Window of opportunity

Yes, I'm back, so watch it! Finally I have some more time on side. Meaning I now slowly can look into fixing up the Jag again. In fact I wanted to do this already the past 2 weekends. But when I wanted to order the fuel injector service kit it turned out the UK Webshop was closed due to Corona, sigh. So I figured to tackle another issue; distributor servicing. For which I only needed a gasket. The SNG Barratt webshop showed it was on stock but the shipping costs was insane, 3x times more then the item itself. So I called them and requested to send it via normal postage mail, which was possible. The item itself was on on stock but only available in the UK, so it had to be ordered, which took up another 2 weeks. In fact it arrived today. Oh well.

Furthermore I'm very surprised to see this blog is still attracting quite a few visitors on a daily basis. Apparently it must be some kind of usefull source for other folks. Which is good. In return, for inspiration, I'm often viewing Living with a classic on Youtube which often has quality updates on work carried out on his Jaguars. As such I recalled this video about fixing up the electric windows.

It's a fairly easy job and does not take up much time. And it's very rewarding work. A perfect job to get into the mood to get my XJS up to snuff.

Here is the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8zupWZHTps




And yes, my windows had this kind of trouble, you had to click several times before it moved down or up again. Very annoying. I remembered this video but was not bothered to view it first. While I'm now writing up this blog I quickly went over it and noticed the switch in this video is slightly different on the inside and the connectors used. But the principle is the same though. Find below my photo's on this exercise. Here goes:

step 1) unscrew the 3 screws of the top plate. Lift it up and unplug both cables:

Step 2) The switches can then be pushed out, on both sides they have 2 clips wich needs to be pushed inside to get the switch out. Note on how they are fitted, else you will have 50% change to reverse them.

Step 3) Open up the switch. Wait, take the switch to the kitchen table with good light. To open up the switch is a bit of a fiddle job, see the video. If you are unlucky, like me, the spring and pin inside might jump out - hence you need to do this at a clean place with good light, just take your time. Sorry for the poor first photo, this is what comes out:

Step 4) As you can see the contacts are very dirty and some are slightly burned. On the photo below you can see the contacts on the inside are even completely black, rather then shiny copper. This is what step 4 is about; cleaning. I used a cloth and a screwdriver to clean it out first. Then using a piece of sandpaper to give it a good scratch and make the contacts shiny again. 

Step 5: Well, put everything back together. A good tip in the video, grease the spring so it will stick in the pin. Again, a bit of a fiddle job to put everything together.

Then I made a quick test and it worked like a charm. Really happy with this improvement.

Random press photo's

Some random XJS press photo's I came across: