Skizzer's XJ-S

[Noel Tidybeard]

1 hour ago, dollywobbler said:

Oh, and it's a bit too glam for Autoshambles. Given the tow bar, maybe you could acquire a slightly disreputable old trailer made with a jag rear axle?

FIFY

[Skizzer]

This has continued wafting happily about without any further exotic failures, which is nice.

It’s down on rear lights though: one of the tail lamps was dim, and the number plate lights were comically occasional.

The tail light proved to be an iffy connection, easily fixed by pulling on some wires to take the strain off a connector.

The number plate lights had basically disintegrated in the way that plastic does after 40 years of heat cycles.

Sone shiny new ones came in the week, Lucas branded OEM spec from JLR’s classic parts department (whose website looks a lot like SNG Barrett with a different style sheet).

Should be a 5 minute job to fit these, right?

[Skizzer]

28 minutes ago, Skizzer said:

Should be a 5 minute job to fit these, right?

Er, wrong.  

Jobs That Take Longer Than They Should, episode 4,317.

The lights each fit with four screws, but two of the screws are hidden behind the trim panel that runs along the trailing edge of the boot lid, so that has to come off first.

Luckily that didn’t fight me too hard; it’s just bolted on. Gave it a bit of a clean and didn’t find any particularly alarming rust.

It then became apparent that from the factory, two of the fixing screws are actually rivets. Joy.

I fiddled around for a while drilling the rivets out but then I got impatient and set the Dremel on its rivetty ass and that made short work of it.

Then it was pretty straightforward.

Old lights out:

Contacts cleaned up a bit and new lights in:

Times two and then trim panel back on:

Happy days.  The MOT is due at New Year and I’m now not aware of anything it’ll fail on. Fingers crossed.

 

[320touring]

Such a cracking car. Love it!

[RoadworkUK]

Splendid work.

I'm quite cross that I've not owned a V12, even though with these things were routinely available for less than a grand throughout my twenties.