My XJ6: decision made (p4)

[Skizzer]

NOT DOCTOR SALE OF GOODS H-REG PROTON SPAMBOT TOP GEAR PU51DRY FONDUE SET CUDDLY TOY

Thought we could maybe do with a Scooters-style epic 'I bought a crap car and drove it home' thread to cheer us up on a Sunday afternoon. Luckily I had just such an outing the other week, so here goes.

It started when I sent the aforementioned Scooters a text moaning that I hadn’t won that green Princess 2200 HLS that came up on eBay a while ago. Always a man with a plan, he texted right back with a proposition: he’d lobbed a cheeky bid on an old XJ6 Series 3 that fitted no kind of hole in his life but was cheap as chips, and unfortunately no bugger had outbid him so he’d won it. It was in Kent (where I’m working during the week at the moment), an excellent runner with lots of MOT: did I fancy it as a consolation prize? Send me the link, I said.

Oooh. Ooooooh.


Lovely from a distance by Skizzer, on Flickr

Looks shiny on the outside and creamy on the inside. Good colour – gunmetal grey. Nice new pepperpot alloys, the best Jag wheels of EVAH. 121k. MOT until March. £700.

Oh, go on then.


The deal

We had a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with the seller over contact details and arrangements, and eventually I went round there Thursday evening a couple of weeks back with a wodge of money.

I was a teeny bit nervous, if I’m honest. I’ve bought cars unseen off eBay before, but how crazy do you have to be to buy a car that somebody else bought unseen off eBay by mistake? Still, I thought, I’ve said yes and a deal’s a deal, so here’s hoping.

And there she was, perched imperiously atop a high driveway, looking pretty fine from a distance. But close up? God, those front wings are crusty. And the sunroof. And (oh shit) the paint’s peeling off the scuttle. And the rear bumper, rear valence, rear window frame… what have I done? Still, if the worst comes to the worst I can roll around in it until the MOT’s up and then break it. (That would be rather a shame though as it’s SUCH a lovely shape.)


Bubbly wing at headlamp by Skizzer, on Flickr

Shiny pipes, crumbly valence by Skizzer, on Flickr

Corrode-a-chrome by Skizzer, on Flickr

Flaky scuttle by Skizzer, on Flickr

The sellers were friendly and open and the back story all rang true so I handed over the cash in exchange for the paperwork and stayed for a chat and a cup of tea. We started the car up; it fired first time and idled very sweetly. It may only be a 6 cylinder but it does make a lovely noise.

The paperwork, as a big bonus, stretched to the original service book with a full set of stamps to 67.5k (in 1991) plus a thick stack of MOTs and sundry handwritten invoices for work done since. Marvellous.

Now to tax it and collect.

Jurassic Car Park

The estate where it lived, by the way, is the Lost Valley Of The Shite. It looks like it one of those places that, like my own home, was built in the 1960s or early 1970s for young middle class parents, some of whom never moved away and are now in their late 70s and 80s and still running the car they retired with. A few spots:

A K-reg Volvo 940 saloon in boggo S spec (with bonus unmolested Mini):

Volvo 940S by Skizzer, on Flickr

A Hillman Avenger Super estate from around 1975 (my aunt had a saloon that same rather lovely turquoise colour), without number plate but looking very tidy from a distance:

Hillman Avenger by Skizzer, on Flickr

An Itasca Phasar, the unfortunate result of a Winnebago and a Renault Trafic hooking up one night in about 1983 after getting very drunk on Malibu and pineapple. There’s an MG ZA or similar behind it as well, in an advanced state of decay.

Itasca Phasar by Skizzer, on Flickr

I also clocked an early Vauxhall Nova in beige and various others; time, traffic and the Neighbourhood Watch prevented me from taking more photos, but here’s a little montage from StreetView, all within a couple of streets of each other:

Chod Valley by Skizzer, on Flickr

The pick-up

The plan: drive from Kent to Hampshire, meet my mate Justin, leave my daily driver Skoda there, drive back to Kent via a post office to get a tax disc, collect Jag, drive in convoy to Horsham where Justin has a meeting, drive on to Hampshire, install Jag temporarily in Jut’s dry secure barn (with my still-dormant Dedra), get back in the Skoda and thence home to Wales. Simple.
The driving to Hampshire bit passes without incident: I meet Jut and head to the post office in Alton just in time for it to open. We are diverted on the way by spotting this beautiful SD1:

Corking SD1 VdP by Skizzer, on Flickr

The owner spots me papping it so I feel obliged to go over and explain that my intentions are purely honourable. A very charming older gentleman, whose suit and shirt match exactly the colour scheme of the Rover, he turna out to be a the proud owner of a P5B Coupe and a 12-year-old S-Type as well. We explain the nature of our mission and he encourages me to join the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club. Somehow it doesn’t seem right to embrace him into Autoshite’s dysfunctional family in return. Anyway, he goes off to join his wife in Waitrose and we go to the post office in search of a tax disc.

