Crispian_J_Hotson

Likely another fiat badge. The double fiat badge became popular and would evolve into the fiat Doblo. name... Possibly

I think she's just worked out where her third kid is.

Looking closer at the wind assisted windscreen wiper, this guy is keen on modifying. Therefore it makes sense that he fitted this grill and badge: ...as was a common mod at the time, especially if the original had just 'fallen out' on the way home from the last pub visit. Nope, just made that up, and got fed up with trying to work it out.

It's happened. JagDroid has been installed. This has been on my list of wants for a while. For those who don't know, in a nutshell, a bloke takes the old touchscreen unit which support stopped for in 2012 and throws the old TV gubbins in the bin, he then sticks in a new touchscreen powered by ODroid and integrates it with the stock controls. In doing that, it gives all the connectivity, WiFi, Blootoofs, and brings it all up to date. I needed this in my life because of my wide range of music taste means I'd need a CD autochanger that holds 253 CD's at a time. I got a temp unit to install whist the main unit was away being upgraded, It was time to rip that out. BYE. Then the new unit and the one original to the car, could be installed... The start up screen for entering the PIN is the same as usual. One wiring mod was required into the interior light in the footwell. This is a signal switch for the unit to power down. A lick of solder on that and she was good to go. Everything else was supplied in the kit and plugged together, leaving this nest of wiring... That is the brain of the operation and could be tidied up, space was available under the frame of the dash to mount it. I used super sticky velcro in case it ever needs to come out again! I put the code in and immediately set to downloading Youtube and connecting it to my account. I was presented with this spooky face but it was just the first vid I played. Test over and nothing blew up, I played about with it. Got a cool background for the time being and a bit of inspiration... Then I tested the sound and toons which is probably the whole main reason for installing this! Then it rained- hard, whilst I messed with the steering controls, but it works and is freaking awesome... I've still got maps to play with which is the second reason. Bluetooth works directly but the sound, as usual is degraded, this aint going to sort that out but anything i need to BT to it can be found on the web and various apps. Very pleased with this and well worth it if like me, you need your music!

I've never understood but always been fascinated by this... Was there a reason for this? Suppose I could wiki it but I'm honestly on the bog at work about to go into a meeting.

I put nearly 20k on my ex '86 BM 635 commuting it. It took it like a trooper but sitting in traffic constantly eventually fucked it with the weirdest brake system failure requiring hard to find, wallet rupturing parts that 'might' have fixed it. Ended up sat broken for years and eventually I moved on and sold it off. I reckon if you can easily get all the bits to keep a car going then there's no issue running it daily but I was always on the para that some numpty would stick their appliance up it's arse, but then that would be game over for most things I suppose. Even now in the STR I hang back at the end of traffic so if that did happen I could at least save the other end!

This weekend, I was mainly messing with the air intake. This needed sorting asap! I set to it. That solenoid would not move for toffee and stuff was beginning to break so I had to cut it out from the other side. Some scraping and chiseling away revealed potential. I wired it up to a battery and it was still operating despite it's fucked condition. So it got a lick of paint. Then I had to disassemble the flap part of the airbox by drilling out the rotten retaining screw securing a hinge made from premium plastic. With that out, I could clean the life out of everything and get bending on my replacement spring which was slightly bigger but would work. I could then lube up and re-secure the flap bit with a stainless item. The solenoid was fitted and the operation checked... we all know that this is the bit when things that worked, stop working... for no reason whatsoever! Please enjoy the following presentation: That's all that thing does, but mine being open the whole time caused it to suck in engine temp air and that is bad for performance. Speaking of which, I jumped on the heat tape train and smothered all the intake in silver stuff. These engines in particular are known for their heat soaking so we need to help it out a bit. That all took way longer than I cared for but it's done now... until it falls off. Then I could struggle and wrestle with fitting it back in the engine bay. It was a lot of messing around for very little gain but necessary I suppose. Upon starting the car, I could hear that it had gained several horses and see the air was colder... no, total bullshit. Nice to tick that area off the list of unknowns and have the knowledge that it's all doing what it should be doing... and it's clean. Looking ahead, there is an upgrade to the water pump for the supercharge cooler, some Merc thing, but I found a pump by AVT that specifies this engine, they also upgrade the Merc too, so it made sense to get that for when I get this engine tore apart. I've had enough of messing with this and I'm just going to drive it for a few weeks before it comes off the road. I've still consumables to get and Jagdroid has been in touch to confirm receipt of my screen, so that's cool.

