Magnificent Rustbucket

Westminster blue? - My dad had a Jag that colour.

On 5/23/2023 at 12:43 PM, straightSix said:

Couldn't quite fit it in one photo 😂 on the way into work this morning 

There is a Youtube video about this car.

12 hours ago, straightSix said:

I think the xj40s are possibly my favourite Jaguars. Did you used to post over on xj40.com? Feel like I recognize the car

I recognise the car from XJ40.com as well, it is in beautiful condition.

Remarkable, thanks for posing it.

2 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

Never had an issue in the LS400 and never had an issue in the Fairmont until Friday. You usually know when you've got cheap rubber fitted as things get squirrelly. 

Interesting to discover that today, they are resurfacing that stretch after an oil spill yesterday... Which seemed to happen just after I'd emailed Highways England asking how long that spot had been an issue.

Fresh rubber will be purchased as I'm reminded that one front tyre is a bit low, and has a nail in it. The care package is on its way from Aus - halfshaft, packing plate and the shaft already has a bearing on it. It's so easy to get the halfshafts out that the plan is to just fit it and if the bearing is a bit sloppy, replace it later. In theory, the parts should arrive on Thursday!

It is wishful thinking to blame it on the road. It may be that stretch is a little slippery but having poor tyres has made the difference between the car feeling a little twitchy and going off. You say yourself on this thread that , "it's practically impossible to pull away in the wet without wheelspin, which kicks the traction control in, which is dim-witted and basically just shut the throttle off entirely".  You shouldn't drive a powerful old RWD car on poor tyres and this is why. We've all made mistakes and we've all had the car point the wrong way at some point, there's no shame in it. I learned about the importance of good tyres in a 200SX which became wayard like this.  Replace the tyres and move on -  but don't blame the road, that's silly.

Anyway, thankfully the car seems not to be substantially damaged and no one was injured, which is the main thing. 

It sounds like Dollywobbler just needs to get some new tyres for it. A powerful old-school RWD car needs good tyres and he says himself a few posts back in this thread that the tyres were poor in the wet. Thankfully no one was injured and damage doesn't sound to be significant, but spinning a car always leaves you a bit shaken. We've all done it at some point.

Look at that 'phone number - from the days when managing to convince the GPO you deserved to be sold a 'phone was really difficult so hardly anyone had one! - It's probably why 'sixties and 'seventies TV shows always have banks of telephones on the big man's desk - to show how powerful he is by having so many 'phones!

When I was at school in the sixth form one of the lads had a SAAB like this in a paler green - more of an olive colour. It was a lovely car and I remember it fondly, even though it was falling to bits.

Such handsome cars.

The Jaguar XJ40 Sovereign must be one of only a handful of cars which came with alloy wheels as standard which listed hubcaps as an extra cost option. These stainless steel hubcaps are rare and were £250 extra on the later Sovereign, more on the standard XJ6. I like them but my favourite hubcaps are probably those fitted to the Rolls-Royce Silver clouds and early Silver shadows.  ACE wheel discs are splendid things too, from an earlier era.

On 6/8/2021 at 11:55 AM, JimH said:

Apols for being off topic but bugger me, isn't this a looker?

The sort of car that forces you to dress better.

This to my eye at least has a slight overtone of the Peugeot 505 - another elegantly styled big Peugeot - particularly around the rear pillar and in the relationship of the glass to the body.

I like quite a few of Paolo Martin's creations, not just the 604. The 104 was especially neat, the 130 particularly elegant - andd the Camargue remains one of my favourite cars. A friend of my late father owned a Camargue in the early '80s. Riding in a Camargue was such an event even the normal Shadow felt ordinary after it. And who could forget the Ferrari Modulo from Top Trumps?

I've always loved the 604, particularly the earlier ones.

Relatively efficient isn't the same as efficient.

On 3/24/2021 at 11:44 PM, PhilA said:

It rained again.

Wipers work

Phil

American car's styling in this period was particularly pleasing. 

On 4/3/2021 at 7:57 AM, GrumpiusMaximus said:

I find that the people that don't want a nationalised health system are almost invariably those that stand to profit from a private system.

The NHS is a wonderful thing and we are very, very lucky.  It certainly has flaws but it is by-and-large effective and surprisingly efficient.  If you want private care, fine, you have that option and you can pay through the arse through it but the fact that we have a system that will treat you regardless of your income or social status is brilliant.

The NHS is valuable and I wouldn't be without it, but it is deluded not to see that it has serious faults to the extent that the care it offers can be poor and when things go wrong its behaviour can be appalling. I have experienced this. Another thing it definitely is not, is efficient.  

18 hours ago, PhilA said:

Washed the car.

