Also bitten by the XJ-S bug...

[katar83]

Thanks both for the advice. I have had photos and looked at the mot history. I think I will leave it until I can go and see it. As I'm in the Police it would be inappropriate for me to travel 1hr to see it. They have mentioned £900 but I was going to go in at £600.

Even complete XJS wrecks go for more than £1k these days.
Price is fully dependable on rot situation and yes, it's not rust at this price, it's full on rot. You can expect floors, sills, rails and whatnot gone, if you won't be able to do any of these yourself it's not really worth it, any garage will require you to donate a kidney before you'll be allowed to roll it onto a ramp.

[naki_k]

You will be hoovering up small animals...

That would be practical: they can be immediately cooked in that V12 engine bay heat...

2 for 1 discount deal.

[naki_k]

No just saw it for sale and thought it might be a good buy? Stick with the xj40 for the time being I think lol[/quote]

Go and view it by all means. But go with you eyes open.
Most 40s for sale in this price range probably fall into the same category now too in reality.

[pimgmx]

Some small jobs done/in progress...

Dismantled the aerial housing to quickly reach the 'kaputt' diagnosis...





The manufacturer (Hirschmann) is still around, so I have a new replacement item ready to go in.
I will try and squeeze the new innards into the old housing for the ultimate OEM look, wish me luck!

Time to continue with the interior: I had to take the radio out to get to its serial number, no security code provided when I bought the car...
and that was good news basically: the wiring loom behind the radio still 100% intact, no spliced wires, handsfree carphone components, aftermarket alarms or other nightmares!



Getting a code for this AJ8700 radio will take some effort: all regular 'unlock' web sites only support head units from the late nineties onward, not electronic antiquities like this 'un.
I managed to find an identical radio during a trip to the USA a few years ago. Hooked it up to the loom, entered the code and that works just fine. So far, so good...

More interior jobs followed after the radio: all damaged woodwork has been taken out, as well as the driver's seat.
There's a new set of veneer piece on its way from the UK, and I left the seat at a local trim shop to have the LH side piping repaired.







That driver's seat revealed one more 'surprise': the lumbar support air hoses had gone brittle and were gone in several spots.
A quick visit to a local hydraulics/pneumatics supplier and that was sorted: a highly affordable repair at not even 1 1/2 quid/meter!

[pimgmx]

Some smaller items have been crossed off the list...

The local trimmer called: driver's seat, gear knob and gaiter were ready for pickup!
Our daily driver was the pickup vehicle of choice: sufficient rear seat room to hold TWO XJ-S front seats if necessary...



The burst piping has been repaired SO well that my wife could not tell which side of the seat had been repaired!





The gear shift parafernalia looked equally OK:





Only now I noticed that the plastic disc with the shift pattern is not quite brand new, I might try to polish some of the scratches out at a later stage...

Waiting for woodwork was equally rewarding; these were the contents of yet another parcel from the UK:



My assumption that LHD (my car) and RHD (donor items) parts were interchangeable was confirmed, with the caveat that some corners and edges need minor fettling.
Apart from that only the springs clips needed to be transferred to the 'new' veneer panels.



LH ventilation bezel:



The most prominent panel, the central dash finisher:



Another minor imperfection had been bugging me, a vertical crack in the LH door mirror...

Step 1: order the correct part!



Step 2: use steel hooks to wiggle the old glass out:



Step 3: clean mirror body internals, re-route the heating wires from left to right side:




Step 4 was rather fiddly: aligning the three plastic notches that hold the mirror backing in place:



... but after a few minutes of gentle maneuvering all was good again:



Last job for now was the original radio. It took a while to find a working security code and get the poor thing back to life.



That called for celebration!
... with the original sales package cassette, of course...



Short video here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pimgmx/49937331881

Now it is on to the next job: re-tubing the lumbar support pneumatics...

