Broadsword

Thanks for the continuing efforts to keep this wonderful place up and running so seamlessly! I feel like I take it for granted too often!!

What a car!! Ever since we had a R21 Savanna in the family many, many years ago, I've been in awe of Renaults of this period. Very well done for saving this one!

Sound check on the V8 Rangie (half of the exhaust is stainless steel). I will have to be patient and wait till the diesel is on sale to put it on the road. Very hard to wait to do the switch knowing how nice it is though… IMG_3860.MOV IMG_3861.MOV

The manual XJR still isn’t running any different, mainly because I haven’t had any time to work on it. Tomorrow I plan to be prodding around the throttle body area in a search of air leaks. The car that has been on the fleet longest (since December 2018) might soon be for sale. Basically I’m very happy with it and it continues to be reliable and extremely useful. However some time ago I thought about what would be the perfect P38. I always had a hunch the 4.0 V8 manual would be a really punchy combo, preferably still on a well maintained EAS system, maybe in dark blue and an LPG system would be a must due to the fuel consumption. Of course getting all that in a well maintained example would be most unlikely right? That’s what I thought until this arrived on the driveway the other day… This is a strange P38. It’s first registered in 2001 but Land Rover confirms from the VIN that it’s a 1998 car. I did a car history check before buying and there is no dodgyness in it’s history. I even have the original books and it shows that it was definitely sold brand new in 2001. How this happened is a mystery. What matters that it’s in fabulous shape and is the perfect spec. I had never been in a car with a Rover V8 and all I can say is that it’s old school muscle and marvellous. It won’t be pressed into service till the diesel is prepped for sale mind so I will have to be patient. I think I have bought well.

The XJ40 V12 looks gorgeous!

All I know for sure is that the exhaust manifolds and downpipe have been off a good few times to prototype a custom set of headers, which apparently will go into production soon. I'm pretty sure the running problems have been caused by this process or when the gearbox came out a second time to do the rear main seal. Every time you disturb the the drivetrain in such a major way it causes unforeseen problems. The same happened to another converted XJR. My next line of investigation will be all the wiring loom to the O2 sensors that I can find. Assuming the replacement sensors (or at least one of them) function at all, then the problem must be related to the wiring.

The manual XJR still runs dead rich and is misfiring at idle. We now know neither oxygen sensor works so presumably this is the problem. I elected to take the entire manifold(s) downpipe assembly off in one piece as this is quite easy. Then you can very easily remove both oxygen sensors. Both were destroyed, like someone cut the tops off them. Very strange. This I thought was good news as it must have been just a case of throwing two replacements in and off we go. Unfortunately not. With replacement O2 sensors in there was zero difference, neither work. You can unplug the sensors and it makes no difference. Now I think there is a problem in the wiring loom also. The plot thickens!

Half way through a cam belt job on a mk. 2 Ka (Fiat 500) , got the new belt lined up all nice, put on the new tensioner and ping it disintegrated. Bugger!

More activity! The fleet is now down to one Jag!!! Only the manual XJR6 remains after a marathon run working on the lovely turquoise car getting it up to scratch for sale. Last major jobs were serving and cleaning the throttle body (big job!) to address the sticky throttle. I also put in a new headlining. Exhausted now but my reward was that the car sold in record time. I put it on eBay last Sunday mid-day and it was sold by six. I wasn’t expecting that. I guess the colour sold it. This leaves the Herald which has been hibernating in a nice dry garage. It has been getting regular exercise and runs great. A bit more polishing and fixing some bits of trim and I’ll try and sell it again. Also for sale are those fancy BBS Milan split rim wheels off the manual XJR. With those gone the great purge will be complete.