THAT'S MASSIVE... she said again... New rad turned up buoys and it's a cracker! Considering it's come from Checzolvazia Ch Czek CH... Czechoslovakia it is completely damage free! It is big, so I reckon it'll be a snug fit. I've got de-ionized water coming for the cooling system which I already get for my Carnivorous plants, so just doubled up on my monthly consumption. Just hope 25L will be enough looking at the size of it 😁 I have to admit it, I splurged. I bought an unnecessary luxury for it but it was 7£ well spent I reckon. A bit like Maserati gold plated clocks, the R gear knob is a prize theft and quick nik. Mine had been professionally* removed by A N Other and something from a lesser model put in it's place. It's the same thing but has a little plastic R inset into it and that's worth another 40£ on top in ebay land apparently. It was one of those that only went tight if it wasn't straight and I didn't get on with that or the fact that it was subject to crime, so outed it. My shifts are much quicker now and I can change from P to D in 00.01 seconds faster than before! I may get it lower a bit but I threw it on after work so I could bin the other thing. The other advantage is that I can retrieve CDs from the player when it's in Park, something which is more of a fudge than it should be with the original. I also have a used replacement Jaguar DCCV (heater mix valve) delivered at the neighbours. According to other experiences, the cheap versions are a let down, the new OE ones are about 300£, so I'll chance my arm on a OE used. It might last 10 minutes or 10 years who knows? Autoreserve stick a warranty on the parts, so it should work for 12 months! The Black car has been put on the skates and 100£ worth of parts were removed from the drivers door, including the check strap which went on the Diesel. The Caldoofy intake is doing it's thing and head turns are up 32% despite the manifold blow, the supercharger noise is drowning that out a lot. And finally... A second tank of fuel was got and was a total success with no leaks!

Yeah... naa... My suspicions that something wasn't right with the high intake air temp were correct. Me flap is always open on the secondary air intake. This is due to a busted return spring which has long since returned to nature. Although that solenoid (bigger rusty thing) appears to still be working, as a clean contact mark from the push rod can be seen in the dirt on the flap. So today I found something similar to that spring and when it arrives, I'll see if I can put it right. The main intake wasn't connected into the air box at all either and this would probably be the main issue for the high temps as it was pulling air straight from the engine bay mixed with ambient air. That bit is fixed. I'm going to get a live data reading and look for improvements later today. The drive in this morning with the new intake pipe was faultless, no warning lights, no hissy fits, just lots of good noises... so I do believe that a thing has been done! I'll be keeping the old intake as this level of hooligan is not to everyone's taste. Now I need to continue gathering consumables for the top end rebuild and some other stupidly priced smoll bits, and then set aside some funds for the supercharger rebuild and mod and... the head work! In other news: Tracking information revels that the... lets call it infotainment, has been delivered to JagDroid, and I haven't received any news that it is exploded or crushed to death, so I imagine it's now in line to have it's brains er... re-brained?

This turned up today... that's massive... she said: Caldoooofy pipe arrived! Apparently, there is magic contained within. Without a thought for feeding the cats or getting the washing in, I went and immediately fitted it... OK, some of the excess plumbing can do with a trim but that'll come later. It is a effing tight fit. What does this pipe do then? Well, after starting the engine, it 'enhances' basically everything, and that's cool. It has gone from sounding like a Gentlemans discrete private fancy to all out hooligan, and that is just on idle! Revving it, the sound has also gone deeper and more USA V8. There is significant difference and you can tell because now it's rattling something in my CAT, a noise never heard before. They are destined for the bin anyway. It's hard to believe how an pipe has had such a dramatic effect. The missis arrived home and I got 'the look' for fiddling with the car outside of my authorised time slot and without permission, so I finished the install and put the old intake in the boot. The test drive will be tomorrow on the way to work where I'm expecting results and an engine management light. A fault was also discovered which I will get onto later.