[pimgmx]

Turned out I still had several bottles worth of Gliptone goodies hidden in my parts stash...
All leather (seats, center console, door arm rests) has now been treated, first with their 'Gentle Cleaner', which needs to rest for an hour, followed by application of their Leather Conditioner.
Three applications of conditioner got me to a stage where the leather is supple and shiny again, but still shows some patina: just the way I like it!

Step 0: seat removal!



Step 1: cleaner



Step 2: conditioner



Step Umpteen: final application of conditioner...





The passenger seat's lumbar air lines were replaced before I reassembled the seat:



I had more than enough small jobs still on the to do list...
Like fitting new boot lid badges:







SOME small jobs turn out to be not-that-small-at-all-indeed-thank-you-very-much in the harsh reality of real life.
Like fitting the manual gear stick gaiter...

I first had to fabricate a steel bracket, to join the leather gaiter with the ski slope.

Some cutting, pasting, sawing, drilling, filing, and sanding later and the ski slope & gaiter combination could finally be fitted: what an improvement!













Next step: refit the remaining interior bits...

[pimgmx]

Almost there with the interior!

Ski slope and center consoel have been reassembled and are back where they belong. The thread on the gear stick had some damaged, so I re-cut the thread with an M8x1.25 cutter.
I re-used the gear knob locknut from my X300 parts car to keep things as 'Jaguarish' as possible.

I am more than happy with the result: the bespoke gear knob/gaiter combo fits the Isis Blue interior perfectly.
These new additions combined with the Momo/JaguarSport steering wheel I fitted earlier (thanks, Naki!) have now resulted in an interior that looks more 'together' than before, with only one single colour for all leather interior components.
 

 




One or two more layers of Gliptone leather conditioner for the rear seats, and the front seats can go back in again!


​

[naki_k]

She’s looking virtually perfect now.
It must close to drivable now surely?

Where did you get the Aerial parts from? I could probably do with a few of those circuit boards. Can you send me the details?

[pimgmx]

Where did you get the Aerial parts from?

I bought a new Hirschmann unit from car-masts-uk, will send you a message with details!

Model is Hit Auta-something, with the exact part number differing for various models, looks like XJ and XJ-S are marginally different...

[pimgmx]

A brief update: some Japanse souvenirs removed...





Rear seat out for Gliptone treatment...
One of the very, very jobs on this cars that I can honestly call easy: two small nuts and two phillips screws and it all comes out!



Rear seat refitted after several coats of Gliptone's finest...



I refitted the rear seat first, which gave me optimal maneuvering space, which was much less the case for the two front seats...
They are not only far more awkward to put into place, bolting them down is a proper pain in the rear end!
The steel 'towers' on which each seat rail sits have no thread in them, instead they hide a small steel plate with the thread tapped into it.
And this is were the fun starts: those plates are SO thin that the seat rail bolts will not 'catch' them by themselves...
I used self-clamping tweezers to hold the plate in place, then wiggled the bolt in and used a combo of a Torx 40 screwdriver bit and an 8mm spanner (no room for sockets!!!!) to screw all bolts back in.
No fun whatsoever, but quickly forgotten after the 'new' seats were back where they belonged!

Even the lumbar support decided to be nice to me, and happily functioned again after my air line transplants...



 

It took a short stay in boiling water to wrestle the new aerial grommet into the rear RH panel.
The brand new Hirschmann aerial fits just fine, it'll take some more wiring playtime to get everything completely to my liking, though.





At this rate of progress, time has come to get rid of some of the parts taken from the car.
This item doesn't need a lot of explanation why it ended on the 'goodbye' parts heap...


As important as all the spannering is ensuring that everything inside stays nice and lubricated: time to fire up the engine once again!
Like previous efforts, it took no more than the ignition key and a flick of the wrist to bring it back to life.
Idle is around 1500 rpm at cold start, then gradually settles at just below 1000, just as it should be...
Some brief clips of engine startup & idle:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pimgmx/49997597301
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pimgmx/49997848577
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pimgmx/49997596476
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pimgmx/49997847627

For now, a random picture to end today's update: