Broadsword

I suspect even the most basic Chinesium rubber will improve the handling 1000% over those vintage hoops!

In situations like this I would start by thinking what could go wrong at the point of replacing the water pump. It seems more than a coincidence you sprung a coolant leak and got running problems as soon as you replaced the water pump. The fact that the problem persists on both fuels I suppos rules out a fuel system fault. There are a couple of easy things to check. One is the ECU temperature sensor. They give strange running issues when faulty. I assume the cooling system has been poorly maintained since you mention the missing gasket on the thermostat. You have now been in there and shook things up. If there is a lot of crud in there, maybe it could affect the ECU temperature sensor? Same goes for the leak, which will be near the coolant pipes near the heater valve no doubt. New water pump, change of coolant, shake things up and now you have a leak. Was there lots of corrosion or evidence of stopleak used in the system? Another thing to check, is there a flatspot at all times or is it only with the engine running at operating temperature? When was the crank position sensor last changed? They can sometimes fail slowly, leading to strange running issues. It's worth having a spare at all times anyway because you are stranded if it fails.

I’m stunned by the results, absolutely fabulous work!

I know you were disappointed initially, but it did turn out to be a surprisingly solid example and clearly is a genuine low miler. It has been enjoyable to see you steadily improve on it. I like your methodical approach. Great job.

Those spark plugs look fairly typical for a LPG car. They tend to look rather lean and a bit singed, so definitely cheap insurance changing them. This car is rather growing on me. Dibs please when the time comes. I covet thy headers!

An interesting follow up to this. The Saab has now healed itself and is driving perfect again. Even the oil light thing has become mostly absent. How?

2004 2.0 HDi estate

This. The corrosion gets so bad that the brake caliper moves out and starts to touch the wheel. The brake pads also wear in to wedges. The bolts are high tensile and will snap, but will also be hard to drill out. I don’t know which one is better to try and fix. I can’t buy another car. The Saab was £1400, so a big hit to scrap. Price of a new DMF and clutch kit will be high and the work will be hard. I could fix the oil pickup at the same time as removing the driveshafts give access to remove all the sump bolts. I don’t trust the Saab not to throw another surprise though. The Citroen has been more reliable. Weirdly I just had to replace the starter on that too. Synchro is damaged on 3rd though and the windscreen is cracked. Neither of those is a big issue though, but still.

Fair point well made. I think I’ve just been completely had over by the seller on this one and the whole car might end up scrap. Just a crappy thing to happen replace one kind of broken Citroen with a now very broken Saab in January. The Saab was meant to be an upgrade. I actually still have the C5 but it failed the MOT on rear brake discs and pads along with a couple of brake lines. I know that sounds trivial but Google the horrors of of replacing rear brake discs on a Citroen C5 and you will have a clue. There is a reason why there are currently wheel spacers on the rear wheels. I bought it just as the problems were setting in and those callipers are pretty unlikely to come off.. Fortunately for the Saab I don’t think I’ll have to worry about the oil pickup seal issue. It won’t be going anywhere for a while.

You know when things start bad, you work hard to correct, recover and then things just get worse. Well here is a tale just like that. Recently picked up a 09 Saab TTiD to replace the Citroen C5 as a family wagon. Really nice, clean car with big service history. Drives lovely and does dog transport duties well. Picked up, drove back great. Really quick and comfy car with added boost gauge goodness. Problem no. 1 ah the starter motor is buggered. Oh well, there is always something. Replacing it was much harder than anticipated, but it got done. Nice. Up and runing again. Now I have to travel abroad, but I think it will be plain sailing from here. Next problem. Low oil pressure warning. At this point I'm starting to wonder how the seller hid these problems so well. I had a good poke around, but all the trouble is happening after the deal. Ok, turns out it's a known TTiD foible. Mildly irritating, not terminal and fixable. Ok, I'll fix that in the summer. I'm aborad now anyway. Next comes a phone call in a panic. The alarm keeps going off. Dogs are setting it off. The ultrasonics are too sensitive. Ok, there is a fix for that in the car settings. Aand relax. Another phone call. The key disintegrated, can't get it. Panic. Ok, the spare at least is kind of ok (they had to walk home). I will reshell the key. Annd relax. Then one more phone call this evening. I was told to sit down. The car is broken I'm told. So it turns out our "friend" was really having a bad time and stalled several times, apparently in 5th gear. Now the car is making a banging at idle. Also for shits and giggles it's apparently trying to drive forward in neutral and with the clutch fully depressed, it is also trying to drive. My mood. As such. It is currently low. I spent the whole Christmas fixing many things and sorting many more out becuase I knew I would have to spend a lot of time travelling this year. Now it seems everything is fucked. I can't outrun the nonsense. I like to think I can and pat myself on the back for it, but there is always a new and interesting fuckup to trump the previous one.