Radiator is coming! I know this because the £56 customs charges today. I thought the rad was cheap, now it's just... Meh, whatevs... Just hope it doesn't turn up like a shot gunned banana.

The doozil now has it's cap. I've had enough with diesels and caps now to last me 3 weeks at least. Moving on... I received 4 of these. These will signify the death of the black car as these will enable me to shove it around in the smoll garage and remove basically everything that's bolted to it. I think the prize at the moment is the rear subframe. Once that's off it'll be on blocks on these skates so it can be recovered out of the garage. Good plan.

When I was doing my own thing, I got field find 70's BMW's up to rust free, primered, and under sealed, rolling shells. Each shell averaged about 30k in parts and labour and then it went off to continue its 'journey'. That was about 10 years ago. I did throw in free labour for running gear rebuilds and mods though. They had a high retail price into and over the 50k area so were probably an earner.

Well, I've just compared them and there are some close readings. The biggest difference I can see is your at operating temp and the intake air temp is 25, mine is 43. These cars do experience heat soak and pulling in hot air at idle and that's why you have that doobry with a wire coming out of it at the bottom of the air box, it actuates a flap to close off hot air from the engine. I would suggest that either mine isn't working (likely) or you were in the cold on that day. These solenoids appear to be rocking horse shit... great*. This is the reason why cone filters are no good on these cars. *writes on mile long list... need to improve cool air intake.

Mate, I think... I know your pain. It's a toughie and a sack draining issue, just be wary of red herrings. If you've repeated the same check 3 times and got the same change, well, I'd investigate that further after exhausting the obvious things. You know the chances of there actually being an issue there could be slim, that's how it works. I can offer to get icarsoft OBD live data at the same time you do it to compare, but you know my sensor readings are... lets say boarder line through unknown CAT bodgery and manifold blow (hence the upcoming rebuild), so it could throw you way off. I do know that my wiring and EGRs are ok. Just do me a favour, next time you are out there, just see if you can smell fuel in the oil. It's a thought that has entered my head that I can't shake off. In fact, I've just seen that I have some idle live data on my phone from a while back, you want me to post it up?

Today I got home from work and found that the missis had taken the Diesel with the er... aerosol lid fuel cap. It is vented because I had to cut a slit in it to make it fit. The replacement is due in tomorrow. With these facts in hand, I went and cleaned and modified* my newly acquired cap. It now looks nothing like a Diesel filler cap. That should fool the purists.

I thought that it was just the 2.7 2T Diesel they so desired? 3L Engine in the black car is a peach of a unit. I have not heard of this requirement from the drivers of bricks.

I've kind of given up hoping for cost effective builds. Pretty much every car I've ever had has lost, probably because I choose shit cars no one wants. The only car I ever earned on was a Sierra with an insurance pay out! This car has some ounce of want in the general public, still marmite as fcuk though. I have kind of made it my mission to turn it into the car Ford should have released if they didn't have Aston at the same time, by undoing all the dumbing down and cost cutting. The want was, and still is, high for the early STR, and I had to jump to get it, so it's a bit of a trophy at the moment.

I'd say when hunting for bits, there's a few hours involved, it seems mainly due to superceded parts or suppliers asking out of this world prices... And that's just the OEM kit. Aftermarket is another story, after 2 hours, I can have 20 internetting tabs open, comparing images, searching old threads, potential suppliers. It's a bit like when i had the 635, outside of normal maintenance and common issues, it was barren. That car was a pain in the arse for the out of the ordinary parts. Utter unobtainium, at least with this there are several common incarnations. This means that dedicated forums are only good to a point, beyond that, you're on your own. The other frustrating thing is, like the BM, all the used bits in this country are usually only slightly better than what I'm throwing in the bin, in the States they can be mint, but then there is the price to get it over here plus jag tax. Edit, I should give Autoreserve a shout here, on more than one occasion I've exhausted all avenues and ended up with them providing the best part and at realistic prices, and it arrives fast . I don't owe anything to anyone and I make hay whilst the sun shines. The missis and the kids get what they want and I get what I want, and at the moment, it's building this car but I've got to admit, the diff is gonna be a killer cost. Ultimately I want to drag the car around a few tracks and see where that goes. I suppose the drive to do it comes from growing up with all my pals having turbos and Cosworths, and I could never afford it. Trying to make a 1L polo keep up with a Renner turbot or a 1900gti, lets face it, is never going to happen. I managed to get an rs1600i but that was a wreckage of a car which repeatedly tried to kill itself and everyone in it. Of course, being somewhere a little bit on the infamous spectrum always helps...

