idea to pull all the crap out of the back so he could get a proper look at everything properly.

So out came the seats, rear "parcel" tray and sound deadening etc and.......RUST 😭

Divers side

 

Passenger Side

Floor underneath the rear seat

So that's a bit of a buzz kill, tho not completely unexpected.

I've spent the last couple of weeks (a couple hours a week only) cleaning up the rust, organising steel and cardboard for templates and removing the fuel tank and rear window for access(sits directly below the rusty parcel tray) , I hope to  have templates made and rust cut out this weekend.

Also the good news is there appears to be factory child seat anchors that are already there!!! I just need to get some bolts the correct weird 40 year old english thread some sort of 5/16 Whitworth wankfest. The have these threaded posts then an approx 80mm square 3mm place welded to the underneath. The engineer we happy with what was there which is a bonus!!!

Cheers

[Shandangles]

Slowly plugging away, learning as I go.

Before i had the window pulled, i thought id check where the water was leaking through.....Makes sense 😅

Back to the rust repairs, cleaned it up the best I could

Made my cut lines

Cut my hole

Made a template by holding cardboard underneath and tracing the outline, then cut the design out


That's pretty much where I'm at currently,  have borrowed a welder from the bro so should hopefully get it welded up this week, I'm waiting to buy some weld through primer, but everything is closed in Brisbane due to this little cyclone, its very inconvenient! 

Seeing as I'm making this up as i go i think its going ok. Ill hopefully tackle the square floor patch today as that is pretty straightforward, the top patch with the curved area, I'm going to plug weld the through the curved bit onto the lower skin and want to have that coated in something so its not just bare steel under there. That's the plan anyway!!!🤷‍♂️

On the passenger side the rust isn't nearly as bad so i think ill just bang a +/- 40mm hole saw through and patch that way.

If any of that is retarded please let me know!!!!! i haven't fabricated / welded anything of importance for over a decade so I'm very much winging it!!!!

Cheers

[Shandangles]

Car is all back together and working as of last weekend!!!

My welding skills are definitely a D grade but it is definitely better then big rust holes!! I even forgot to turn the gas on for a large portion of the first repair, then proceeded to turn gas on but forgot the reg 😅 but once I figured that out it was ok!!

seam goop and paint hide all horrendous welds




On the passenger side I decided it was easier to just hole saw out the rust and weld in the next size hole, worked surprisingly well



undersealed 

Buy 1 get 1 free Grommets


Thats about it for now, Anchor points are all in and sorted which was the whole point of this exercise.

Going to upgrade the fuse boxes to get rid of the old glass fuses next!!!

 

[Shandangles]

Hola, minimal use of late as had a high pressure PS hose explode on me while out on a mission. As with everything on this car some parts are super accessible, others are absolutely horrendous. After a small amount of fanangling I managed to get both the High pressure line from pump to rack and lo press from rack to PS cooler off so I could organise replacements. I had initially thought the high pressure line would be a pain to source but my local Enzed in Brendale, Brisbane, made me a new line form scratch in about an hour for like $160. Low pressure was just a matter of finding an auto parts store that had stock as Repco / SCA are basically only light bar shops these days, they hardly have any actual mechanical parts.
It would also appear the pics I took weren't amazing of this part (this is both low and high pressure, run under the sump up to the pump / cooler, all new now.


I then did some wiring, first I fluffed about for an age deciding on what fuse box etc to use, once that was sorted I ordered it, then realised i mis read and it didnt have built in terminals to connect the wires to so I had to fluff about more finding the correct tyco terminals that it seems are impossible to get locally so have to be ordered in as well.
This is the passengers side "smaller" fuse box, it has internal lights, cruise control and fog lights, only 5 circuits, but I dont have fog lights and cruise control doesn't wok so only 3 are actually in use.

took the bracket off and "clearanced" it slightly so the new fuse box will fit and have mounting holes

Swapped wires over 1 at a time

Success, all in and working (incorrect rated fuses in pic as was all I had on hand, is sorted now)

The drivers side has 12 fuses, the AC is notoriously un reliable due to high current draw, so ill split that over 2 circuits when i tackle that one.

