project Broadsword's Fleet Thread

[Broadsword]

Thanks for the kind comments. More Porsche improvements to come! Parts availability seems to be great for these. It now also has the nice brand new Blaupunk stereo that came with it (thanks again inconsistant for the box of spares, they have come in very useful), only a small amount of wiring was required to splice that in.

Further to the job on the Porsche fuel pump. I was going to replace the fuel line from the pump to the fuel accumulator, but the union on the accumulator is too stuck to do it, so the elbow you see removed there was replaced with a banjo, taking care of the grubby line. I bought the part from Woolies, but that is now going if someone wants to buy it £30 posted.

[Broadsword]

I have been rubbish at updating the thread recently. Suffice to say there has been plenty going on. One notable event today was that the XJR6 went in for an MOT and passed on the first try. I was very nervous about it for some reason, but only two advisories and they are fair enough. Rusty fuel pipes and brake lines will probably be subbed out to the same garage I had the test done at today come the next MOT!

[Broadsword]

Long time since an update but lots of activity on the fleet. The Herald has been very hard work but is nearly done. It finally runs and drives spot on and is mostly together in one piece. Lots of polishing and some trim required then it’s done. The Porsche is nearly out of MoT so took it for an appraisal (for rust mainly) at my trusted garage. Long story short both inner and outer sills are rotten unfortunately due to poor quality repairs in the past. Old patches just peeling away. I’m waiting for the welding price estimate to get it through the MoT. It’s not going to be cheap, probably £1k but I’m getting it done properly and will buy new outer sills so it will be really sorted once done.

Then I’m afraid the fun and games will have to stop. All outstanding projects will be buttoned up and sold, the whole fleet bar the Lupo and the Rangie for moving stuff as I will be working on another project. The car I’ll miss the most will be the XJR6 since I’ll never get one as good for sensible money again. Needs must though.

Some photos of the Herald as it stands currently. People on the street really love it for some reason.

[Shirley Knott]

The Herald looks great, I'm not surprised it attracts favourable comments- Even non car folk tend to love the 'Heartbeat' era classics. 

New project sounds interesting, is it car related?

[dome]

Sorry to hear the fleet is thinning out. What's the new project though?

[Broadsword]

The new project will be revealed in good time. Although sad to get rid of some nice cars in order to fund it, there will then be more opportunity for hoarding cars in the future, which is nice.

[Shirley Knott]

Exciting stuff- I'm probably a million miles, out but it sounds like bricks and mortar shite perhaps...

[Broadsword]

I'm having trouble getting people to commit to welding up the Porsche. It needs both outer sills cutting out (I have new sills ready to go), passenger side front floor (sort of a fist-size hole) and various bits of inner sill doing. In short the sills are rotten. It's a long shot but if anyone as close as possible to York knows of anyone up to the job and wants to put them in touch with me, I would be interested. Looks like this job is going to take a little bit of persuasion.

[Shirley Knott]

Can't help with rocomendations, but I find less and less people are keen to get involved with welding. The problem is that you quote a price for a job and have no idea what horrors lay in wait, and nobody really wants to commit to a 'blank checque' repair. I suppose it's understandable really.

[abelw44]

The Herald is looking fantastic! An awesome little thing. Sorry to hear the fleet has got to be thinned... Particularly that beast of an XJR6!

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[lesapandre]

4 hours ago, Shirley Knott said:

Can't help with rocomendations, but I find less and less people are keen to get involved with welding. The problem is that you quote a price for a job and have no idea what horrors lay in wait, and nobody really wants to commit to a 'blank checque' repair. I suppose it's understandable really.

My experience here to in London. When my guy retires that's it really...

[Broadsword]

4 hours ago, lesapandre said:

My experience here to in London. When my guy retires that's it really...

Indeed. Older gang are retiring and I cannot for the life of me find any younger people willing to tackle jobs of any real complexity. I end up doing everything myself. Basic fitting seems to be what is preferred and fabrication is a no-no. I'm being quite straightforward asking for the welding estimate on the Porsche though as I'm just saying cut the sills out and start again, so basically the worst case scenario. There should be no additional surprises.

[Wgl2019]

I have never used or heard anything either good or bad about these: https://www.rotboxrustorations.com/workshop.html#

I like the name though....

[Broadsword]

Farewell demonic XJR6! I miss it massively already. Being a responsible adult and selling shite off is hard.

Anyone interested in the XK8?

[Cord Fourteener]

18 minutes ago, Broadsword said:

Farewell demonic XJR6! I miss it massively already. Being a responsible adult and selling shite off is hard.

Anyone interested in the XK8?

Ooh! Responsible adult... I need to responsible adult...

I prolly can't afford it anyway 😂

[Broadsword]

MOT anxiety day today. The P38 went in for it’s third annual test under my ownership. It passed! So pleased!! Third time in a row it’s passed with no money required on repairs. It failed last year on an oil leak but that was a loose bolt. It really is a good one this.

[Broadsword]

As 2020 draws to a close I'm in Finland, so I will give you an update from the Broadsword Nordic Division. We have a little runabout here, which was sourced in the summer, a 2002 Fiat Punto 1.2. It was 400 euros and so far has turned out remarkably good. Really solid and no issues apart from a worn key, which makes it slightly fiddly to turn the ignition barrel. Just the ticket for occasional use when we are here, and it doesn't mind sitting (just remove the battery). I've fixed a few very minor things like dash bulbs and serviced it, but other than that it really has been perfect. Will probably MOT it early as I'm not around that much at the moment and invest in new winter tyres. Two things that it trumps the Lupo on that are noteworthy: 1. the brakes are fantastic 2. the engine (although gutless) is extremely smooth. I also like how it has no power steering, but does have heated seats. Absolute povvo spec bar the heated seats. Perfect.

Other news, the XK8 auxiliary belt tensioner pulley failed just before we left for Finland, so that needs doing (not a big deal), the Herald is basically done and for sale. The Saab and MX-5 will wait for spring of course to sell and the Porsche will need to find a place willing to do the welding (that remains the biggest headache). Still aiming to have the fleet purge done by late spring.

[Shirley Knott]

Long time sans updates here- Wagwan @Broadsword?

[Broadsword]

On 4/8/2021 at 8:34 AM, Shirley Knott said:

Long time sans updates here- Wagwan @Broadsword?

You are quite right. Time for a long overdue fleet update.

Due to the big project that involves a roof over the head and maybe even a garage to work in, I have been shuffling a great many things around and finishing up as much project work as possible. Cars have arrived, but more car have sold and even more cars are to go.

Things that came and went over the past six months that didn't even make it to the thread were a Saab and Mazda MX-5 NA (which turned out to be more valuable than expected being a limited edition). Done, box ticked etc. Moving on.

The Lupo. I was umming and arring about a replacement, but it ended up passing the MOT no danger. I've serviced it and have new rear shocks to go on it. Other than that it will need a cam belt in a few thousand miles. At this point it has paid for itself at least twice over. I might as well keep using it as it's impossibly inexpensive to run. Hopefully it will not rot out or anything like that. No bad comments from my trusted MOT station yet and I certainly can't prod holes in it where surface rust exists.

The Range Rover continues to be very useful. It's currently doing house clearance duties, and has saved a lot of hassling paying someone or hiring another vehicle. It's started to grumble on very cold starts due to the sheer amount of running around, but I hope a good service will sort it out. I have the service parts ready to go. Today I also ordered a full set of Goodyear Wrangler all-weather tyres for it, and I'm quite excited to see how they do. The current tyres on the Rangie are old and rock hard. A combination of a spare Halfords voucher, a 15% off promotion and free fitting at my home address brought the price down to £326, which I think is quite good.

The Herald is basically done. On the road running, driving bumbling around. I have tried to sell it, but the timing was hardly ideal so took it off the market for a while. I will give it a nice polish and fix a few details ahead of putting it on sale again. It was a big and tiring project.

The Porsche I'm not working on at the moment. It needs a lot of welding to get it right as mentioned earlier. I won't take it for an MOT before it's all done properly. I already have new outer sills for it. I have very recently been practicing welding on another car...

Which brings me onto the Jaaaaaag situation. I bravely sold both my nice Jags a few month's ago. Problem is when you have cash in the bank that shouldn't be touched but no Jags, I seem to end up with more Jags. It took precisely 20 minutes from the XJR6 selling to me spotting a exceedingly poorly advertised replacement XJR6 that ended up with me. It was just out of MOT, looking sorry for itself, not running right and was missing a idler pulley. However, it was in turquoise and quite tidy. I bought it and had it shipped home after looking at a manual 4.0 Sport which was in absolutely shocking condition but somehow had an MOT.

This is where things get more complicated. It only took about a day to get the turquoise car running spot on and soon it had any other issues sorted. In short it is far better than you could have anticipated. Great! Then the Holy Grail falls into my lap (well, my twisted idea of the Holy Grail); an XJR6 manual. The manual was local to me and I knew the owner. Note it's not a factory manual, it has been converted using original part from a donor 4.0 Sport manual. I had no idea it was coming up for sale, but spotted it on eBay one day and managed to get to it first (there were plenty of people wanting it). The car was in a state and again out of MOT, but mechanically good, and respectable. So I bought that too. At this point the fleet reduction procedure was not going well, having landed two more Jags without MOTs. Wanting to crack on it was decided to drive both XJR6s in convoy for back to back MOTs. This made me rather anxious, imagining two long failure sheets. The gods of Autoshite smiled that day however and the manual car failed only on an exhaust leak, and the turquoise car on a small amount of welding, a lightbulb and handbrake on one side.

Long story short on the Jags, a week later the manual car had and MOT as was on the road. The truquoise car took longer only becuase no-one would do the welding. In the end I did the welding myself. After a tentative start it all ended up going well. I took it for an MOT again today and I was told my welding was good. Also the car drives lovely. I'm dead pleased! I will use the skills acquired on the the Porsche.

That brings us up to now and I'm well ahead with project work. The Herald and turquoise car have to go to get over the line with the accomodation project, then I can service the core fleet. The plan is to hold on to the manual car and bring it back from the rather messy state it is currently in. It is missing it's sunroof, and most of the interior is in boxes. There is no headlining and there is also a misfire that needs chasing down. It is well worth the effort though. The car was converted from auto to manual at great expense and all the nasty jobs related to that side of things is done. Also the mileage is only 100k and it's very solid. It will take time to get all the bits together to make it look ok, but I'll get there. It isn't urgent or worth stressing about. Similar story with the Porsche. I will get it in a garage and slowly weld it up, cutting out all the old MOT patches and starting afresh.

What do we all think?

[Shirley Knott]

What an update.

It looks and sounds like you're living the dream. Also- Refreshing to hear that the fleet reduction is going terribly, you only live once man. 

Re welding,  my hat's well and truly doffed as that's a skill I've never really learned. Loving the fact that your response to struggling to find anyone prepared to do it was to learn how and then do it yourself. Ultimate man points and cataclysmic autoshite status for that as far as I'm concerned!

[Broadsword]

3 hours ago, Shirley Knott said:

What an update.

It looks and sounds like you're living the dream. Also- Refreshing to hear that the fleet reduction is going terribly, you only live once man. 

Re welding,  my hat's well and truly doffed as that's a skill I've never really learned. Loving the fact that your response to struggling to find anyone prepared to do it was to learn how and then do it yourself. Ultimate man points and cataclysmic autoshite status for that as far as I'm concerned!

Thank you very much! It's one of those occasions when you well and truly feel on top of things with the fleet. This feeling is often quite brief, but hey ho today is good. I had the MOT booked 8:00 AM this morning and was nervous about my welding being picked apart. It went up on the ramp and they asked who welded it. I silently gulped and spoke up saying I did it.. The response was good boy! The relief was palpable!!

I think the fleet is well on course to shrink by two with the turquoise Jag of much agreeableness, and the Herald. Going forward it is apparent that no matter what I do, a Jag will materialize on the drive one way or another. In terms of my fun personal toy, I have concluded that a manual XJR6 is enough for me. I thought previously that the dream is and XK8 and an XJR, but that is a lot of upkeep. If you are nerdy about X300 Jags like me, then the manual is enough to keep me well and truly intrigued. At some point I will give a more detailed breakdown of how the auto and manual cars differ. It's quite a rarity having the two side by side for comparisons, I'm very lucky. I intend to do some sort of video manual versus auto, and another video I would like to do is an X300 buyer's guide as there is demand for such a thing.

A brief summary of the manual XJR. As I've said before it's very different from the auto. The clutch on mine is quite sorted with fresh hydraulics and also the gear linkage has been renewed. Rear main seal has been also done very recently thank goodness, they always let go when converted. This leaves you with a medium heavy clutch with lots of feel and a very industrial feeling 5 speed manual box (a Getrag 290). It has a long throw and you need to build a rapport with the thing to get the best out of it. You can't really shift massively fast, it just wont have it. The gearing is fairly tall. You will reach 62 mph in 2nd. Somehow with the manual the whole car feels more alive and tactile, it has a certain viciousness which the velvet-gloved auto just doesn't have. The manual is slightly more willing to rev, but not by much as the flywheel is clearly quite heavy. I have a friend who will visit when conditions permit. He owns an incredibly sorted converted XJR manual with a competition clutch and lengthened flywheel. It will be interesting to compare the two. The manual is definitely a faster car. You get shoved back in the seat and find yourself bracing, frantically grasping the gears as it piles on torque. Mine has a Andy bracket and aftermarket SC pulley for that extra pep, it's brutal!

[bangernomics]

Dream fleet right there. I really like the herald it looks fabulous in the red.

[Broadsword]

Here’s a tiny bit of footage showing the difference between the auto and manual XJRs that happen to be on my phone already. Had to cut out the swearing when I launched the manual at the request of the camera person.

 

[dome]

Looking forward to updates on these!

I think my dream XJ6 would be an XJ40 built with a supercharged manual drivetrain. I'm guessing it'd all fit into a later XJ40?

[Broadsword]

1 hour ago, dome said:

Looking forward to updates on these!

I think my dream XJ6 would be an XJ40 built with a supercharged manual drivetrain. I'm guessing it'd all fit into a later XJ40?

I have a feeling it wouldn't be too hard to achieve such a thing. The XJ40 was the test bed for the XJR6. Somewhere there are photos of a prototype, which was apparently developed in the USA. From what I remember (don't have the photo, but it should be floating around somewhere), the test driver binned the prototype quite badly. I know there is an XJS with the blower engine out there, and also a Mk. 2.

Just thinking back now I've now had FIVE XJR6s. This is most agreeable. The current two are notable because they are very early cars, both built in 1994. M138 PNU is even earlier than the turquoise one possibly. It was first registered 12th October 1994. I have a lovely reprint of the original Autocar review for the XJR, printed 28th September 1994, so bought pretty much as soon as the car launched in Paris October 94.

[Broadsword]

Today’s excitement involved the Range Rover getting a full set of brand spanking new Goodyear Wrangler all weather tyres. I got a good deal from Halfords at £320 fitted using a spare voucher and a 15% off promotion at the time. Home fitting was free so I opted for that. Fitting took place this morning. It went ok, but I had to be there to help. No. 1 the bloody wheel nuts have stupid caps on them that can burr making it very hard to get a socket on. In the end the few troublesome wheel nuts I was hammering the socket on while the guy was doing the tyres. It was a bit stressful but ok in the end.

Another problem was the fitters kit. His jack wouldn’t reach and no axle stands were to be seen. All he could use was an airbag, which turned out to be unreliable. When the guy said can you keep an eye on that and saw no axle stands I quickly put a couple in place. 5 mins later the bag just started to let go and the car fell on the axle stand. This was unnerving. We ended up using all my kit. I was just glad to get the new rubber on as it was desperately needed.