Better catch up, this is an evolving machine... Things have happened, things have broken, but we are still moving. Filling the car with fuel became an issue. For every 10£ put in the tank, 2£ hit the floor of the forecourt. It got worse. Several attempts at bodgery didn't have an ounce of effect and it persistently leaked fuel on fill up. It would appear that the filler hose which is made from steel, has rotted out where it connects to a rubber hose to the tank. This rubber hose had also broke down, leaving thick black deposits over anything that touched it. 75 jubilee clips later, I threw the towel in and looked at my options. Meanwhile under the bonnet, I had some cover parts on the black car which were too unicorn poo like to waste, so set about seeing if I could fit those on this car which had the locating holes in the inner wings. In the meantime, the radiator top hose turned up and I went to fit it. The radiator top mounts on the car were formed of plastic and on the black car they are metal so for what is was worth, I swapped these out. Whilst in there I scanned over the rest of the cooling system. Removing the top hose it appeared that the radiator plastic core was fragmenting as it had lost it's hose securing bead and looked like rats had been at it. So a radiator was added to the list. Another radiator which turned out to be the supercharger cooler, appeared to be leaking too. This unit isn't cheap and research is telling me that this is the best thing to use to cool the supercharger, thin and plenty of surface area, so my options are limited for a replacement. I had visions of some ally thing hanging out the front with Yee har text pained on in JDM style, but that isn't going to happen. I can likely get this repaired but I'll need it out to have a proper look at it. The Cooling rad however, there is an aftermarket Ally item by Worley. I bit the bullet and ordered that. The top rad hose I ordered in silicone was too big, I had grossly over measured in the tight space. Disappointing but I could at least measure it properly now and get the right one. This turned up a couple of days later and was fitted. The engine was topped back up with coolant, bled and run up to fan. It's interesting to note here that the header tank for the STR is different from the usual offerings in that it has an outlet for a hose to the Supercharge cooler, seen in the above image, coming out the back of the tank. I have read a case where a normal tank was fitted and the hose bunged off. This extra feed provides pressure equalisation to both systems, so bunging the hose off is probably not a good idea. Further parts were ordered for the engine overhaul next month. There is an issue with these cars where 2 cooling hoses run under the supercharger in the valley between the heads. The hoses have a dead stop restriction where the pipes change size and it is here that many owners have found issue with hoses tearing. It's a sod of a job to replace these hoses but I found a modded hose where the reduction is part of the hose molding, eliminating this problem area. It is made of rubber, I was after silicone but couldn't source any so ordered those. Once they arrived, I found the ones I wanted in silicone... Bugger. So I got those too. In the meantime, the 20 head bolts turned up to go with the timing set, top end gasket set and 200 cell CATs. Jagdroid gave me a date to send the touchscreen off and that was now. I had already ordered a spare unit to run whilst mine was being modified but it turned up 'not as advertised' i.e; the wrong unit, so I got the right one sent for a small extra cost. I took out my unit and prepared it for sending off. That has now been sent where it will be propelled into the 21st century, but look standard fit and retain all of original functions. I found myself watching lots of you tubes where vehicles were catching fire, given the car leaks fuel, it got me spooked so I fitted a can of no flames discreetly in the glove box: The Caldoofy intake is also made and on it's way, can't wait for that bit! The car was low on fuel, I had one last go at putting fuel in it, saw what leaked out and called it a day. It needed fixing immediately. I used the fuel in the tank and looked at my options. In a nutshell, the filler neck is no longer available. I found a rotten one in the UK for 80£ which would get me nowhere and a good one in the States for 180£. Being a bit mad, I hatched a plan and thought that I'd go against the Jaguar owners code of fitting the exact same part because the same cars are so different and nothing crosses over, and find an alternative solution. Most, if not all of the other S Type filler necks are expensive and made from stainless steel unlike my rotten thing. It would be an expensive trial if the part didn't fit. I did however stumble across a Diesel neck with the rubber connection included for 25£. I can swallow that... So I did! Yesterday, I allowed myself 3 hours to get it done. Removing the old stuff was fairly straight forward, just having to unbolt something on top of the rear frame to create access to a securing tab on the pipe. The toughest bit was trying to remove the 20+ year old fixings from the inner arch liner. With a bit of a wangle, the old filler neck came out and revealed its failing. She's done. I compared the two necks... That was looking promising in a 'your going to fit whether you like it or not' kind of way, even if it involved a blow torch. Well, it didn't involve a torch and with a bit of brute force, it was in it's new home. I had to make a spacer and add a new fixing as it was in a completely different place, but it was factory. The replacement had a mounting tab that lined up the same as the old one, and the rubber hose to the tank fitted perfectly. All that was missing was the filler cap. That was different to my one. I trialed the one off the Diesel S Type and it fitted so ordered an extra. Hilarious. I then placed an old aerosol lid over the other cars open filler and kept the stolen borrowed one. I had no time to test anything so took the car to the fuel station, filled it up to the top and took off on a 100 mile trip. There were no issues with leaks, running operations or anything untoward. So that is considered a success.