Trouble is, the car is registered as Disabled. I naively imagined I’d pitch up at the counter, wave around my full complement of arms and legs and volunteer to pony up the full (Abled? Dis-disabled? Whatever) amount of tax. My, how they laugh at this craziness: obviously, the car needs to be entirely re-registered before I can be allowed the privilege of handing over hundreds of pounds, and you can’t do that at a post office. However, a diversion to Maidstone DVLA office eventually sorts this out and secures us a tax disc and the promise of a shiny new V5, a mere two or three hours behind schedule.

The drive home

I’m a bit nervous about the drive back. I reckon the car will start ok, having done so the day before, but I’d woken up in a cold sweat wondering whether the brakes would be stuck on or, worse, that they would fail as I drove down the steep drive and I’d take out the front of the house opposite. None of this happens though: once I’ve remembered what to do with an autobox I fire her up, slip from Park to Drive with barely a thunk and off we rumble.

She burbles happily along with a properly firm brake pedal that pulls her up straight and sharp. The steering feels nice and tight as well; it’s easy at low speeds (albeit squeaky on full lock) but gets meatier with speed. I start to grin.

But a couple of miles down the road comes the beginning of a whiff of something rubbery getting very hot: bugger. What kind of shitheap have I bought? Calm yourself man: pull over, get out, check for flames and steam, deal with it.

Justin pulls in behind me. ‘Tell you what, it smells fucking horrible driving behind you.’

‘I know. I think it’s getting a bit hot.’

He kicks a tyre. ‘Is that smoke coming off the back wheels?’

The back wheels? I think back to my launch procedure: I was so busy figuring out the slushbox I hadn’t thought about a handbrake. Do autos even have handbrakes? I look inside the cabin: No, no handbrake. Or is it like one of those weird Mercedes affairs where you pull it on and kick it off or something? I get in to investigate further: nothing where a handbrake usually is, nothing on the right hand side except the bonnet release, and then there's another bloody big bonnet release handle under the steering column… oh. Well, that’s a stupid place for a handbrake.

We hit the road again. Sure enough, she runs even better with the handbrake off. Probably more economically too, which is just as well as the petrol gauge is right on the bottom. There must be a petrol station in this town, right?

Wrong.

Eventually, driving as gently as possible on the remaining fumes, we get to an Esso place - but it is closed up for a refit. The next part of our journey involves joining the M26 – 18 miles without even any exits, never mind fill-ups. Luckily the refit guv’nor points us to a Shell station a mile or so beyond the motorway turn-off, and we cruise gently in on the remaining fumes. One of the fuel tanks apparently has a big hole in the bottom (the seller mentioned this in the listing and helpfully provided a replacement, sitting in the boot), but one of the XJ’s many excellent features is that there’s another tank on the other side so I fill that up. In fact it only takes £20 of fuel, which surely can’t be half a carload, so I mentally add a fuel gauge sender to the list of things that need replacing. The needle does briefly venture up towards the full mark, but only for a couple of miles before it sighs and goes back to snoozing on its lower bump stop.


Natural habitat by Skizzer, on Flickr

And I start to relax. Cruising at about 70 or so is super comfy; she’ll go faster but I choose not to in deference to the fact that I have no idea what levels of oil or coolant might be flowing round up front. You sit low in an XJ: it’s longer and lower than a modern Mercedes CLS, giving the lie to any claim that Stuttgart invented the luxury saloon/coupe concept, but fully 11cm narrower. Why have cars become so wide? Have standards of conversation, hygiene or elbow-management fallen so low that we need an extra 4 or 5 inches of no-man’s-land between us and our passengers? Once upon a time, driving instructors could put a restraining hand on the wheel if a pupil looked like clipping a kerb; now they must surely have to launch themselves across a yawning chasm like Gene Hackman at the end of the Poseidon Adventure.

