Shandangles '84 XJS V12 manual discussion

[Thousand Dollar Supercar]

@Shandangles I couldn't find a discussion thread for your fine automobile...

Was your engine fire caused by the rubber hoses between the fuel rail and the injectors, and is that why the distributor blew up? 

Congrats on being the first person on oldschool to have an XJ-S which is also V12 and manual and which ran for a reasonable length of time. I hope you're not pressured to sell it due to minor details like young kids and engine fires.

[Shandangles]

Ha, thankyou!!

I haven't looked at it yet, just flat towed it home, threw the hose over it and took the bonnet off. I have next week off by pure coincidence so at least I'll have a few hours spare.

Evidently Dizzy's blowing up is somewhat common, and yea the leaky fuel hoses are generally the culprit. I've even got a rebuild kit "in stock" ready to go.  Do hopefully it's just a dizzy cap and injectors rebuilt.

I've had it for like 8 months, this is the first issue do not too bad really 😂

 

[Thousand Dollar Supercar]

On 06/08/2025 at 20:24, Shandangles said:

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

From 1:07, these trustworthy chaps explain that the reason they went with 12 cylinders is basically because Spinal Tap. The interviewer then has to clarify that 12 cylinders isn't just 'ballyhoo'. 

"American engines only go up to eight, but this goes to twelve!"
"Why don't you just make eight the top number, and make eight more powerful?"
"........... .... ....this goes to twelve!"
 

[kws]

That silver box is definitely the power resistor for the injectors. Being a v12 IIRC they have two, one for each bank, which is probably how it still runs with that one disconnected. Those old injectors still need it.

[Shandangles]

6 hours ago, kws said:

That silver box is definitely the power resistor for the injectors. Being a v12 IIRC they have two, one for each bank, which is probably how it still runs with that one disconnected. Those old injectors still need it.

My thought was that the motec can deal with the impedance of the injectors, the wiring for the injectors definitely goes directly to the ecu now.

[Shandangles]

12 hours ago, Thousand Dollar Supercar said:

From 1:07, these trustworthy chaps explain that the reason they went with 12 cylinders is basically because Spinal Tap. The interviewer then has to clarify that 12 cylinders isn't just 'ballyhoo'. 

"American engines only go up to eight, but this goes to twelve!"
"Why don't you just make eight the top number, and make eight more powerful?"
"........... .... ....this goes to twelve!"
 

That was a really good watch!!!! Thankyou 

[anglia4]

Ah man that is such an "oh fuck" moment.

I had it happen once with my 04 Mach 1 Mustang, the window buttons had broken from their mount and were very slightly sunk into the door, so it would occasionally self press a button if you leant on it wrong. I hopped out with it idling in the driveway and as the door swung shut I heard the locks "clunk" from the button self pressing.

I managed to feed a wire in around through the pillarless window and press down on the "unlock" button. 

Where there is a will there is a way!

[Thousand Dollar Supercar]

1 hour ago, Shandangles said:

Size limits necessitate multiple posts 😕

You know you can just set your camera to a lower resolution, or resize / crop the photos, save them at a lower quality setting etc. 😛

With those small radius arm bushes and their weird bolts, I believe you do have to fully disconnect the lower end of the shock as you mentioned. The ground-off bolt head is necessary to provide clearance for the bolt to be withdrawn.

I have these bushings ready to install - urethane instead of the recommended metalastic. I've just been put off attempting the job by the stories of seized joints / sheared bolts, and of people having to cut the radius arms to bits to get them out.

[Shandangles]

I assumed there was a simple way but am too retarded to figure it out.

I looked at urethane bushes and heard mixed results so decided on factory replacements.

The poor handling was related to the arc the radius arm travels during the suspension travel. Being that the arm is fixed at the chassis end and pivots at the LCA evd the effective length changes throughout the suspension arc. Allegedly the factory rubber took this into account so their is enough slop to minimise negative handling where these us essentially zero slop in urethane so during the suspension travel it's pushing / pulling on the lower control arm causing weird handling during the suspension travel.

