Engine caught fire

Now that my car could drive again I went to my nephew to show him the car but also to ask if I could use his car lift to have the excessive transmission oil drained. It turned out there is no drain plug, sigh. And removing the complete carter and oil was a bit to much. So instead we used a vacuum pump with a long hose going into the filler pipe. This worked out well and we took out about 0,75 liter. Starting the engine and measured it. Now it was close to the minimum which I considered to little – didn’t expect that taking out 0,75 liter would have made such difference knowing it was way above maximum. Perhaps the car should have been running a little longer to make it appropriate warm/hot for good measurement. In any case I added a little more back into it, about 0,25 liter. Whilst I was doing that and  the car was still running my nephew took a can of brake cleaner and wanted to identify if one of the vacuum hoses was leaking and thus resulting in the high idle RPM. When spraying with the brake cleaner the engine caught fire. Aaarrgh! We closed the hood and I jumped in the car to drive it outside, this to avoid the garage would caught fire as well. Meanwhile my nephew grabbed the fire distinguisher and once outside I opened the hood again. The fire was now almost out but some wires with “clothing” or greasy parts were still slightly burning which I managed to blow out by puffing.

Pffff, it’s another true story. On the 2^nd day of ownership my car was almost destroyed. Luckily the fire manifested only very shortly so at first sight there was no damage. I started the car again and all was still working ok. On second inspection however we could see the distributor cap was bursted! Still it was running somehow. I moved the car on the parking space and again I got home in a
different car and with the XJS out of sight.

So to fix the broken cap I could start searching around to order one. I was pleasantly surprised about the friendly prices (compared to Ferrari). Still many of the known Dutch parts suppliers did not offer them and if available it was not on stock. In the UK, Germany or Ebay there were plenty directly available. But that would mean long lead times. In the end I found this company http://www.sngbarratt.com/  which seemed to have a Dutch store. So I called them the next morning to be sure. Very good service and prices so I made the order instantly. Next to the distributor cap I also ordered a new rotor. Potentially it could be damaged as well due to the bursted cap else
I consider it preventative maintenance and don’t have to worry about it for a long time. Including shipment this costed me only 55 Euro.To give you an idea what this would have costed if this happened on my Ferrari and ordered these items at superformance.co.uk It would have costed me around 500 Euro (Incl. VAT and shipping). I know cheaper resources so I know I can obtain this set for about 250 Euro. Still this means that Ferrari parts are 5 times more expensive, hows that! Reason for bringing this up is that I know off a jaguar distributor cap that appears to be compatible for the 400i

Anyway, an afterthought that occurred to me is that when I had to drive the car outside while burning is that it must have been moving into R easily without causing friction. I don’t recall exactly but surely I did not had to intervene (there was no time for that either). Well, I will find out on the next attempt, would be nice if the oil drainage did the trick.

Another afterthought I had was when searching around for the right part numbers and ran into a diagram that shows the setup:

It also showed the distributor cap had two vacuum hoses (11) to it. If those happened to be “ leaking” I can imagine that this could have set off the fire. Clearly he was not spraying on the manifolds or such and furthermore the engine was not very hot either.  It might also explain why the cap bursted/cracked.

Today the parts arrived and coming Saturday I will get it replaced. I can already sense it’s going to be a nasty and difficult job. Hopefully all goes fine and I can have my afterthoughts verified.

Automatic transmission stuck in Parking mode

Well, quicker then anticipated I ran already into my first trouble. Not sure if this is a bad omen or just bad luck. So rather then writing my first blogs on some history and the buying traject I have to write about problem fixes. Perhaps the quickest way to learn and know more about the car. For sure the past two days has been a steep learning curve.

After the purchase I drove the car back home. The missus was at her work and obviously also interested to see the car. As the car was not washed or cleaned for a while I thought it was a good idea to drive it thru the carwash first. And then onwards to her work to present the shiny XJS. Underway I noticed the brake warning light popped up when I had to slow down. Typical, did a bit of water caused already electrical gremlins? On arrival I parked it but when I stepped out I noticed the back was slightly popping out. So I figured to move it a little more so people would not hit it.
To my surprise the automatic gearbox was stuck in parking mode and would not move to R or N. What the heck was going on?

During my pre-inspection testdrive I noticed the gearbox did not went smooth into R, N or D.

I was not overly concerned about that as the GM THM400 is more or less a bomb proof transmission. In fact it’s also equipped on my Ferrari 400. As such the automatic gearbox was the least of my worries. Furthermore the car was idling high when running stationair, around 1500 rpm. So clearly to high and as such very likely negatively influencing the automatic gearbox usage.

In any case, it remained stuck. So I thought that it might need to cool down a little, thus went to see the missus and shown her the car and had a coffee break. Afterwards it still remained stuck. My first thought was to have the oil level inspected. The dispstick was two-sided to measure, one side being cold and the other being hot. I also noticed it was stamped 400 which I found funny.

The oil was clear red, indicating it was fresh but also quite above the maximum level. I learned later (on Google) that the appropriate way to measure is to put it in N with the engine running.
My gut feel said this would be potential another contributing factor of why shifting the stick did not went smooth but not explained why it would not shift at all.

So I drove back home (using the car of the missus) and spend some time on the computer. Then on a forum I saw an older post which did mention a failing brake light switch preventing the car to shift, this was however on a modern Jaguar. Then I recalled I had this silly brake light failure as well. I didn’t expect this to be the cause but you never know. Apart from this I couldn’t find much more relevant information that potentially could explain or help to identify the root cause. As it had became dark already there was no option to further look into this.

So the car had to stay overnight out of sight (on the first day of ownership). Another worry that crept up is that an automatic car is going to be very difficult to move, in case I was unable to fix it. And towing it away and get it fixed in a garage was going to be a very expensive undertaking I was not looking forward to. So the plan for the next day was to check the brake switch first, disconnect the battery (potentially resetting some electrical gremlin, ie solenoid or switch).

The next morning I first checked the transmission oil again, being in a cold state. To my surprise it was way above the maximum level. That certainly was not good but could it be the real cause?

As you can see the oil level was all the way up to the spiral, both in cold and hot condition.

Starting up and tried to shift it but still it remained stuck. Then fiddling around and disconnecting the brake switch without joy. Disconnect/connecting  the battery did not worked out either. As such I started to remove the gearbox-shift-housing. When removed it became apparent that the solid metal pin between the gearstick and the cable, which pushes the actual lever on the gearbox, was bend.

This had happened when I forced the stick as I managed to get it into R and N position (but it never went actually in that state because it bend). So when holding that pin firmly, so it would not bend, I forced the stick again and now the gearbox lever was firmly pushed and presto it was working again. Phew!

I was glad I could move the car again and get it back to my home. The next plan was to get the transmission oil at the right level again and see if that would make any difference. And the other step would be looking at the idle RPM. More on this on the next blog.

Introduction

Today is the start of a new blog. As the title indicates it will be solely dedicated to the XJS and in particular about my XJS. For those who know me they are aware of my other blog dedicated to the Ferrari 400. For those who don't, it's located here erwin400.blogspot.com

I have no intention to make it as extensive, frequently and indepth for various reasons. First and foremost there is a wealth of information easy and widely available about the XJS. Secondly, the time and money saved I want to spend on the car. I'm pretty sure there will be some nice automobilia available that I might purchase just to make it complete and Original.

So the main reason for this blog, as I intended at the time for the 400, is to keep track of the (maintenance) history and make relevant updates on my XJS as I go along. So yes, I might add some usefull documentation and links that come in handy for myself or others but it will be less detailed and complete.

Coming days I will do some retrospective updates on what happened recently and the reason why I chose to purchase the XJS.

Happy XJS everyone!

Erwin