Jaguar S Bype R - An Imposter, saving a bird, and that effin supercharger!

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

I crashed my pride and joy X200 into an animal. I was sad. It made me re-evaluate the car collection and look at options. The 635 had done zero for a few years, the Doozil Jag was doing school run stuff and now my Jag was also sad. 

To put the feelers out, I put the 635 up for sale on Ebay and sold it in a couple of days. I wasn't expecting that. The price I sold it for was pretty much what I wanted because... I had my eye on something.

It was a 2002 Jaguar Green S type R. A car I had wanted for quite a while. As I looked at the images of it, things weren't right. The sills had been done but the covers were badly fitted, there were overspray marks on trim, No engine images, bits were missing and incorrect like the rear badges... It had been messed about with and I wasn't sure. Plus it was miles away. I spent a few days talking to the seller and looking at the pictures but I wasn't convinced enough to get it. 

There isn't many STR's available for 4 bags, in the early body and revised interior combo I wanted, so choices were limited to er... 1, the green one. That was until, the silver one turned up.

At the other end of the spectrum, the silver one hadn't been messed with so to speak. It was original, had also had the sills done but was missing some random bits, like for example, the inner arch liner on the front there, in the image above. In fact, it hadn't been touched since 2016 as it had covered 2000 miles in that time and been Motted every year. What's the story there then? I'll tell you, because I bought it sight unseen, and then... found out.

• The seller was late delivering the car to his favorite Jaguar/ LR specialist who were going to deliver it, and we'll get onto them a bit later.
• The specialist rang from the pub on the Friday and said he had family commitments and couldn't deliver it due to it being late.
• I contacted the specialist on the next available day and he said that they had tried to load it and a Gearbox fault had developed.
• The specialist, without any permission, decided to read the codes, not tell me the codes, and look for a fix by using a part 'laying about here somewhere M8'
• I suggested that if he was going to do this 'out of pure generosity and to keep the sale happy for his M8', could he also change the box oil and filter whilst he was 'replacing a sensor' in it. What could go wrong? He's a specialist right?
• There were no further communications for 4 or 5 days and then after I contact them again, the seller said that he was waiting for parts.
• About a week later, I was getting a bit pissed off with the comms. The specialist was too busy to get right on it and was waiting for these parts, whatever they were- he never said, the seller had no idea what was going on and playing dumb and I certainly had no idea where my car was that I had paid for.
• Finally, I managed to re-secure a delivery date. It was to be delivered at my new place of employment, and I'd drive it home because it's a good car right?
• No. it turned up covered in webs, moss and mould with 4 squidgy tyres. But, it was home! Sort of.

She was rough which is weird, because it doesn't look like that in the images. There were clues as to how long this car had been sat, mentioned above and the stale smell inside. Still, it ran ok and appeared to drive, so I taxed it and drove it about 2 miles to another site. I didn't get the excitement and mind blowing journey I had always imagined, no, it was slow and cautious. Something didn't feel right.

Now, I'll give you a few minutes to digest that lot, make hilarious assumptions and I'll return after this break!

 

 

[camryv6]

Ok i have read this, gone and had a piss and i am ready to read more !

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

The next day, I drove the 3 miles to work but I was still cautious as something just didn't seem ok. After work, I drove 1 mile and Gearbox Fault appeared, this put the car into safety and I was stuck in 3rd gear/ 30 mph, luckily, I only had 2 miles to cover.

Having a couple of S Types, you learn that a) you shouldn't be buying S Types and 2) They need a good, strong battery or there will be strange electrical gremlins unleashed. So I checked the battery, which was old and incorrect with a loose Earth terminal. I bought a new battery and checked the charging operations. That's that out of the way.

The car was low on fuel so I decided to go get some premium and fill it up to disperse anything that had been sat in the tank since 2016. I drove 4 miles and... Gearbox fault! YaY! Car in safety etc...

At the fuel station, the engine was off, refueled and turned back on... no fault. I drove 3 miles and no fault, so I went passed my house and on the 4th mile Gearbox fault! I was slowly learning that there was a gearbox issue, which I thought the 'specialist' of Jaguars had fixed? How could this be?