We divert to Horsham for lunch with a friend and business associate of Justin named Piers who creates remarkable feats of design and engineering in wood. He admires the Jaguar, and shows me two V8 engine blocks in a corner of his workshop, a 3.5 and a 3.9, that the family Land Rover had chewed up and spat steamily out. They’re now earmarked for conversion into furniture.

From Horsham to the barn is via the famously lovely A272, perhaps the ideal Jaguar road as it swoops and dives across the Sussex and Hampshire downs. The Tudor town planners of Petworth and Midhurst failed to anticipate the rise of the horseless carriage and we slow to a stop-start walking pace under the hot summer sun; the oil pressure gauge starts to falter but the temperature needle keeps calm and we don’t explode.


Burbling through Midhurst by Skizzer, on Flickr

Open roads restore smoothness, those six pistons sliding lazily up and down in their cylinders, each pot a pint and a quarter. When we get to journey’s end I’m truly sad to get out and park up. It’s such an effortless drive, eager to attend to your comfort while being wholly professional about getting you to your destination on time – the essence of first class travel.


This all happened a couple of weeks ago, and there’s no further news. I miss the Jaguar every time I drive something else and want to get stuck into sorting it out so I can waft around in it. There’s no obvious major work required, but the list of minor jobs is long: a new rear valence and at least one front wing; some wire brushing and a dose of Vactan; a change of filters and an oil and coolant flush; fitting that fuel tank and sorting out the fuel gauge; a new inner seal around the driver’s window and a new boot seal; fixing the central locking (the front passenger door won’t open from inside or out, which might prove costly). I’m not grumbling about any of this – it was pretty cheap for a Series 3 with lots of ticket and the listing was honest so I expected a few issues. But thoughts of running it until the MOT runs out and then breaking it have been banished by the combination of the rather special driving experience and the lovely condition of the interior. This could be a keeper.


Hard standing by Skizzer, on Flickr

[vulgalour]

Not a bad consolation prize that, I certainly wouldn't grumble.

[Wilko220]

Great write-up - I enjoyed that! Looks like it could be ace with a bit of bodywork attention. Very pleased to hear it might now live beyond its next MOT!

[Rod/b]

Bravo sir, an excellent account of an excellent acquisition. I do like a series 3.

[TimothyClaypole]

Top tat collecting and writing - the reason most people are on here not to moan over non shite matters.

[RedSparrow]

That Jag is bloody amazing! I would love one like that. Good work man.

[Micrashed]

Excellent write up there young man.

[rml2345]

What a handsome thing, despite the odd rust bleb.

Enjoyed the write up too... Keep us posted on he progress.

[Spiny Norman]

What a fecking ACE write up, I really enjoyed reading that!

Lovely looking old Jag too, I keep having hankerings for a Jag of some sort, but either my bottle goes or (more frequently) I can't find a decent one when I'm looking for new wheels. Your method of just aquiring out the blue has its appeal though, and it's probably what'll happen one day..

Anyone want to swop a nice & not-too-rusty old Jag for a nice & not-too-rusty old Merc?

 

....she runs even better with the handbrake off.

Not always a given on S3 Jags, so you've won a watch there. Quite often the handbrake lever on these things is purely for decorative purposes.

[HMC]

Spent a happy tea break reading your write up, Love the shabby chic jag, as you say its such an amazing shape. As moderns get more bulbous and hamfisted with each new model the delicate lines just get better and better. I want one!

 

Edit- just noticed its a KV coventry number- maybe a browns lane company motor or a press car?

[Cavcraft]

Superb, this is what AS is about. Great write up, great car, a site unseen deal from eBay and driving home part of the way with the handbrake on! 31/10, top stuff.

 

Ps: I had a 4.2 S3 years back and it still remains the nicest car I've driven I reckon, they're wonderful things.

[wuvvum]

That actually doesn't look too bad at all for a £700 Series III - I've seen a lot worse on the roads. I do like the 4.2 - plenty of power without the hideous thirst of the V12. Top purchasing.

[Skizzer]

Thanks for the nice comments.

 

just noticed its a KV coventry number- maybe a browns lane company motor or a press car?

 

Good question. The original (1984) selling dealer was Henlys of Coventry, but the first owner was a Mrs N Chahin of Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, South Kensington. The service stamps are all from main dealer Creamers in Kensington up until 1990. Posh address!