The Mrs is due for another baby in like 10 days so progress will likely reduce somewhat unfortunately

Cheers

 

[Shandangles]

Hello, Baby has been born and after a few days we magically we have a hour so so most nights to tinker!

 

Over the past few nights i have been working on the drivers side "Main" fuse box, this is a bit bigger than the last box I did, and had significantly worse access and required more fluffing about to make it fit.
there are 12 circuits fed from this fuse box, the new fuse boxes i bought are 10 so needed 2, luckily they lick into each other so its a pretty tight fit. I decided to split the 10th circuit over 2 fuses in the new fuse boxes as its for the 2 x AC blower motors and  pulls 50A allegedly and is a leading cause of electrical fires.

first step was remove the factory bracket and modify to suit the new fuse box

used a bit of ali C channel and a mix of rivnuts and bolts to get everything to work

Much like the other side, 1 wire at a time

couple small modifications to make it all work as some wires didnt quite reach

the final product!!

 

everything appears to work as it should so happy days!!!!!!

 

[Shandangles]

Ancillary update to the above, amended fuse box legends. Will reprint and laminate once I'm back at work in a few weeks 

To:

 

That is all, for now🤣

[Shandangles]

Yo, 

More wiring has been completed since the last update! Although progress is glacially slow as I am now back at work and dealing with a 11 week old who is allergic to sleeping at  night and a 3 year old hurricane during my "free" time, its more like 5 minutes here, 3 minutes there etc Luckily the bulk of this was done while I was still on Baby leave

So much like the above fuse boxes, I wanted to tidy up / modernise the engine bay small (5 fuses) fuse box / remove some of the previously added relays etc as well as altering the switching of the lights so the full current doesnt run through the actual switch on the column. 

These are the "best" pics i have of the cluster that was in there to start, just superfluous relays and shit, even a simmerstat off an stove was in there doing not much, it was just a mess. The small black rectangular box in the middle is the fuse box for hi / low beam and fans.

 

I wanted to remove as much original and aftermarket crap and simplify as much as possible so I had to figure out exactly what did what as some of the OG stuff was still in service and some aftermarket stuff

 

I took out an absolute shitload of unnecessary wiring / relays etc etc

 

Now we're left with this

Much better! I had to rewire how the fusebox worked so I could have fuses for the left and right High and Low beams, there is also fans, window sprayer and horn with relays and fuses etc.
some are + switched, some are -ve switched some (fans) are controlled via the Motec, the high beams need a latching relay as the stalk doesnt "hold" forward like a normal car so it tooa a little bit to figure out all of that but its done now and all happy.

There is still a shit ton of the original wiring and vacuum lines in there that is redundant because of the Motec so that will all get removed when I next decide to get amongst it. Ill rebuild the injectors at that point also!


I then rebuilt the front calipers as on the PPI i had done they noted the left caliper was seized. It turns out 6/8 pistons were seized. There was a horrendous amount of gunk / schmutz in the calipers so im pretty happy I decided to pull it all apart and clean as well as replacing the pistons etc.

 

New Pistons and seals installed

All finished

 

I have just been trying to remove the rear half shafts as i think one of the unis is beginning to fail, Everything unbolted, bought a puller specifically, and fucked if I could get the hub off the spline. during manufacturing they lathered locktite onto the axel spline to "aid in support" so its got 41 years of "stuck" on. I tried everything, heat, 2 pullers, FBH and still unable to get the hub off, so that's a job for a later date, I think ill have to completely remove the axels and get a machine shop to press the axel spline out of the hub.

You'll see on the below image, the puller is meant to go on the hub and push the axel through, the hub is then able to pivot down on the fulcrum bolt (lower hub, alloy) and then the half shaft can get unbolted from the inboard disk and we can get at the unis. Bit of a cluster really

Thats where im up to now!!!! Havnt really used it for the last couple months so I might  just drive it for a bit I think,

Cheers

 

 

 

 

[Shandangles]

Ya wouldn't believe it, an hour or so after my above post I was taking it out for a spin, waiting in line at the servo, the bloody thing goes BANG and has a bloody engine bay fire 🔥.

Luckily I had a extinguisher in the boot!!