By this time I had already been prepared and had ordered and icarsoft i930. I plugged this in and got among the plethora of other codes, P0705 in the transmission control module or TCM as I'll refer to it from now on.

This is a bad code for this car... and for me!

 

[PrinceRupert]

I'm in.  Curious as to who the 'specialist' was, as my experience of a Jaguar 'specialist' was equally poor!

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

Was the specialist names odgit bodgit and scarper?

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

To prove that I wasn't imagining things, I used the car for a couple of days to do the short journey to and from work and like clockwork, the fault appeared each time.

Man... I hate that light...

That weekend I set about investigating the problem. I started with the poorly fitted and out of line, center console trim. Someone had been in here, so we'll have a look. That's when I noticed that the £60 to replace R gear knob was missing and replaced with a lesser option, although it was in quite nice condition, it was not the point. The J gate selector had been replaced or refitted recently. You can just tell as dust is moved, fresh finger marks etc... I knew. Ok, I wasn't told anything about this by the seller so I contacted him. 'Oh yeah... it got stuck in park once so I had 'the specialist' fix it. Sorry, I forgot to mention that'.

Fine. So we know that the specialist has not fixed the box, threw the trim back in, badly using random screws, and upon further inspection, not even replaced the J gate... No, they've just snapped the mechanism. Well, this sucks. What else have they touched?

I didn't know, so now I had to go through the entire transmission system, from battery to TCM and back again. This took a while.

Firstly, the obvious and cheap things can be checked, print off some wiring diagrams and away I went, checking connections, checking for water, damage, breakages and all that stuff. I didn't trust the J gate module though. It's a vital bit, you select a gear, it tells the TCM what you've done, the TCM approves the selection and kindly advises the engine management, before allowing the selected gear to illuminate on the J gate and it selects the gear. Simple.

The J gate was damaged by morons, what else have they done or not done to it? So, I had to change that out with a quality used part I could trust and eliminate that from the enquiry. Fitting this allowed me to correctly set the gear control cable to the gearbox selection arm, where I could check that the arm mounting bolts were secure, another known issue.

With all checks made and satisfactory, all fingers were eventually pointing to the gearbox TCM. The code P0705 actually being a thing that's happened, whether I wanted to believe it or not.

I was still using the car albeit without any interior console in it, so that knocked out the traction control and airbag. What I did notice is that when the fault happened, the J gate indicator lights went out in D. I'd get home and mess about with the J Gate and put it into park and the car TCM registered it as reverse, even using the reverse sensors. Hooking up i930 and doing live parameters showed the selection as 'intermediate shift'.

Basically, the TCM had forgotten what it was doing and where it was supposed to be. It was a position sensor fault, the code was correct all along. But, now we knew it and would not be buying a replacement gearbox for something like a broken wire.

 

 

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

In the Jag it uses a popular box, a ZF6HP26 which has many applications. There are slight differences but they all are pretty similar. My issue now was to get a hold of the brains within it, the Mechatronics. This is a large valve block of veins and sensors which include the ecu or the TCM as it's known in this case. There is talk that the TCM is married to the chassis number of the car it is installed in, and there is talk that close proximity parts do not need programming, or they might etc... In a nutshell, I was going to have to suck it and see because there is no answer.

BUT, no one want's to sell a Mechatronics and be stuck with a gearbox paperweight so there is no financial benefit in breaking up the box into bits, I'm getting a whole box. Now, they look the same, but they aren't. But they might be, or not... I couldn't find that answer either. It seems that the Mechatronics is different as are the final drives in the respective models, the gearing bits... no idea. The boxes however are labeled up by engine size. So I bought a 4.2L supercharged box from 2003 which had done 30,000 miles less. With delivery, that was £460. Ok.

Now, I had a choice. Do I break the boxes and swap the mechatronics over or do I swap the entire boxes over? I can't swap the boxes on the road outside my house, I mean, if there was an apocalypse and my sole survival depended on it, then maybe, if there was enough tea, but in the cold and wet... Na. I was quoted a book price of £600 to fit it.

Things are adding up here ain't they?

I messaged the seller and I wasn't remotely smiling. I discovered that the car had indeed been sat a long time. This is because the gearbox is fu... not working. The car had paperwork back before it was laid up for some serious engine ECU work by the owner before this clown, to sort a persistent EML, it had an EGR too and some other bits which all came to around 2large, can you imagine driving away from that and a month later the gearbox falls out? That's when it got sold to the aforementioned clown.

'Well it never done it while I had it'... yeah, you also haven't used it for years you tit. I explained that I'd traced the history of the car, discovered that he was a Trader and had previously tried to sell this car under his trading name, He also discovered that his M8 the specialist was a total douche bag who shouldn't be allowed near peoples or his cars, and demanded he give me the cost of the gearbox fitting or come and get the car.

We sorted things out. 

Then I got a message... The gearbox has not been removed from the donor car and it won't be until after Christmas as this fella is 'too busy'! No words. He took me money quickly enough though. FFs. I called the box supplier... 'so when is it coming?'... 'dunno M8'... 'Sometime in January 2023?'... 'Er yeah sure. I'll let you know...'

Jesus Christ. Oddly, the box was coming from the same area the bleedin car had come from and where the specialist was based. Is this how they do things there? Note to self...  Never to go there... not far from Birmingham.

[GMcD]

Quality reading but ....fuckin hell! 😭 

[Broadsword]

Jesus what a disaster! I would just be trying to get the sale reversed if it were me. Banks are far more on top of dodgy traders these days. I saw one case where they froze the trader’s bank account and that did get their attention..

[camryv6]

Sod this thread, make it into a book

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

2023...Gearbox turns up with the missing arch liner. I was going to have a fair few parts off this doner car but given the service so far, I cancelled the other bits until the car was up and running correctly.

I looked at the cars history again and nothing suggested it had been serviced since 2015, so I had that to organise and also be prepared to find the unexpected. Then there was the box fitting v's breaking and fitting parts.

A ) If I got it fitted, I'm in 600 deep plus the service items, any other bits and of course the fitting won't include servicing that, with it's 'use this or it'll blow up special oil', maybe coding... Plus there was no Guarantee that the new box didn't have it's own issues, after all, it's came from a junk car.

B ) On the other hand, I could break it and fit the Mech, service it and put it's oil in, get all the engine service stuff and have cash left over for breakages and coding. The only issue there is that if the operation doesn't work and I'd have to reclaim the mech, then I'd be dumping this new sacred oil and doing plan A anyway. I bit the bullet, decided to break the boxes and hope for the best. Here's the box with the Mech removed. You can also see the rectangular bridge seal on the right which should get replaced as they fracture, and the four rubber tubes c/left which harden up and shrink as I've just discovered!

Lovely black oil in this box eh?  And below, Here's the freshly serviced gearbox by the specialist. You can clearly see that this sump filter was changed really recently... nope, not at all and probably never. He had been at it though, I could tell by the fresh chisel marks around the fill plug. What you need to undo this fill plug is 1) a brain and 2) if you don't have the correct tool, make one by cutting down an Allen key. Clearly, they had neither. I swapped the mutilated fill plug with the good one off the replacement box.

So I'll assume that the wrong oil has been put in there then, good job I am changing it eh?

The swap of the Mech was messy but straight forward enough. Those rubber tubes I mentioned had shrunk so much that I could not see how they were sealing. I had replacements for a BMW box, exactly the same but the bridge seal needed a small plastic tab filed off. Filling the box whilst the engine was running was hilarious fun*.

I changed it through the gears, and got those juices flowing before rechecking and adjusting the level. 6 litres of unknown weird red shit came out, 6.5 litres of special secret formula Jag gearbox oil went back in. It's worth noting that Aston Martin use this box as well, and they use Shell ATF in theirs.

DINNER TIME!

 

[sutty2006]

Wow. What a journey! Good luck going forwards (or backwards) then forwards again, from here. 

[Matty]

52 minutes ago, Crispian_J_Hotson said:

2023...Gearbox turns up with the missing arch liner. I was going to have a fair few parts off this doner car but given the service so far, I cancelled the other bits until the car was up and running correctly.

I looked at the cars history again and nothing suggested it had been serviced since 2015, so I had that to organise and also be prepared to find the unexpected. Then there was the box fitting v's breaking and fitting parts.

A ) If I got it fitted, I'm in 600 deep plus the service items, any other bits and of course the fitting won't include servicing that, with it's 'use this or it'll blow up special oil', maybe coding... Plus there was no Guarantee that the new box didn't have it's own issues, after all, it's came from a junk car.

B ) On the other hand, I could break it and fit the Mech, service it and put it's oil in, get all the engine service stuff and have cash left over for breakages and coding. The only issue there is that if the operation doesn't work and I'd have to reclaim the mech, then I'd be dumping this new sacred oil and doing plan A anyway. I bit the bullet, decided to break the boxes and hope for the best. Here's the box with the Mech removed. You can also see the rectangular bridge seal on the right which should get replaced as they fracture, and the four rubber tubes c/left which harden up and shrink as I've just discovered!

Lovely black oil in this box eh?  And below, Here's the freshly serviced gearbox by the specialist. You can clearly see that this sump filter was changed really recently... nope, not at all and probably never. He had been at it though, I could tell by the fresh chisel marks around the fill plug. What you need to undo this fill plug is 1) a brain and 2) if you don't have the correct tool, make one by cutting down an Allen key. Clearly, they had neither. I swapped the mutilated fill plug with the good one off the replacement box.

So I'll assume that the wrong oil has been put in there then, good job I am changing it eh?

The swap of the Mech was messy but straight forward enough. Those rubber tubes I mentioned had shrunk so much that I could not see how they were sealing. I had replacements for a BMW box, exactly the same but the bridge seal needed a small plastic tab filed off. Filling the box whilst the engine was running was hilarious fun*.

I changed it through the gears, and got those juices flowing before rechecking and adjusting the level. 6 litres of unknown weird red shit came out, 6.5 litres of special secret formula Jag gearbox oil went back in. It's worth noting that Aston Martin use this box as well, and they use Shell ATF in theirs.

DINNER TIME!

 

Brilliant, A1 persistence. I'd have set fire to the fucker and had a cry.

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

I have a method for you to deliver your opinion to the previous owner.

https://www.sendshit.co.uk/

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

Ohhhh, we're not done yet...

Whilst all the wheels were off the ground and I was changing gears, every time I pressed the brake with my hand from outside the car the OSR wheel caught my eye as it was doing a strange thing. Turns out that the bottom arm bush is slaughtered and the wheel is moving around and actually hitting the inner well, mainly running at a toe out angle, dragging the tyre which will explain why the 10 year old Michelins with the same date code have about 5mm difference in tread between them. I really wonder where this car has been getting it's MOT's... I just can't figure it out?

So, decision was made to poly bush the lot, which is on order and not being delivered on time.

With the cars box now put back together, a short test drive was had, you know, because the rear wheel is about to rip off and no faults appeared. I then put the console back together to complete the car and take it on a decent run- slowly. I covered 10 miles and pulled up behind a parked lorry to overtake it, as I pulled away, GEARBOX FAULT!

This was different though, The car hadn't gone into safe and was still running ok. Upon return, code P0705 hadn't returned, but instead it had traded for several others, one flagging a rear speed sensor. Given the work that was done on the car and as its been sat, the faults were noted and cleared. Now I've been using it every day just to ease it back into service and there has been no faults stored and we're all good.

Desperately waiting on the bushes though. Chasing these tomorrow.

The wheel nuts were expired. They swell up causing all sorts of issues trying to get them off.

And the locking key was bent and almost destroyed, so I got black wheel nuts and had replacement locking ones. The wheels will be getting a refurb and going a bit darker in colour.

The interior wood trim... I can't stand it on these cars. The S Type was meant to appeal to younger customers so they stuck old timer wood in it? No. My wood in this car is supposed to be Grey. The sun made sure it didn't stay like that.

So I covered it to pretend it's not there.

A nice tidy up of the interior, and it's a nice place for me to be. I also run a remote and RCA to the back which had to tap into the existing rear speakers so I could get a sub in the boot. I need a sub- always. I also changed all the interior lamps to LED as well as the number plate and front side light lamps. It brings it up to date and uses less power, generating less heat too which destroys the plastics surrounding the old lamps.

