I was preparing the XJS for its first proper event in March 2020 after 18 months of restoration work on the car. With a few days to go the fire extinguisher was installed, together with a map light, harnesses, rally clock, timer, spill kit, OK board and a fair few tools and spare parts, just in case. Stickers and paint for the towing points, tow rope, hazard triangle, tarpaulin...there is a long list of requirements.
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Not Yet Finished, But Getting Closer to the Line (literally)
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The only thing left to do was a permanent fix of the windscreen washers...something that had been perplexing me for 18 months. Just as I managed to finally find a route through the firewall for a new electrical feed for the pump my phone pinged. It was Graham, my navigator, with news that the HERO Challenge had been cancelled due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. It was scarcely a surprise.
A few days later we were in full lockdown and without the deadline of the rally, we had an opportunity to consider what we could do to further improve the car within the travel & social distancing restrictions. Max and I started a new to-do list: There were over 50 items on the list. Many of the jobs were small, but the largest was definitely the bodywork.
We started with some general maintenance jobs we hadn't had time to complete: Changing the automatic transmission fluid, ditto the 10 litres of engine oil. Both came out black and stinking, especially the transmission fluid which was definitely near the end of its useful life.
The ATF was replaced with a slightly more modern specification Dexron III, but the engine oil chosen harked back to the 1970s when this engine was designed: 20W50 - almost the consistency of runny honey. Not that easy to find these days, but happily I located a specialist in the Midlands now producing it complete with modern additives and detergents. The theory is that this viscous fluid is far less likely to leak from the old engine than modern runny oils. It also happens to be cheap compared with modern synthetic oils - a bonus when you have to change 10 litres every 6 months/7500 miles.
In my research, I had discovered that the American tuning scene has many modifications for the General Motors gearbox that Jaguar used in our XJS, so we took the opportunity to upgrade to an adjustable transmission modulator in order to be able to alter the gear shift points. The standard set-up changes up a gear at the very earliest opportunity, and with only three gears to choose from, even with the torque from a 5.3L engine, part-throttle acceleration can seem rather muted. The new modulator should move the shift points up the speed range so we can make better use of this free-reving V12; as a result, it is unlikely to do wonders for the fuel consumption.
It awaits a road-test once lockdown is lifted. If it is a success, Stage Two will involve more tinkering to reduce the time taken to change gear, i.e. to reduce the "slush" time of the change. I'm challenging my age-related mental decline (did you see the results of the Great British Intelligence Test?), by getting my head around the internals of the TH400 auto transmission. I'll need to do a lot more studying before Stage Two is undertaken so I can fully understand the ramifications of my actions.
As part of the refining of the mechanical aspects of the car, despite the earlier re-build of the throttle linkages, Max wasn't satisfied that they were operating properly and so removed the butterfly housings and found 30 years of burnt oil to be removed. Cleaned, re-assembled and carefully adjusted we are now looking forward to an even pickup on both banks.
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| Before & After Throttle Butterflies |
The front brake callipers and steel braided brake hoses had already been renewed, and although the original discs and pads were good enough for normal use, our experience of the Brembo brakes on the XKR at the Sputnik Autotest demonstrated the benefit of truly superb brakes. We decided that EBC Green Stuff pads would be an ideal initial brake upgrade for the XJS: Responsive enough for the road, but sufficiently resilient to survive the short Special Tests we would undertake during upcoming events.
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| EBC Green Stuff Pads Fitted |
Alongside the on-going mechanical work, we really needed to attend to the car's cosmetics. In my eyes it is a handsome car, but let down by its appearance. Time to smarten up.
The car previously had a pretty decent respray, probably about 12 years ago, but tin worm, welding repairs, chips and scrapes had taken their toll on almost every panel on the car. In all honesty, the car needed a full sanding and re-spray...but a professional respray on a 30 year old Jaguar that was going to be used in competition, not a good investment.
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| Aerosol Paint Job |
Remember that aerosol can of paint I ordered? Well, it was time to brush up my bodywork skills. In common with the welding, this was something I had not attempted on a large scale for many a decade. You can hide an ugly weld, but poor paint is on show. I decided my first attempts would be on the sills - big enough to be challenging but if a show standard was not reached, not a disaster. They could always be rubbed down and re-painted.
After a few false starts, the right hand sill looked pretty decent, if not exactly the colour of the rest of the car. One problem was the wind - too much of the paint was simply blowing away before it hit the panels.
Time for a re-think and a re-purpose of a garden gazebo, which has become our spray booth. Exactly the right size to accommodate an XJS, our neighbours feared we were about to have a lockdown party on our front drive until we assured them it was only a temporary structure for the car.
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| Re-Purposed Gazebo - The New Lockdown Spray Booth |
My wife's eyes rolled on seeing the new addition to the drive, but I assured her it would only be for a few days. Noticing the eighteen sacks of rubble holding the structure down and to keep the wind out, she wasn't convinced that the spray booth would be gone that soon, however, she saw an up-side: As long as we have a spray booth, we (that would be a royal "we") might as well use it for re-spraying all the shutters in the house. A quid pro quo one could agree upon!
It was soon apparent that the colour in the aerosol, although in theory the same colour as the car, was in fact slightly more blue. I contacted our local auto paint store for advice, only to find they were closed for the duration of the lockdown. Well, I would just have to try to blend the paint as best as I could.
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| It's better than you think! |
Painting a car is not rocket science, but a good result does take more than my experience of repairing bumper scuffs, especially using aerosols instead of a proper paint gun. Nevertheless without persevering one would never acquire that experience...so I decided to crack on to perfect my technique. As I progressed (and thanks to many YouTube videos), the results started to improve. I can't say it is a result I would necessarily pay for, but at least there is no primer and no rust on show; but I know where more rust is lurking for another day. Paint perfection can wait until we've completed the remaining 48 jobs on the to-do list.
For a Lockdown aerosol paint job, I rate the result 7.5 out of 10. Judge for yourself:
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It looks pretty good from this angle.
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The camera is still deceived - it looks almost perfect!
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Still looking good.
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Slightly iffy at the front edge of the door.
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Now the camera does not lie: The low angle of the sun highlights the the mismatched colour.
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If you've been paying attention, you will have noticed that there are no windscreen wipers on the car (I think it looks much sleeker without them). Sun bleached and oxidised, the wiper arms and intake grill beneath the windscreen have been removed for repainting, as well as trying to diagnose why the wipers won't self park (yet another minor inconvenience).
Something else missing is the original front spoiler. The panel behind it was so corroded that there was nothing much left of it to re-mount the spoiler - so a repair/replacement has joined the to-do list. Seeing the work progressing on Charlie's custom Honda Beat Barchetta (@beatchetta_pp1), I am tempted to try making my own fibreglass replacement panel. On the other hand, I already have some mild steel sheet in the garage...time to flip a coin! The corroded panel looks as though it could be identical to the original XJ6 saloon, which didn't have a front spoiler attached, so visually the XJS looks just fine, if not better, without the spoiler. In any case, as the car has just 4" ground clearance, the spoiler probably won't be making a re-appearance as it is likely to get torn off on the first unmade road we come too. Time, therefore, to also think about the design and mounting of a sump guard: There is a awful lot of low-hanging critical hardware that needs protection if we are to take on some of the more challenging HERO events.
The blog has now caught up with real time, so the car awaits its road test as soon as lockdown is eased.
That's all for now folks.
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