Strangely the Range Rover has decided to fix itself for now. I’m sure the aux belt tensioner is suspect though. Oh well, a problem for another day. Today was a rare day where instead of fixing lots of things I focused on driving. Why? I had a visit from a fellow Jag enthusiast with a very special XJR6 converted to manual and treated to the most enormous amount of work to make it like a new car. Every bushing, joint brakes, springs, everything has been gone through and replace or more often upgraded with superior parts. You may recognise the car from JayEmm’s YouTube channel. Some of the upgrades include. *All suspension bushes upgraded to polyurethane. All new springs, joints and shock absorbers etc. *Rosejoints on the antiroll bar links. *A stunning tubular exhaust manifold from Hayward and Scott mated to a full sport SS exhaust system. *Lightened single mass flywheel (the factory flywheel is dual mass) and competition clutch. *Upgraded supercharger bottom pulley (+10%). *The well known Andy Bracket ignition timing mod. *New water pump for charge cooler. *Upgraded supercharger with special coating on the turbines for much better thermal efficiency and different coupling. The interior is also stunning and a lot of work has been done on the exterior too. It was an absolute treat to see this car again and witness how it drives. It was also amazing having two manual XJR and an auto together. J40 AAV is much, much faster than most XJR6s and feels faster than an X308 XJR at this stage. The power deliver is just savage and it will light up the rear tyres in the dry at any time, if you so wish. The fact that the suspension has been sorted so well means it feels like a new car. In brief it’s just tremendous, I’m in awe of it. Much chatting and fettling ensued. We also had more of a look at the running issue with my manual XJR and discovered it is stuck in closed loop mode for whatever reason. There is growing suspicion of the oxygen sensors. I’m getting a loan of a couple spare to try. Hope it works. Along the way inspecting the wiring loom in the area we discovered three broken wires. This was interesting, but even more interesting is the fact that those wires had nowhere to go, there was no other end. We seriously think that the car came out of the factory like that. That would be mad, but then again this is Jaguar we are talking about so... The wiring loom on X300s is strange with loads of redundant lengths of wire for no real reason. This allows you to relocate sections of the loom to more sensible parts of the engine bay, away from the hot bits they put everything on. This was implemented for the oxygen sensor plugs. Also the turquoise car was not reading 100% throttle with the pedal down. This has now been fixed. It’s even faster now. Nice. I had a good day.

So the Rangie, which has been quite reliable over the past 12 months, has reverted to type and in exchange for the new tyres rewarded me with this strange chattering noise. My money so far is on the auxiliary belt tensioner. I can hear it on my mechanics stethoscope reasonably clear. IMG_2958.MOV

Today’s excitement involved the Range Rover getting a full set of brand spanking new Goodyear Wrangler all weather tyres. I got a good deal from Halfords at £320 fitted using a spare voucher and a 15% off promotion at the time. Home fitting was free so I opted for that. Fitting took place this morning. It went ok, but I had to be there to help. No. 1 the bloody wheel nuts have stupid caps on them that can burr making it very hard to get a socket on. In the end the few troublesome wheel nuts I was hammering the socket on while the guy was doing the tyres. It was a bit stressful but ok in the end. Another problem was the fitters kit. His jack wouldn’t reach and no axle stands were to be seen. All he could use was an airbag, which turned out to be unreliable. When the guy said can you keep an eye on that and saw no axle stands I quickly put a couple in place. 5 mins later the bag just started to let go and the car fell on the axle stand. This was unnerving. We ended up using all my kit. I was just glad to get the new rubber on as it was desperately needed. The fitter said do I really want the rear tyres changing, I said definitely. He made the argument that the tyres can be as old as you like as long as they aren’t very perished they are ok. I disagree completely. The test drive proved my point. Completely different car now with all sorts of grip that was never there. It will be excellent next winter. Sure I had loads of tread, but the tyres were old and recently I found the date code on the fronts. It was only on the inner sidewall and the manufacture year was 2000!!!! I get really boring about tyres and all that boy am I pleased with this set.

I fully approve of the C5. The estate looks bigger than a Volvo V70, it’s massive! I kind of want one again myself after flipping a very early HDi hatchback bought for just £350 ages ago. It felt quite lovely in a squishy cheap French way. The early ones sound like the most reliable* option, certainly avoid the 2.2. I had a good couple trouble free years in a Xantia some time ago before. I still miss the waft, but they are getting a bit old to daily now. EDIT: I would be looking at the earth points going by the description of those electrical gremlins.

I have a feeling it wouldn't be too hard to achieve such a thing. The XJ40 was the test bed for the XJR6. Somewhere there are photos of a prototype, which was apparently developed in the USA. From what I remember (don't have the photo, but it should be floating around somewhere), the test driver binned the prototype quite badly. I know there is an XJS with the blower engine out there, and also a Mk. 2. Just thinking back now I've now had FIVE XJR6s. This is most agreeable. The current two are notable because they are very early cars, both built in 1994. M138 PNU is even earlier than the turquoise one possibly. It was first registered 12th October 1994. I have a lovely reprint of the original Autocar review for the XJR, printed 28th September 1994, so bought pretty much as soon as the car launched in Paris October 94.

Here’s a tiny bit of footage showing the difference between the auto and manual XJRs that happen to be on my phone already. Had to cut out the swearing when I launched the manual at the request of the camera person.