Everything, even the AC works... I can't believe it. I've never had working AC in any of my cars (except the Disco, that was for the missis though). It sounds great, looks good and nearly smells good.

I also discovered that this car has electric adjustable pedal box and wait for it... head restraints. Electric head restraints... Lets think about how good that is, and how necessary, for a moment.

Next was to service the engine. No major issues there except for the oil filter not being included in a package and therefore arriving late and the plugs were all just over hand tight.

There is a squeak from the ancillary drive belt area on cold start. The belt and tension look and feel good. I read that putting a smaller pully on the supercharger for moar HPs can cause belt squeak so I'd like this to be what's causing it rather than a worn belt. I haven't checked yet.

There sounds like a manifold blow on heavy acceleration that I need to look into which is a shame as it muffles the supercharger noise so this must be sorted immediately!

Speaking of which, where the car has been sat, opening the bonnet was like opening the crypt door... it was dusty in there and the supercharger casing had lost is luster.  So I covered that too to pretend it's not happened and make it look brand new.

Then I washed it for the first time for years yesterday and took it out for a show in the sun.

After all that, I'm pleased with it and I'm happy to keep it. Moral of that story is : Keep buying massive liabilities, sight unseen.

[Broadsword]

What a turnaround. You are an AS hero!

[Bren]

Was this on ebay? Certain I saw this.

If nothing else it's a good advertisment for brand new cars.

[sutty2006]

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

5 minutes ago, Bren said:

Was this on ebay? Certain I saw this.

If nothing else it's a good advertisment for brand new cars.

Yes it was, twice. There has been a black one since which is relisting over and again. Haven't looked recently though. The green one just vanished.

[Dave_Q]

S BYPE

[N Dentressangle]

Jaguars just seem to attract naughtiness for some reason.

Nice one getting it sorted. I'd have set fire to it.

[Schaefft]

Great read, great rescue of an underappreciated car. Definitely too many dirtbags out there when dealing with cars like these but seems like you got through most of it and can enjoy your car now.

[Bren]

It looks nice. Sadly the thought of having to put sills on etc. put me off one of these.

[Popsicle]

Nice write up and well done for persevering with it. I owned one of these briefly about 10 years ago, lovely car, but it was so very needy with a never ending snagging list, nothing that ever stopped me using it just constant little niggles. Good luck with this one, seems its found the right owner to get it into a usable reliable car.

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

My 8 year old would have done a better job with the sills on this. I am preparing to redo these as the finishing work on them is shocking. How do you blend in body filler to existing painted metal? That's right, don't prep or clean the surface and wipe your finger through it to create a nice curve. Then paint everything from the door rubbers to the arch liners. Make sure you touch every surface with wet filler on your hands! 

These cars do have a hard time at the hands of people who don't give a toss. It's safe now.

[wuvvum]

I can't imagine buying a notoriously temperamental £4K car sight unseen.  Your testes are evidently far more voluminous than my own.

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

Ello pal, saving money starts by not going to see Jaguars. There are several reasoning methods to use here:

• How much do I need to buy a Jaguar Stype to use as a normal, safe, car? £1000 for repairs plus any asking price
• Is it broken? It will be broken
• It doesn't look broken? It's broken
• Will the seller lie to me?  Yes, because it's broken
• Will they reduce the price if I turn up with ca$h?  No, they believe you've swallowed lies that it's not broken and they know you've got the cash.
• Should I hold out and get a different one?  Only if you can be bothered and it's less broken, because that'll be broken as well
• What about saving more and buying the best that I can afford? That'll be broken too, just painted better.
• Can I easily obtain parts for it? YES- buy it.

Hope that helps.

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

4 hours ago, sutty2006 said:

NICE!

[Neil clark]

Lovely looking car, well done

[horriblemercedes]

Great work - I'm glad to hear the end result is good.

 

Similar to you, after my 3.0 S-Type was gone, I looked at this car over and over on eBay, but my spidey senses told me that something was wrong. I'm glad you got it as I would have tried but failed to diagnose it and probably left it in a worse state than when I received it.

 

Looks a great S Bype after all that hassle and stress!