All I can see is the dizzy cap is blown to bits. Car still runs tho 😮

Edit: towed the car home and ripped the bonnet off for better access and sprayed the majority of the fire extinguisher powder off, can see the split dizzy cap

Bloody english!!!

[Shandangles]

Have done a bit of disassembly, parts ordering and even some reassembly this week, lucky I had the week off between jobs!

There was some mandarory replacement parts (Dizzy Cap & injector hoses etc) and some "while you're in there's" Spark plugs, cab cover gaskets, dizzy rotor and ignition leads.
I have received everything apart form the leads which should hopefully arrive tomorrow / Friday

I had hoped to do the cam cover gaskets "while I was in there, but I didnt think about the inlet manifold gaskets that I would likely need (cant get cam covers off without removing the inlet manifolds) and am struggling to find a supplier currently so they might have to go in the too hard basket currently unfortunately. Im not upset about it really to be honest, there is a fuckton of hoses etc involved in getting them off and Ive already had to do more wiring work than I bargained for with this as some of it got a bit crispier than what I deemed acceptable so had to re do it.

Anyways, Pics

Injectors, rail, dizzy cap and plugs out, still a bloody mess, I gave it a good scrub as there was 40 years if schmutz in the valley, its not perfect but infinitely better than it was


the plugs were developing a new type of crystal type stuff on them


today while i have been waiting to hear back about the inlet gaskets i did the injectors today, they are dumb and have barbed fittings on the injector and rail and about 50mm of hose between, the kit also came with new hose clamps, pintle caps and inlet filters.
Step 1, disassembly

Step 2, individual disassembly via screw


step 3 reassembly, new pintle cap and inlet filter


step 4, finished



As cool as V12s are, doing 12 sparkplugs and 12 injectors is a huge pain and seems very unnecessary while actually doing it!

Hopefully more progress tomorrow

[Shandangles]

Howzit!

We're back up and running!!

I wouldn't say finished but, 41 years old and English, it's never going to be finished I'd say.

Sneaky vid as proof also

https://streamable.com/50dq19

I "found" this wad of wires that also needs removing as it doesn't appear to do anything anymore, I think it's the OG injector ballast resistor box maybe😮 car still runs with the box unplugged and there is already a bunch of wires looped. More investigation required.

 

Cheers

 

[Shandangles]

Hola, 

Small update,  between starting a new job this week, getting a horrendous 24 hour shit and spew bug and catching a head cold I've managed to find out a couple of things about the above injector resistor wiring, kind of.

1. That box is indeed the injector resistors
2. The factory car wont run with it unplugged
3. My car does definitely run with it unplugged
4. Thus, I conclude it isn't required anymore

this is how it is supposed to look, the other plug is for the ignition ballast resistor, so also not required!

The guts of the resistor box

All of the visible wires are related to it, some were looped and soldered, others still attached and plugged in, just a schmozzle really, It was clearly "too hard" to remove all of the redundant factory wiring when they put the Motec in way back when....

 

I guess the good thing about having a car with both questionable reliability and quite a big following by Barrys is many others have had the same issues, figured out fixes and posted about them, the majority of the posts seem to be from about 2005-2015 so hopefully the old jag forums stay up a bit longer!!!!!

Hopefully over the weekend i can finish tidying that wiring and chuck the bonnet back on, give it a wash and call it "done" for a bit!!

Cheers

[Shandangles]

Hola team, after reassembly the was running on 8/9 out of 12, I figured this was because some moron prior to me decided using silicon goop to hold the broken injector plugs on was a good idea!

Now, with a 3 year old and a 4 month old I have precisely zero time to work on it currently so it basically sat for 6 weeks untouched. Luckily for me the misses and kids have gone to Melbourne for the week so my schedule just opened up!

Replaced 4 X injector plugs and you wouldn't believe it, it runs like a bloody top again.

 

Took her out for the first spin in nearly 2 months tonight!

Flawless but filthy 

 

That is all 😂

 

 

 

[Shandangles]

Went out to one of the many cars and coffee with the bro and his 328.

A couple Jag Barry's came straight up for a chat, I mentioned the engine bay fire, they both just knowingly nodded 😂

 

Only pic I took, as we were about to leave, place was basically empty