 

I wonder if Browns Lane pre-registered it locally for some 'political' reason? It was in April 1984, four months before the company was floated off from BL - surely they wouldn't have inflated the sales figures to support the privatisation, would they?

[trigger]

Nice purchase, I'm a big fan of these S3's, I remember a V12 version i drove years ago and had to do some work on, they sound wonderful and are very graceful on the road, The number plate on yours is familiar, I guess it's the LKV that rings a bell.

[Skizzer]

My Jaguar is spending a week or so at a health spa (XJ Restorations in Eastbourne) having its belly tickled and other rejuvenating treatments.

 

It hadn't run since a while before Christmas (it lives 180 miles away from me). I'd left the battery connected so that needed an overnight charge; I'd left it hooked up because it seemed to irritate the alarm system when I disconnected it and I didn't want to kill that too in case it permanently immobilised itself. You know you've got a shiter staying in your motel when this happens:

AA three star hotel by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

Meanwhile, I spent some time dragging the Dedra out of the corner of the barn. The previous owner left it reet tight up against the back and side walls so there was no way to get round there to free up the stuck wheels. I put the accessible offside wheels up on dollies and hooked up a towing bar between the Lancia and my daily Skoda:

World indoor car towing championships by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

It dragged out ok but the friction wasn't enough to free the seized handbrake; never mind, next trip I'll get it up on axle stands, take the wheels off and see what damage I can do. It's got all four paws on dollies now, which means I can see underneath a bit better; doesn't look too horrific under there, thankfully.

 

Bright and sparky Monday morning I chucked the battery back in the XJ and up she fired nicely (if slightly smokily). I backed her slowly out of the barn without scraping anything - someone had piled a load of stuff in the way, which I spent quite a lot of Sunday afternoon moving - and off I set for the 80-mile trip to Eastbourne.

 

First stop was for petrol. The car has only one functioning tank, no functioning fuel gauge and is not running at peak efficiency, I'd say, so I wasn't taking any chances on running out. It took £30 worth which means it did about 18-19mpg on the last trip. That was mostly gentle A-roads but that's not bad for one of these, I reckon. This trip should be similar or better.

 

The journey along the South Downs was uneventful, and made only a little more exciting by wondering whether any important components would let go. None did, happily, so I settled down to enjoy the supremely comfortable seats and the burbling of the XK (with, it must be said, a harmonious falsetto whine from the diff). Moments of bravery on dual carriageway sections had me whooping with delight at the visibility over my right shoulder before pulling out: the pillars on modern cars have got so fat that the entire starboard quarter is one big blind spot. Never mind tax-free: old cars should be compulsory.

 

So up we turned at XJ Restorations, on time and to budget against everyone's expectations: the London Olympics of crumbling executive saloons. Keith Parrington, the boss man (a very nice fellow and a big wheel in XJ circles), looked at where the rusty bits were (front wings, door bottoms, rear valence, rear window frame) and said yep, that's a Series 3 alright. We chatted a bit and I gave him my email address, then left him to get on with making the world a better place, one Jag at a time.

XjRestorations by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

Since then, the verdict is mostly good: the underside is 'incredibly solid' yet mostly unrepaired, which is great news. My fear was obviously of hidden laciness and bodgery, but in fact the rust you can see is pretty much what there is, and that's mainly cosmetic. It does need a whole bunch of bushes and seals and brake pads and stuff, and the inboard rear brake calipers have seized (didn't even know it had inboard rear brake calipers), which is all adding up but infinitely better than starting with a basket case. A bloody good service should improve the running and they're going to pressure test it to investigate the roughness and oil pressure drop I saw in traffic back in August. Oh, and the job of getting the door card off a closed door to free the stuck lock is one for the professionals as well - I've wished them luck with that.

 

There are more pictures on XjRestorations' Facebook page.

 

Is this the Autoshite way? Well, I could probably have done some of the work myself I suppose, but my skills are pretty basic, I don't have a ramp, lift or pit and I don't necessarily know whether what I'm looking at is a bit grubby or completely shagged (or missing). The geological timescales of progress on the Golf and Dedra show what happens with my DIY restos. This is a proper car I'd like to do long journeys in, with a reasonable expectation of arriving on the right day with clean clothes and unbloodied knuckles, so I've worked hard and saved up and given the job to Keith and co.

 

This way, we might even make it to Cholmondeley (or wherever it is this year).