 

Discovered a Builder's Bastard in the shoulder of the rear right tire. Arse.

Well, the tires at the back need changing, so I booked it in for Monday to have 4 new tires fitted (previous owner randomly fitted different brand tires and although the front 2 still have decent tread left it makes the car unpredictable, particularly in the wet).

The only good thing out of all this is that 4 BF-Goodrich tires came in at under a grand fitted.

Going fast costs money.

Phil

Lovely car. 

33 minutes ago, chaseracer said:

😁

It is deeply disappointing but should come as no surprise to me that this is all you have to say and that the preceding pages laced with criticism of the moderation on Autoshite are once again dismissed with silence. It is not a tantrum by children. It is reasoned criticism by adult members who are supposedly respected members here. Many have been members here for a long time and from long before you appointed yourselves to control us. Or that is,  what's left of them, the ones you haven't yet driven away. Yet we are it seems worthy of nothing. No response. No respect. Just high-handed dismissal from 'teacher'. The silence is stark. 

It's the arrogance which triggers me. It's breathtaking. I am  lucky enough that in daily life I have not been bullied and have always been treated with respect by those around me. That is what makes the behaviour of the moderating team all the more stark. Maybe if I had endured bad managers I would be more inured to it but being treated as a feeble-minded, grubby little child unworthy of consideration or explanation when the law is laid down by my self-styled 'betters' is very difficult for me to accept with the 'simple shrug, head downcast and move on' I am expected - nay required - to manage in order to remain a 'valued' member here. Finally I grasp that I am done contributing to Autoshite. Fondness of what is was has left me blinkered to the reality that it will never recover its vitality, its colourfulness or its eccentric uniqueness. Most of its characters have gone or mostly lurk. Doesn't that tell you something or are you too sure of your own virtue to notice or care? Is your crusade so important it is worth killing the forum for? Maybe you think it is. Because that is what you are doing. 

The period since the moderation team appointed themselves has been disastrous for Autoshite. The forum staggers from one moderator-driven fiasco to the next.  I had drifted back here in the hope that something has been learned and that the situation may have improved. But nothing has. The forum I loved is dead and you Chaseracer and your clique have killed it for me. It is an achievement indeed to bring such an emotional response from one so phlegmatic as me, but by God you have managed it.

52 minutes ago, red5 said:

I'd agree with most of this, except for the 'just as bad bit' - it was a Post for Effect, he knew it and thought he'd get away with it, as usual. Can't blame him for that, it's been enabled by others for a long time. The complainer isn't just as bad - it's a level playing field or it isn't - and it falls most definitely into the latter here, and has done for a long time. More like a ' good enough for the goose' situation then anything.

Denial,glossing over and re-writing what led us here serves no-one in the long term, save for those who want, for their own purposes, a place to be 'safe'.  An old car forum can be, but it's a by-product of tone, honesty, openess, discussion, personal responsibility and consensus. Things I'm afraid to say that are lacking.

Where's the Moderator thread gone?

The 'How are moderators appointed?' thread seems to have been deleted by the moderators. By removing the thread the moderators are sending a clear signal to members that they do not want us to know how the moderators were appointed and that they want the process to remain cloaked by smoke and mirrors and to be unaccountable. I have long suspected that they effectively appoint themselves now, possibly having initially been appointed to remove the spam that bedeviled the forum in the 'Dave' era. Moderation was supposed to remove spam only - there is a post to that effect from the forum owners way back, if it hasn't itself been removed by the moderators of course. I imagine it is only  matter of time before criticism in this thread is itself removed and we are all compelled to go back to 'smiling-happy'.

44 minutes ago, brownnova said:

Can I assure you that these concerns are heard, and I will take these backstage and discuss with the other mods. I too would be loathe to lose the colour from the forum... just because it is beige in colour shouldn’t mean we’re only beige in content!

However, can I ask that we keep this thread to news about our cars/news and if there are concerns that you would like to air I will happily listen to/discuss them by PM.

You also say, "you would loathe to lose the colour from the forum ... just because it is beige shouldn't mean we're only beige in content"

Yet it is the moderators here of whom you are one, who have deliberately, systematically and consistently extinguished that very thing. What made AS unique has been stamped out and smothered not by accident but by conscious decision and undertaken in such a way as to treat the members here as ignorant children. It is frustrating indeed as I retain a fondness for this forum. At its best it was superb, but  sadly the embers are now dim.

28 minutes ago, brownnova said:

Can I assure you that these concerns are heard, and I will take these backstage and discuss with the other mods. I too would be loathe to lose the colour from the forum... just because it is beige in colour shouldn’t mean we’re only beige in content!

