Wayne (cjd777), Rick (joycesjag), and I plan to get together to replace the factory control arms in my 2005 S-Type 3.0 at Wayne's home shop in Spencer, NC next Tuesday morning, weather permitting (we will do the job outside on the front concrete pad). Any forum member in the general area is welcome to stop by and join in on the fun. After the job is done, we'll adjourn to a great local BBQ place for 'que, hush puppies, and suds. Be sure to check with me by mid-day on Monday for directions and to ensure that the weather forecast is still appropriate for Tuesday....

Looking forward to another great time with the A Team....

 

Good luck, guys. Sounds like fun.

 

Sorry guys but we've had to postpone our plans to replace my S-Type's front upper control arms at Wayne's home shop tomorrow. We hope to reschedule for a day in early February. Stay tuned....

 

Update:

Wayne (cjd777) and I replaced my 2005 S-Type's upper front control arms yesterday. The weather was gorgeous and it was another great day of fun and fellowship at Wayne's home shop in Spencer, NC. Unfortunately Rick (joycesjag) was not able to join us as hoped since it was his eldest daughter's birthday and the kids rightly come first....

JTIS instructions on removing the front shock assemblies are lousy in so many ways. While I am glad I have JTIS, this was one of those jobs where I should not have even bothered studying it. We started on the passenger side and quickly discovered that the shock assembly was stuck solidly in place. We had planned on just moving it around in position to enable us to get at the two control arm bolts but that shock assembly resisted all efforts to budge after we followed JTIS so we decided to disassemble most of the lower knuckle / vertical link and with Wayne's prowess and assortment of crowbars and leverage tools, we finally wedged the shock assembly out of there after messing around with it for far longer than we had planned. My new control arms from Welsh Enterprises were a perfect fit and once we finally finished up the passenger side, we moved over to the drivers side....

Having gone to school on the first one, we knocked out the second one in less than an hour. Wayne's wide assortment of long wrenches, stubby wrenches, ratcheting wrenches, and custom tools made the entire job much more efficient than JTIS describes it and cut the number of steps in the process by half. Thanks to Wayne's uncanny ability to be able to get the right tool on most any nut or bolt with a minimum of having to disassemble other components first, we never removed the windshield cowl, ABS hydraulic unit, air filter box, cabin filter housing, etc. as JTIS instructs you to do. We did remove two nuts on the battery junction fuse box, two bolts on an electrical component at the top of the firewall on the passenger side above the cabin filter area, and we moved some vacuum hoses out of the way on the drivers side behind the brake fluid reservoir. We never had to use Wayne's air tools which surprised me. No rust to deal with and no bolts that required anything other than a leverage bar and good strong pulling with the right tool....

The semi-bad news is that we discovered my front tie rod ends and front anti-roll suspension links are all also pretty close to being cooked so they will need to be replaced as well. But that gives us yet another reason to get together on another beautiful day of our choosing and knock out what will be a much easier and quicker job. Looks like SNG Barratt has the best deal right now on the four new components I need. I should be able to get all of them for less than $100 total....

After we finished up we headed for a great local BBQ joint along with Wayne's lovely wife Christine. Tales were told, laughs were plentiful, cold beverages were downed, and some great BBQ, slaw, and hush puppies were heartily consumed. I look forward to our next project. Thanks again to Wayne and Christine for their splendid hospitality!

 

Great news, thanks for the update, Jon.

I'm puzzled what was holding the shock-strut in so tightly? My recollection is you undo the 4 nuts at the top, and then you can flex the suspension downward and pull the top out of the way....or maybe just-not-enough and then have to take out the lower bolt as well...just simply can't remember how my second car went. I do remember the first one was a pain to gain alignment of the four studs to get it back in!

Interesting you did it without molesting the air box....seems like I take that out automatically every time I raise the bonnet....almost by habit ...maybe even just to check the oil!!! One bolt, one clamp and 6 plastic quick-fasteners...

 

Zane,

That passenger-side shock assembly stuck in place puzzled us, too (and pissed us off royally). But it would not budge even with the four top nuts removed along with the T-60 lower shock bolt and me whacking on it with a BFH. It resisted all efforts to budge until we disassembled just about everything below it. But that sure schooled us on what to do on the other side and once we moved over there, we knocked that sucker out in a hurry....

Wayne is a magician with his wrenches and that is why we had to loosen so few components to do the job. It was fun just watching him contort his hands into those impossible-for-me spaces. Just when I would think (and say) that there's no freakin' way you can get in there and work, he would pull the removed nut or bolt out of its hiding place and hold it up for me to see it! All I could do was to shake my head in disbelief....

 

I can't figure out what was holding the strut/spring in place. Mine came out easily. In pieces on the passenger side (my bad) and in one piece on the driver's side. Went back in OK too and I was working alone too.

On the front of both fender wells, I removed nothing. On the back, I moved the wiring out of the way. Glad they got it all done. Their next job of sway links and tie rod end is easy compared to what they just did. I wonder how that lower ball joint is looking?????

I have the 5000+ page manual on PDF and it is not complete about some repairs, like the top bolts on the control arms (thanks Gus), but JTIS doesn't work on windows 10 and the pdf is what you get.

 

Update:

Wayne (cjd777) and I installed new front tie rod ends and anti-roll suspension links on my 2005 S-Type at his home shop yesterday morning. I ordered these parts from SNG Barratt Group. With my jaguarforums.com discount and the cost of shipping, my total cost was $102. It took us a little over an hour to complete the job and test-drive the car. It now tracks perfectly on the highway with absolutely no drifting and the steering feels much tighter to me since the new front control arms and now the tie rod ends and suspension links have been replaced. My front lower ball joints appear to still have some life in them yet so we'll see how they hold up as the car crosses the 100,000-mile threshold later this week....

Thanks again to Wayne and his lovely wife Christine for hosting me and my wife Jan yesterday. After we finished the job, they took us to a local estate auction and then it was off to lunch at our favorite local BBQ joint for great food, beverages, and fellowship. Another great day in Spencer....