[trigger]

Excellent stuff, I don't think it matters if it's the Autoshite way or not, as long as it's getting the love it deserves instead of ended up like a half started project then that's all that matters.

 

Love the number plate on your Skoda by the way!

[Spiny Norman]

Yeah, I'm no great shakes at DIY either so usually farm out anything more challenging than very basic servicing to a trusted spannerman. Doesn't matter if it's not your fingernails getting dirty. The way I see it, you're helping keep a valuable small business afloat.

 

Great to hear it's getting the work done and another one's getting saved.

[dollywobbler]

There's no shame in farming work out. I do a lot of tinkering these days but still punt work out every now and then. I could have spent days struggling to replace the rear arm bearings but I considered paying someone else to do it money well spent!

 

The inboard rear brakes can be a pain. If they seize on, they can knacker up all of the seals on the diff. Sounds like yours is ok though...

[eddyramrod]

Farming out is fine by me, I do it all the time. My skills are not nearly as advanced as I'd like to think, plus I have no work space and my tools are still boxed-up in my storage, therefore the Granada is at a local specialist and the Metro will be going to him soon. I might be spared the pain in my back/knuckles/insert other body part here but my wallet is hurting already and will ache for a long time yet!

 

Nice Jag, by the way, well saved!

[Shep Shepherd]

That's a damn nice car and an equally nice write-up.

 

Why did I miss this topic when it was first posted?

[cort16]

I missed it too. Great right up and I look forward to seeing it when it's been fettled a bi.

[beko1987]

Lovely read, and well done on such a lovely mowtah

[Skizzer]

Thanks!

 

Love the number plate on your Skoda by the way!

 

Ha! Product of a bottle of red / DVLA website interface three years ago.

[Skizzer]

Rear suspension unit getting rebuilt today:

 

 

Nope, this was never going to be a solo job on my driveway.

[Spiny Norman]

Holy shit, those rear brakes really ARE a bastard to get to, even off the car!

[richardthestag]

Excellent stuff

 

Dad used to have one of these, brilliant cars and the 4.2 fuel costs are only crippling as opposed to the v12’s which are the wrong side of devastating. Dads mate had an S3 3.4 povo spec with cheepseats and keep fit windows, oddly enough it was less economical (if that word can be used in XJ circles) than the 4.2. I drove the 4.2 a couple of times and it was effortlessly if not obscenely quick especially once rolling down something like the A1 at 2am sort of thing.

 

I am really feeling the urge for one of these but it might have to be a turquoise S2 V12 FTW or a late double six S3. Never had a v12 and think I probably need to scratch that itch. Trouble is Mrs TS won’t tolerate a 3rd car which means the Range Rover (daily driver) or Stag need to go. I couldn’t do a v12 as a daily so it might need to be the Stag, had it 19 years and keep thinking about selling it and then make the mistake of driving it again.

 

Have you seen the v12 S2 resto going over on the blue forum?

 

Proper lunacy

[Doctormop]

+1 on the Jag economy front,

I had a manual xj40 2.9, cloth seats, plastic wheeltrims, nightmare versions of my Jaguar dream, couldn't better 20mpg, felt underpowered, almost put me off Jags for life, took an ebay gamble on a 4.0 sovereign auto (only 20 miles away so no epic tat collection) and absolutely loved it, averaged 23mpg, could get almost 30 on a run but bury your brogue into the axminster and the thing was off like a brides nightie!

Think my love of all things Brown's lane comes from the S2/3 XJ6, loved the shape from an early age, (a green one used to drive past my primary school playground every morning and I used to spend ages of breaktime watching out for it) just looked so much better than anything else on the road, still have a thing about Jags and would love another but after such a good experience with the Sov wonder if I should quit while I'm ahead.

 

(Autotrader search, X type upto £2000 within 60 miles....... just looking mind)

[Cavcraft]

Holy shit, those rear brakes really ARE a bastard to get to, even off the car!

 

 

Iirc people used to cut a hole in the floor to access them then weld it back up again afterwards.

[pandarus]

Great blog chap, hats off to you for the tlc being given to such a beautiful car.

 

I think all Shiters are looking for 'the keeper' - it's out there somewhere...

[worldofceri]

Love the number plate on your Skoda by the way!

Ha! Product of a bottle of red / DVLA website interface three years ago.

When I got robbed at work a few years ago the thieves made off in SK06 ODA - a silver Octavia. Not sure if the car was stolen or on false plates, but they couldn't have picked a much more memorable reg.