However, can I ask that we keep this thread to news about our cars/news and if there are concerns that you would like to air I will happily listen to/discuss them by PM.

If anything demonstrated that nothing has changed nor been learned by the moderators here, then this response is it. 

54 minutes ago, dollywobbler said:

I actually try not to mention the Beige too much for fear it might drive too many people here. It's always been a tight knit place here, which has been the charm for a very long time. Last thing I want is it to end up a HubNut hangout, though I appreciate the kind words.

I think I'm going to start farming more work out. I need to focus on the real key members of the fleet and I might well farm some of that work out too if the numbers work. Not easy to find good garages though, especially when you live in the middle of nowhere. Garages here are used to doing the bare minimum to keep cars just about going because that's all most folk will pay for.

Autoshite has been diluted almost beyond recognition in the last couple of years so I'm not sure an influx would make much difference. 

You have done a beautiful job on this car. The difference between good and great is in the attention to detail and yours is painstaking. So many otherwise good cars are let down by waves in the paint, most often seen on the flanks of the car. I am delighted to see that you will not tolerate this on your car!

1 hour ago, barrett said:

Despite everything this year, I did manage to drive a couple of nice cars, including - a first for me - a car with a straight-six engine. This led me to idly contemplate the various different power configurations I have experienced over the last few years, and there is a fair bit of variety. In the spirit of nothing better to do, I'll show you mine if you show me yours...

so, what configurations have you driven? What do you like best? And can somebody let me have a go in a V16 Cadillac, a Double Six Daimler and something with a radial-rotary engine? Oh, and a Rotary NSU please. I think then I can tick most of the obvious ones off the list....

My grandfather had a Cadillac before the war but it had only the eight cylinder engine unfortunately. It still looked fabulous in the photographs I saw of it as a child though. Have you driven a straight-eight? My grandfather had just ordered a new Cadillac in 1939 so was unable to take delivery. After the war it took him a while to get the foreign currency together to buy another  car and he was unable to get a Cadillac because of the huge demand for them. He was able to buy a  Buick Roadmaster though, which he took delivery of in 1948. When driving it from the docks he was followed by a police motorcyclist for a number of miles who eventually stopped him just to have a look at the car. The Buick had the straight eight 'Fireball' engine which he reckoned was smoother and quieter than the Cadillac. He loved that car and kept it for many years. 

On 10/2/2020 at 6:20 PM, HMC said:

plus @Magnificent Rustbucket is the world authority on these fine vehicles and has long long term ownership experience to boot.

Ha ha - I'm not sure about World authority, I've just owned one for a long time! The experts on these are Rob Jenner (as mentioned by China Tom), Bryan Neish on the Jag-Lovers website (posts as Bryan N - I don't know if he still does as I visit Jag-Lovers even less often than Autoshite and he was retired when I was first using the site nigh-on 20 years ago) and David Marks.

I love my XJ40 and never tire of it even after all these years. They're old cars now and although they are robust they suffer badly from rust and many have been neglected. Buy the best one you can find. The 4 litre cars are probably the best compromise since they are faster than the 3.2 yet use hardly any more petrol because of the gearing, but the 3.2 is still reasonably quick and fast enough for most people. I would avoid the 2.9 since they have only 165bhp and are rather underpowered for a Jag and the engine is said to  suffer timing chain problems. The 3.6 is much faster but rare now and can be a little more troublesome. The V12 is wonderful, but one best left to the enthusiast in my view. They are an altogether more exotic beast and much more 'needy'.

I tried to add a photo but the site has changed since I last used it and ...well I couldn't!

18 years of the road is quite a while! I suppose it depends on why it went off the road in the first place and how it has been stored as to how easy it is to revive it. I find my XJ40 to be particularly tolerant of non-use - it just shrugs it off.

On 6/19/2020 at 7:10 PM, ChinaTom said:

Great news on the bulkhead. The rear screen needs to come out to effect a ‘lasting repair’ - it’s a proper design flaw on that rain channel. I had mine done comprehensively about 10 years ago and now one side needs doing again. The sunroof, once the edges have gone is a replacement job too, although they aren’t as hard to find as they used to be.

whilst I’m happy for you to have picked up a proper decent one for 600 it does depress me that these are still so cheap! I’m holding onto mine in the vague hope that one day it will be worth something like the amount I have put into it. Just in time for the banning of fossil fuels I imagine....

I don't think it would be easy to find another one like this for only £600 - I think he has found a real bargain here. I wonder how many people have an XJ40 on Autoshite. I know you and I have both had one for a great length of time but I tend to think of them not being  that much of a 'shiter's car, possibly people think the're too heavy on petrol?

Mine, joining the bonnet up theme:

P1130239 by *D*B*, on Flickr