.

How true any if that is, I don't know but the description I read made sense so rubber it is 🤷‍♂️

[Raizer]

22 minutes ago, Shandangles said:

I assumed there was a simple way but am too retarded to figure it out.

 

There's lots of free apps for your phone, I've been using "Photo Editor" on Android for years, simple enough to use but lots of features to do a shitload more than just resize if you wanted. 

 

PC is even easier.

[Thousand Dollar Supercar]

54 minutes ago, Shandangles said:

The poor handling was related to the arc the radius arm travels during the suspension travel. Being that the arm is fixed at the chassis end and pivots at the LCA end, the effective length changes throughout the suspension arc. Allegedly the factory rubber took this into account so their is enough slop to minimise negative handling where these us essentially zero slop in urethane so during the suspension travel it's pushing / pulling on the lower control arm causing weird handling during the suspension travel..

How true any if that is, I don't know but the description I read made sense so rubber it is 🤷‍♂️

The way I heard it was that the radius arms are supposed to twist the rear subframe during cornering to some degree, even with the original bushes. It's to steer the rear wheels in the opposite direction to the fronts, which helped a front-heavy LWB 1960s saloon take a corner on the tyres of the period. I think the issue with urethane bushes is that they don't allow enough twist / freedom of movement for proper suspension travel, so if you put stiff urethane at both ends of the radius arms, you're almost locking up the rear suspension and ruining your ride.

My plan was to keep the original large metalastic bushes in place at the chassis end of the radius arms, and just change the small bushes to urethane. I would like this to result in rear wheel steering which is steadier / more predictable, rather than causing a greater degree of rear wheel steering. I already feel my sports-pack car has enough of a tendency to oversteer in the wet, thankyou very much...

[dmulally]

I'll be keen to find out how hard it is to get parts and which parts specifically you need for the rear end tidy up. That is on my list of things to do for the s type and all I have are the rubber mounts and radius arms in the parts bin so far. 

[BiTurbo228]

I didn't think they were too bad parts-wise. Popular hot-rodder swap which helps. Though that's here in the UK where there's boatloads of the things so your mileage (kilometerage?) may vary.

[Shandangles]

On 17/08/2026 at 10:50, dmulally said:

I'll be keen to find out how hard it is to get parts and which parts specifically you need for the rear end tidy up. That is on my list of things to do for the s type and all I have are the rubber mounts and radius arms in the parts bin so far. 

There is a place here  Preston Paige Classics that seems to have most bits, the bloke who runs it is a raging good cunt too, has gone out of his way to help with stuff and very fast shipping, 100% recommend. Unsure if they ship to NZ but worth a shot / Id be happy to help if you need stuff.

https://share.google/QwXabXYpF56kovmSZ

They had all of the rear arm bearings, radius bushes, wheel bearings etc in stock. Ordered Monday arrived Wednesday type deal.

Apart from hardware the only bits I need (I think) are new UJs which I think I want sealed units rather than greasy sloppy Joes so will likely need a parts cross reference etc.

[dmulally]

On my list of things to do when I next drop the jag IRS apart from rebuilding the calipers and handbrake contraption, I want to add a pair of remote bleeders to avoid the faffing about getting in there to do it with the cage in place. C of a J. 

 

[Bearded Baldy]

May i suggest a couple of cans of spray on oven cleaner for degreasing purposes. Non caustic has proven safe for brake hoses etc in my experience. 

[Shandangles]

8 hours ago, dmulally said:

On my list of things to do when I next drop the jag IRS apart from rebuilding the calipers and handbrake contraption, I want to add a pair of remote bleeders to avoid the faffing about getting in there to do it with the cage in place. C of a J. 

 

I initially planned on doing just that, but a couple factors changed my mind. Kits are terribly expensive ($300+ )and upon having it up in the air access to the bleeders didn't seem that bad at all imo. 

$300+ to save 10 minutes every few years isn't worth it IMO 

[dmulally]

I was just going to make my own but I'm cheap like that.