Jaguar Tales

My wife had (outwardly) been very patient with me whilst, what she considered to be a heap of junk, had sat up on axle stands, on our newly laid drive under a grey Jaguar-shaped cover for the best part of a year. On pain of divorce, I had been warned that no oil or other noxious fluids were to find their way onto or into the pristine surface.  Of course old Jaguars don't leak....they merely perspire from time-to-time from various orifices.  To avoid divorce proceedings, I re-purposed a bright blue plastic pool cover to protect the drive whilst the car was up on stands.  This was hardly a colour my wife had in mind when she was planning her rose planting in the front garden, however it was impervious to fluids and reasonably comfortable whilst I crawled around beneath the car.  On the assumption that this was a temporary measure, the bright blue plastic was tolerated! It was high summer in England and I had planned a quick two-day trip to the West Country to tak...

It is said that a journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step. The problem is taking that initial pace forward. I had been putting off the mammoth task of replacing the rotten front subframe for some months, more in trepidation of what might follow than lack of time. Eventually I could delay no more. The first job was to build a cradle to support the 1/2 ton engine and transmission to allow us to extract the front subframe complete with the steering rack and all the front suspension and brake components. Dire stories of injury and death surfaced from internet searches with warnings to use only the official Jaguar workshop equipment. Putting these worries to one side, I decided that four lengths of 4" x 4" timber, some custom made brackets and 4 x 2-tonne ratchet straps would be more than sufficient to hold a half-ton weight. Backed up with some sturdy supports under the transmission for extra security and after some hours struggling with nuts and bolts that had bee...

The long hot summer of 2018 was coming to an end, but there were a few weekends before the frantic part of our business year when free days are few and far between.  We started work... My eldest son, Max, had just passed his driving test and was eager to help.  Being a sensible type, he had read and digested the Haynes manual before diving in.  We decided to start with the basics:  New air filters (easy), check the specific gravity of the anti freeze (easy), replace 12 spark plugs and HT leads (ridiculously complicated) and replace the four accessory drive belts (unbelievably frustrating).  Max volunteered to re-build and adjust the throttle linkage - I lost count of how many parts there are, but on the way he fixed the seized kick down linkage and replaced all the missing and broken bushes. He then moved on to the temperature sensors: The air temperature sensor disintegrated in his hands, so he rigged up some resistors to send the ECU the correct ambient...

I had bought a 1990 Jaguar XJS with a 5.3 litre V12 engine for cash behind a strip club and now had 120 miles to drive in an unknown car. Apart from yearly trips to the local MOT station the car had been standing for over a decade.  In 11 years only 400 miles had been added to the odometer.  We stopped at the first petrol station to check oil, air, petrol and water.  Remarkably, the oil was pristine, the coolant was clean and full and the tyres had air.  I added some fuel injector cleaner to the petrol and set off. The car smelt and sounded awful:  Petrol fumes mixed with the smell of wet carpets and mould, the exhaust was blowing everywhere, the engine was definitely not running on all cylinders, there was an almighty clanking from the front suspension every time we hit a bump and a knocking from the rear on all but the gentlest acceleration.  I put a brave face on, but I felt as though I had made a big mistake. It was raining and we were on the M6 ...

The Jaguar XJS has been on the cusp of classicdom for years.  Classic car pundits have been speculating that it is the next big thing for longer than I care to remember, but the reality of rusty British Leyland era bodywork and massively complex mechanical and electrical systems seem to have always suppressed prices. Naturally, just as I have come round to the idea of finding a Jaguar XJS, prices for good examples have been climbing steadily out of my budget range...so the hunt began for a suitable project vehicle.  As we all know, Ebay holds an ever revolving repository of cars better suited to the junkyard than cruising intercontinental highways, but I was convinced there was a car out there waiting for me.  The problem was that money burning a hole in my pocket, urging me on, like a little devil on my left shoulder.  The little angel on the right shoulder knew this whole escapade was a bad idea, but then a promising advertisement appeared:  A 1990 ...

It started with a conversation about rallying historic cars and ended with cash changing hands behind a strip club in the West Midlands. For some months my good friend and navigator, Graham, and I had been trying to find an affordable but challenging form of historic car rallying.  In this search we came across a European car rally called Monte Carlo or Bust.  It looked like a lot of fun driving across Europe, raising money for your chosen charity, and ending in Monte Carlo where you had the option of seeing your car crushed!  The only entry criteria was that the car should cost less than £500 (and by the way, there is no technical backup on the trip for your banger).  With this in the back of my mind, I took to Ebay and lo and behold, an advertisement jumped out at me:  An early 2000s Jaguar saloon that had reached the dizzying heights of £200 with just a few hours left of the auction.  Not only that, but I recognised the house in the background o...