And here is the footage of the head gasket job. What a job it was considering on top of that I changed the clutch too! https://youtu.be/W2qb9yR4wno

It was really too much to take on in a cold single garage over the holiday period, but the deed is done... NLW the Jag now has a new head gasket and the clutch replaced. Happily this fixed both the problems I was aiming to resolve. 1. clutch judder and slipping when provoked hard. This was caused as far as I can see by some contamination on the remanufactured clutch friction material, so I felt vindicated. I was very lucky to have a spare clutch disc, which although used works perfectly and I'm very happy with the result. One day it will get a single mass flywheel conversion, so I'm not so fussed using a spare since original clutch kits are NLA. 2. The head gasket replacement did indeed fix the oil leak out the side of the head, near the secondary timing chain tensioner. This was a sure bet as it's a known X300 weakness. The rest of the gasket was fine, but the high pressure oil feed to the head has a rubber O-ring, which will fail eventually. There was a bonus fix. The rich running appears to be fixed now for whatever reason. You can really tell it by smell since it no longer wiffs of petrol. I knew there were some pinholes in the intake hose to the throttle body. It was replaced with a good used part and now all perfect. Fuel trims look better too. All in all a very productive Christmas!

It has been an exceedingly busy autumn. The main fleet workhorse is currently a Mk. 1 Citroen C5 estate diesel, which has proven very useful at shifting just about anything you choose to throw at it. MUCH roomier than a Volvo V70, the ultimate tip run car. It will probably be up for sale soon though with a new MOT as the fleet gets rationalised to a slighly more modern estate car and probably a small Punto or equivalent for bombing around town. The red Jag XJR manual is now in the bodyshop for sorting out all the many dents, sunroof, cracked plastics and then a full respray. It is currently in the job queue, but the dents are gone at least. I'm not in a rush. It will probably come back late spring. I'm going with the original Flamenco Red. One thing I'm struggling to get for the XJR is a working sunroof casette. Any X300 or X308 sunroof mechanism would do. If anyone here has a source, let me know. An update from the nordic fleet. For three years I have run a 2002 Fiat Punto in Finland. It has been utterly reliable, but I fancied something bigger, faster and better on the frozen winter roads. I also wanted to do this with zero budget. Amazingly I was able to sell the Punto (with a fresh MOT) for what it cost to get a MY 2000 Saab 9-3 2.0i. It was a probate car, which had been standing for a couple years, but came with a new MOT. It took about 150 euros worth of parts from the Finnish equivalent of Eurocarparts "Motonet". I love Motonet. It needed a full service, belts, tensioners, coolant sensor, thermostat and a few small things just before the temperatures got too cold to work outside. It got some proper Hancook studded winter tyres and was pressed into immediate service. 3000 kilometers in all is well apart from a broken HVAC panel. Again if anyone here has a manual HVAC panel for an OG Saab 9-3, please let me know!!! I have a soft spot for OG Saab 9-3. I love the comfy seats, nice interior and mahoosive boot. If only this one had a turbo! Finally I've just finished editing up the footage from the summer I did on the red XJR. Check it out.

Must be an absolute riot to bomb around in that on fast B-roads. Enjoy!

That is one caddish Jag! I never liked the look of the basic XJ40, but the moment it is hunched down on big wheels and wide tyres with the quad light and most importantly the presence of the V12 in my mind increases the visual appeal (don't ask me how I came to that conclusion, it's special logic). Great colour too!!

It does indeed have a DMF, a very heavy looking item.

That’s it, we’re out! The weighty Getrag lump is free of the red Jag. In the end what I needed was a 50 cm extension bar and a shallow impact swivel socket to get the harder to reach bellhousing bolts out. After that the final challenge was teasing the gearbox off the locating dowels, since it was seized on. Before too long the gearbox popped off and there was ample room to push back, lower on my little motorcycle jack and drag it out from the side. Doing this job in a small single garage on axle stands is only just about doable. It’s not terribly complicated but I really had very, very little space to manoeuvre. It was exciting to see how how bad things were inside. The release bearing is absolutely shot. How it didn’t disintegrate is a minor miracle. More impressive than that is how the pivot on the fork was seized solid and the fork was seized on the input shaft. It would barely move. How the clutch didn’t stick is beyond me. For a moment I wondered if the car had been in a flood. There was watery rusty residue in the bellhousing. Soon I realised what had really happened. Water has dropped from the air box drain direct to the top of the bellhousing and leaked into the transmission. Condensation attacked the pivot and release bearing in particular. In short, with a good clean up and the new bearing fitted it will be fine. To my surprise the clutch itself is in good condition. I know this sounds unconventional but I’m not going to change the clutch, just the release bearing, selector mount bushings and just clean everything up. New fluid of course, but that’s it. I’m certain it will be great after that. If the clutch was smooth (but heavy) in this state it will be fine with this work done. By the way the clutch is BEEFY! It weighs an absolute tonne!