It's done. If ever you want sweaty palms, buy the full top end gasket and full timing chain sets for the 4.2. Jesus. Free postage though... so every cloud! Anyhoo, I have lost my bottle on 'top hose roulette' and it's got a silicone unit coming as the rad top hose feels like chewing gum, expands... a lot, and collapses when cooled. That took a bit of working out to order as it's a reducer pipe at 90 degrees (ish), but a few measurements and 3.14 division later... we got very close. Next will be 20 head bolts, funds set aside for the pully conversion on the supercharger, head work (stud replacement) on both heads, new tensioner pully and belt, valley pipes, and a heater valve because I know mine is packing up very soon. Then it'll be fluids and filters (again). With all that in stock I should have at least 46.4% of the bits I'll need during my 'journey'. All in all, about a grand in bits and a week to 'whip' the heads off and sellotape them back on I reckon. I'm basically going to pull the front end off the car and whilst I'm at it I can realign the front wings around the headlamps. They don't look bad but I can see an issue where it's been flown into a ditch at some point, evidence can be seen by most of the missing undertrays and broken arch liner. I've replaced one which was totally missing. I also got 98mm 'Jaguar R' logos for the Brembo calipers whilst they are easily available, for a future rebuild. They are the same sized logos on both front and back. I don't want silly things like decent logos being a pain to get a hold of. After the engine top end is dealt with, the cats and exhaust I have are welded on, I can focus on LSD conversion, consider remap and continue with poly bushing. That should quench a massive part of what this car is screaming out for. In other news... Interesting history was discovered, I found record of the original reg KE53 GYR which was swapped out somewhere in between 2016 and 2019 for S8 YPE. Someone who has interest in plate origination may find additional info as it appears that the car was first bought in Germany! That will explain the German coin I found under the back seat (and threw in the bin). It didn't stay long there before being bought over to the UK... almost delivery mileage! I recall that a few years ago there was a period where it was financially beneficial to purchase RHD cars in Europe and bring them back the UK. I write 'back' as it would have been built in the UK and on presale taken to Germany, only to come back once purchased? I guess that this was part of that movement? Terrible Carbon footprint!

That's a rough lash fella. Your car hasn't been to a specialist near Birmingham has it? I had similar wiring wank on B2 injector harness. Tossers. It'll pay to get dielectric grease. Whenever I disco a connector, it gets doused in that stuff. Take some advice and buy it straight from online and don't go to 23 shops that don't know what it is.

What battery is it fella? Sometimes cheap 017 gets chucked in with 85ah/ 680a. You should be up at 100ah/900a, not 'silver' or 'calcium' either, just plain Jane lead acid.

You know by now what that probably is. Disco on that battery, discharge residual energy, charge and load test it out of the car. These cars are sods for eating batteries. I've got 3 in my shed, perfectly good to sling in your average ford cortina but no dice in these. Parasitic drains are an issue too, from door locks to seat motors. It'll be alright in the end, patience and 2 back up cars is all it takes.