Sunday 12 May 2019

Saturday 11 May 2019

headlight adjuster clip, blinking light relay and dashboard panel lightning

Not done a lot today. I removed the broken headlight adjuster clip. And also a good one which I posted to a friend who will make an attempt to create a 3D replica. Hopefully it will work out.


I also had a quick look at the blinking light relay. Allthough it's functioning, I'm unsure if any electrical signal goes to the dashboard light panel? So I had a quick look and removed the panel underneath.

There was a piece of black tape attached to it, holding a separate taped off red wire. Not sure why this was done and for what  purpose. I had the relay removed and put back again as all looked ok. And it had no result on the dashboard panel indicator lights either.




Today I also made 2 photo's to show the results of the dashboard panel lighting. Despite I had a car cover used still a lot of light came thru. But still the result is clearly visibile and I'm sure even more in the dark.

Lights OFF:


Lights ON:



Monday 6 May 2019

Living with a classic - XJS V12 spark plug replacement

Typical, now I have done mine I stumbled upon this video regarding replacing the spark plugs on a V12 XJS.  Looks like I have done it in the same way he did it. It was posted in this FB Group: Jaguar XJS, XJS-C, XJ-SC and XJR-S Owners & Enthusiasts :

https://www.facebook.com/groups/350319041788353/

And the actual posting:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/350319041788353/permalink/1305602306260017/

And the actual video:

And his YouTube channel which contains more interesting videos:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyxaZ4U7122r_aA66Y7MYnA


Sunday 5 May 2019

More light trouble and more fuse checks

Yesterday I fixed the headlightning functionality. so removing the black plastic cover


Taking off the new relay. And indeed it turned out two wires were reversed. Despite I thought I had closely checked when moving the wires from the old relay to the new one. Apparently I had a made a mistake though. Glad it now all works ok.


Then putting the new bulbs into the headlight, wiring it up again and put the headlights back into it's housing.


Not sure how it happened but on one side the plastic clip holder broke off. Sigh! Two steps forward and one back again:



I just quickly checked and they are no longer new available at SNG Barratt:


Turned Down

Product Code:
AAU1313
Part Type:
Standard
XJS (EUROPEAN)

The AAU1313/AAU1312 is apparently for the complete unit. But I saw on Ebay only the actual adjuster clip is available as well. This adjuster clip can be separately removed/replaced. So that's the cheapest solution. I just have already consulted someone and hope for an alternative solution as prices on Ebay are a bit over the top (especially adding expensive international shipping rates - despite it's a small lightweight plastic item).

In any case, the other headlight went in fine. And tested the lights again:





All good. Since the headlight fuses are replaced and fixed at least one failure I checked the other fusebox panel:



The protection cover cap did hold the spares inside, nice. And again these were nicely labeled with printed color paper on the inside of the fuse. I love this detail:


I had them all removed and checked. They all looked good so they were all put back again. As I had checked the owners manual last week I also found out about this specific adjuster knob:


Turns out this is used for adjusting the instrument panel lighting. I wished I had known about this before. As a while ago I had all the bulbs replaced with 5W, see blog:

https://erwinxjs.blogspot.com/2016/10/dashboard-instrument-panel-lighting.html

And as can be read, this did not made any improvement. Meanwhile I have read about other owners complaining about the poor light brightness. And some upgraded the system with LEDs. In any case I now adjusted the knob and apparently it must have been in the lowest adjustment as the dashboard lights became bright. And this was quite well visible during daylight. So looks like that's fixed after all. And I will leave it as is now. I don't anticipate to be driving a lot in the evening/night. At the time I thought it might be a potential fail for the MOT since the speed dial must be properly lighted to read the actual speed. But no remarks were made about the poor light.

Only 2 small problems with the dashboard instrument panel lights. All panel lights (as far as I can check) seems to work except the right turning signal light and the hazard signal light. The left turning signal light works ok though. In fact I knew this already but fiddling around with the fuses did not had any effect. It did seem to had an effect on the fuelmeter though as that one moves up ok now (it used to be flaky after the sender unit replacement - meaning occassionly working or stalling). Due to playing around with the headlights the battery had become weak as well, so when running the engine for a while I could see the charger meter worked ok as well (and obviously the new revised alternator too).

Coming back to the indicator instrumentpanel lights; at the time I feared this was a fail for the Dutch MOT. This is not the case however. Some instrument lights must work, ie rear fog light. But for the indicator instrument lights it's OK if it's audible or visual (or both). As the relay sound is audible it's fine though. Nevertheless I do want it to be working and functional. So more troubleshooting to do.

Wednesday 1 May 2019

Forever XJS .com

I came across this website / blog. A MUST read:

https://foreverxjs.com/

I will add it to the links on the sidebar. Looks like fairly new but it does contain much very useful information and parts related stuff. Some I wish I had read about it before.