They should be testing it on petrol. I had an issue with failing emissions on a LPG Jag V8 once and the advice was to have a look at the spark plugs because they are going to wear out much faster on LPG. Sure enough they were very worn down and a new set of plugs sorted everything out.

Info from the XJR6 factory manual register as follows: Built 25th May 1995 to Caffyns of Eastbourne on 06/06/95.

The Rover was towed away this moring for scrap. Sad times. I kind of don't have a daily at the moment, which will become more of a headache as time goes on. The MX-5 can serve as a runabout while the weather is nice, but it doesn't do a good job at transporting people and/or stuff. An estate car would be good.. or and XJR6 auto. Not wanting the demise of a fleet member to get things down, I pushed on hard with the red Jag immediately after the MOT. The next morning I took the car to be evaluated for a full respray. This is convenient now that I have a rapport with the place on the back of NLW being done and the shop is only a mile or so from home. I will have the estimate soon, but it will be a fairly similar job to NLW bar we will keep to the exact factory colour, which is Flamenco Red. What with things going well I immediately started to tear the red Jag down. First I wanted as many body panels off as convenient to see if there is any structural rot and also to facilitate disassembly for the respray. I don't want to land them with a load of seized bolts. Again the car continues to surprise. Every nut and bolt was easy to remove. Only one snapped little bolt on the front wing, which is a no headache at all. The bumpers came off in moments as did the bonnet. Later I'll have the full interior out and the sunroof (it's stuck). There are a few bits of rust on the bodywork, but they seem fixable and I have spare front wings to go. Next I wheeled the somewhat stripped Jag into the garage for the beginnings of the big job... the gearbox. This one will take me some time, but long story short, everything was dead easy from removing the exhaust, prop, clutch hydraulics, gearbox mount and most of the bellhousing bolts. I'm currently stuck with two bellhousing bolts. One is right at the very top and one holds the top of the starter in. I'll need many more extension bars and an excellent impact swivel stocket to get me over the line. Once the box is off I can assess what manner of clutch overhaul I'll be doing. One extreme is just chaning the release bearing if by some miracle the clutch had little wear (remember you can't by a new one OEM spec), the other possibility is conversion to single mass flywheel and using and XJS clutch kit. I've removed the intake system too for a whole lot of tidying up. Of course the throttle is sticking as it is on most XJR6s. Working on this one has been a pleasure. Bar those two difficult bellhousing bolts the car hasn't been fighting me at all. It wants to live. Much more to come!

I like to get a good period correct key ring for any of my more interesting cars.

Bonus headlamp washer a la HubNut. I’ve never actually see the headlight washer system working on an X300.

In the aftermath of the Rover’s demise, this is my analysis of the sequence of events.. Either one of the engine accessories or the auxiliary belt tensioner locked up leading to partial shredding of the the auxiliary belt. Parts of the auxiliary belt found their way into the cam belt housing, locking it up and partially damaging the cam belt. This immediately bounced the valves and trashed the head, possibly the pistons too. Incidentally the fuel system is full of rust but this wasn’t actually causing a running issue. Whoever did the major work on then car knew the fuel tank was rusty and cleaned it up as best they could but it deteriorated. It just isn’t worth the time and money to try and put it right. It will just get messier and messier. I’ve booked the car to get to get collected for scrap next Wednesday. Disappointing, but one has to take the tougher with the smooth. Speaking of which. I took the latest XJR manual in for an MOT. Boy oh boy does it look incongruous. The story underneath is quite different though. No rust, no problems at all really. It doesn’t even leak. It passed easily, which was a delight on a Friday afternoon. Next job for the red shed Jag is to get the gearbox out and assess the clutch. At the very least it needs a release bearing but probably a whole clutch. You can’t buy a direct fit clutch kit for these anymore. More on that later.

I don’t think there is a successor to your Gold SDI as such, so I’d be tempered to keep it going as long as possible. Even in it’s current state it will probably give less trouble than a modern.

Things unravelled with the Rover upon digging into the FTP. First I noticed no fuel was getting through and the tank is full off rust/debris, all the way to the injector pump (so there is debris past the fuel filter). Then looking at the timing belt is has slipped and shredded partially along with the auxiliary belt. There is loud clack noise from the head when you rotate the engine by hand so there is major engine damage for sure. The little bit it did run sounded like 1 cylinder.. Anyway I need a car that I can rely on and given the Rover has already had a new head, I think some underlying issue was not figured out when it got worked on by a previous owner. It's going to get scrapped. Shame really it was spot on right up till the moment it grenaded, and was a nice drive.