Jaguar development centre, Whitley - Coventry

 

Uncommon luxury is our standard

 

A question of taste - BMW 635 CSI / Bitter SC / Jaguar XJS

 I missed out to buy the Novermber edition of the Classic & Sports Cars magazine. But a friend made some screenshots. If you want to read it then you need to save the photo's locally and enlarge it.

Time to buy an XJS

 https://jagxjsparts.com/blogs/tip-of-the-week/time-to-buy-an-xjs

Advert - the V-12 Jaguar XJ-SC Cabriolet

 

Custom Jaguar V12 Throttle Bushings

It has been a while! The usual, other priorities forced me to focus on other activities. I was so pleased to work on the XJS yesterday. Even though it was only a 10 min job. But one I liked very much. Again the inspiration was provided by "living with a classic" - the Swedish Jag enthusiast.

Watch this video episode to see what I'm talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y73oHSv4gcY

When I checked mine I was shocked to see they were complete gone on both sides. I can't believe I did not spot this before:

So I reached out to Jonas Loda:via jag.improver@gmail.com to order a set. Turned out I had been in touch with him before as he's the guy who made the new radiator banjo bolt:

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/323272126886?ul_noapp=true

Unfortunately sold out now but maybe there is a new batch upcoming.

Check out this website for many other usefull parts: https://foreverxjs.com/xj-s-parts (it does list some of the other parts created by Jonas).

In any case, I had these parts at my home for some weeks now. And yesterday I fitted them. A bit of a fiddle job but it was an easy and quick job. So happy with this improvement. Unfortunately I was not able to test it as the car did not wanted to start up. After a few cranks the battery died ... sigh.

At least hereby the photo's:

The season is not over: Take her out!

 

Stereo Radio Cassette Model DAC 4066 Owners Guide

Despite I might want to change my radio for an analogue version I did happen to bump into this specific cassette on Ebay. And of course I had to have it.

So yes, I have bought it. It even comes with a part no: DAC 4577

I'm surprised to see how quick this got indexed by Google once uploaded on Youtube. So for those curious out there, this is what's on the tape:

See also my blog about the other tape:

https://erwinxjs.blogspot.com/2017/09/jaguar-xjs-total-driving-experience-tape.html

and the actual one with the recording:

https://erwinxjs.blogspot.com/2017/09/jaguar-xj-s-total-driving-experience.html

JML407 - Clarion E951 car radio surround trim / frame

Last week a friend of mine shared this photo of a car radio with me via Instagram:

Oh cool, I replied, that's the exact same radio as in my XJS. I mentioned to him that I was still on the hunt for the matching radio surround trim.

So he did do a search, apparently he must have looked it up on my blog, as he used the part code nr. And thus he found it instantly for sale in a Dutch online shop:

https://smalldetails.nl/wordpress/product/jlm407-radio-surround-trim/

I was baffled. Trust me that I tried everything to hunt one down. Apparently this must be a very recent online shop. It does not look professional either. It's created by someone who purchased a leftover NOS stock of Jaguar parts. I just checked the senders address and it's coming from this company:  http://www.brabocars.com/  This company is still alive though.

Oh well, the price is very reasonable. But the shipping costs weren't. Despite the item can be send via regular post using normal rates it was send by default via UPS for a fix rate of € 10,-   I asked if he could offer a cheaper postage option but this was not possible as he also wanted to be assured items were tracked and delivered to avoid claims. Bummer. So I bought both frames. Meaning I have a spare now.

I have to admit, despite I all worked it out at the time, this radio is the correct one my XJS. But my friend also remarked the analogue version would be a better fit. Now I have gone through all this hassle I have to admit I do concur with him. So maybe I might change it all together. STAY TUNED!

This is how the radio is currently fitted. At the time I could slide it in entirely, I suspect the radio frameholder is not good.

So now I have taken it out completely - it was quite a hassle as the frame was stuck.

And with the radio out I now did put the surround trim on it. Looks good now. Guess I now need to find either a proper radio holder so it slides in nicely. Or, find the proper analogue Jaguar radio.

Another one bites the dust

It's washing time. Although the car is usually under a cover it still ended up collecting quite a bit of dust. As I had to move out some other cars today it was a good time to sweep the floor and wash the car. It started up fairly easy after such a long periode of standing still. I have to admit I tried to start it up last week but the battery required to be recharged (sigh).

I'm still very pleased with the car despite the huge amount of work it did require. I like the looks, the color, interior, the whole lot. Although it does have some "minor" optical items to be worked upon it looks pretty okay after the wash.

Now the floor has been sweeped and the car has run a little I hope it now remains leak free. Something I can check next week.

Something I did notice today is that the power steering is working fine and does not make a  squeeking noise. At the time I had to fill it up to overcome the squeek. But also since it started to leak which is very likely caused by a hardened bad seal.  Curious to see if it still leaks, maybe it had been filled up to much. I know I checked the dipstick properly at the time. So not sure. I will check this next week.