The Pursuit of Happiness

[Carl1981]

Following my post above, which is now a long while ago 🫣 have some pics of the metro repairs to the rear valance…

As expected, definitely MOT quality rather than restoration, but keeps the car alive!

in the time since then, I got out to a show with the Metro

It was nice to use it rather than fix it!

however, the good times didn’t last long! Earlier this year she started over heating again, which is very disappointing 😞. Seems ok if your able to keep moving, but gets hot quickly if your sat still, could be the thermostat stuck closed, it has a new rad, but the hoses to the rad are not getting hot. I think I will take out or replace the thermostat and see what happens. Either way, the car is currently banished to the naughty corner (again!) as I want to get my Jag fixed and back on the road!

A broken Metro added to the broken Jag and a broken camper van, meant my old car motivation has been pretty low the last 6 months…

[Carl1981]

So in April last year I reported that the Jag had a failure to proceed due to a suspected fuelling issue…

I thought newly refurbished fuse boxes had resolved the issue and the initial testing showed the car to be starting and warming up, revving through the rev range smoothly, excellent… or so I thought!

I booked in for an MOT and got the car out in about July time, but she wasn’t quite right. I’ve had this car a long old time and I’m quite in tune with how she behaves, I could tell she wasn’t right and turned back towards home nervous of another FTP and long wait for recovery.

I didn’t do a lot with the car after that, other than gather some parts (plugs, leads, cap and arm, new belts, new fuel filter) as I thought it may just need a service. Anyway, life got in the way and here we are in April 2024 fitting those service parts! The car still isn’t right though!

The XJ40 was very advanced for its time, it has a natty little computer on board that tells you if a system isn’t working right. There’s an occasional stutter at random in the rev range and she will cut out if left idling too long. The computer is saying Fuel Fail 12 (MAF), so I’ve taken it out and cleaned it, wasn’t dirty, nothing looks wrong, so I’ve bought a known good one from a friend in the world of old Jags. I’ll be fitting that Saturday. 

I’ve also purchased a new CPS as these are a known weakness on the XJ40, so I’ll try that too if the replacement MAF makes no difference. 
 

I’m hoping not to have to resort to sending the car to a specialist because -

a. I’m tight

b. The car might need to be trailered there

c. Good and trustworthy specialists (who will touch an XJ40) are a very rare breed!

d. I want to get the alloys refurbed and new tyres fitted, which is a cost I can’t justify if I’ve splashed out on specialist repairs! Priorities and all that 😂 

 

whilst all that’s been going on…

 

 

[Carl1981]

Our old camper van shit itself in September! After I sorted out the clutch issues earlier in the year we’d had a lovely couple of camping trips and we were heading home from our last trip of the season on Sunday lunchtime ready for work on Monday…

We stopped for fuel, the car restarted lovely and headed out of the fuel station, about 100 years up the road we lost power and started misfiring. Fuck!

stopped at the side of the road coughing and spluttering, then cut out. Would not restart at all.

lots of wet under the coil on the tin-ware. This is an air cooled van, so any sign of anything wet is trouble, is wasn’t fuel as the fuel lines are no where near it, smelled oily though. In my blind panic at the side of the road I couldn’t work it out. 

I waited half an hour, the car still wouldn’t start, we have fuel, we have air, but a very weak spark. I gave in and called the AA 😞.

a very helpful and enthusiastic AA patrol arrived a very unexpected and quick hour later! He asked what was wrong, I explained. He said ‘spin it over then, let’s see what’s what’

Well would you believe, the fucking thing sprang into life immediately! The AA man said ‘I thought you said it was broke?’ 😂 

he followed me home, his roadside diagnosis of a car that was working was ‘dunno mate’. 

It would not restart when hot on the driveway again when we got home.

I followed my gut and investigated the oily patch under the coil. In the calm of the following weekend I remembered that some coils are oil filled for cooling or to aid temperature stability. 

I had an old coil in the shed, so I took the one off the van to compare and decide if the old one would fit, the oil coil from the shed seemed heavier. But didn’t match.

So I went to to see Dave at Kingfisher Kustoms, he’s only 5 minutes from where I keep the van. He agreed my old coil had no oil left in it, probably therefore it was getting too hot and failing. A new coil then, ahhh…

turns out this year of van takes the same coil as the mk1 golf GTi, a one year specific thing. Look out, scene tax coming up… £97! We found a work around, got a nice shiny Valeo one and changed some of the connections in the van, £40 was more like it 😂 

so the van was fixed and is running lovely, but it’s not a winter car, so my one working old car has been locked away for the winter 🙄