The fitter said do I really want the rear tyres changing, I said definitely. He made the argument that the tyres can be as old as you like as long as they aren’t very perished they are ok. I disagree completely. The test drive proved my point. Completely different car now with all sorts of grip that was never there. It will be excellent next winter. Sure I had loads of tread, but the tyres were old and recently I found the date code on the fronts. It was only on the inner sidewall and the manufacture year was 2000!!!!

I get really boring about tyres and all that boy am I pleased with this set.

[Fumbler]

3 minutes ago, Broadsword said:

The fitter said do I really want the rear tyres changing, I said definitely. He made the argument that the tyres can be as old as you like as long as they aren’t very perished they are ok. I disagree completely. The test drive proved my point. Completely different car now with all sorts of grip that was never there.

Agree completely. New tyres made a world of difference on both my cars.

[Broadsword]

So the Rangie, which has been quite reliable over the past 12 months, has reverted to type and in exchange for the new tyres rewarded me with this strange chattering noise.

My money so far is on the auxiliary belt tensioner. I can hear it on my mechanics stethoscope  reasonably clear.

[Broadsword]

Strangely  the Range Rover has decided to fix itself for now. I’m sure the aux belt tensioner is suspect though. Oh well, a problem for another day.

Today was a rare day where instead of fixing lots of things I focused on driving. Why? I had a visit from a fellow Jag enthusiast with a very special XJR6 converted to manual and treated to the most enormous amount of work to make it like a new car. Every bushing, joint brakes, springs, everything has been gone through and replace or more often upgraded with superior parts. You may recognise the car from JayEmm’s YouTube channel.

Some of the upgrades include.

*All suspension bushes upgraded to polyurethane. All new springs, joints and shock absorbers etc.

*Rosejoints on the antiroll bar links.

*A stunning tubular exhaust manifold from Hayward and Scott mated to a full sport SS exhaust system.

*Lightened single mass flywheel (the factory flywheel is dual mass) and competition clutch.

*Upgraded supercharger bottom pulley (+10%).

*The well known Andy Bracket ignition timing mod.

*New water pump for charge cooler.

*Upgraded supercharger with special coating on the turbines for much better thermal efficiency and different coupling.

The interior is also stunning and a lot of work has been done on the exterior too. It was an absolute treat to see this car again and witness how it drives. It was also amazing having two manual XJR and an auto together. J40 AAV is much, much faster than most XJR6s and feels faster than an X308 XJR at this stage. The power deliver is just savage and it will light up the rear tyres in the dry at any time, if you so wish. The fact that the suspension has been sorted so well means it feels like a new car. In brief it’s just tremendous, I’m in awe of it.

Much chatting and fettling ensued. We also had more of a look at the running issue with my manual XJR and discovered it is stuck in closed loop mode for whatever reason. There is growing suspicion of the oxygen sensors. I’m getting a loan of a couple spare to try. Hope it works. Along the way inspecting the wiring loom in the area we discovered three broken wires. This was interesting, but even more interesting is the fact that those wires had nowhere to go, there was no other end. We seriously think that the car came out of the factory like that. That would be mad, but then again this is Jaguar we are talking about so... The wiring loom on X300s is strange with loads of redundant lengths of wire for no real reason. This allows you to relocate sections of the loom to more sensible parts of the engine bay, away from the hot bits they put everything on. This was implemented for the oxygen sensor plugs.

Also the turquoise car was not reading 100% throttle with the pedal down. This has now been fixed. It’s even faster now. Nice. I had a good day.

[Broadsword]

More activity! The fleet is now down to one Jag!!! Only the manual XJR6 remains after a marathon run working on the lovely turquoise car getting it up to scratch for sale. Last major jobs were serving and cleaning the throttle body (big job!) to address the sticky throttle. I also put in a new headlining. Exhausted now but my reward was that the car sold in record time. I put it on eBay last Sunday mid-day and it was sold by six. I wasn’t expecting that. I guess the colour sold it.

This leaves the Herald which has been hibernating in a nice dry garage. It has been getting regular exercise and runs great. A bit more polishing and fixing some bits of trim and I’ll try and sell it again. Also for sale are those fancy BBS Milan split rim wheels off the manual XJR. With those gone the great purge will be complete.