Well, I never completely cured the vibration on mine. I'm still convinced the driveshaft itself must have been out of balance, although I never got to replace the rubber in the carrier bearing with 3M Urethane as I wanted.

The car has found a new home. I traded it for a very clean GM H-Body that is nearly as comfortable, but gets twice the miles per gallon.

I will certainly miss the Jag, but keeping one on the road just didn't make sense for us right now. If I had a much shorter commute, or could get away with it being a second car, I'd own it forever.

Maybe another V12 will cross my path in the future.

 

I wasn't my imagination.

Finally needed to replace my tires...and changed wheels at the same time. The last bit of vibration, which passengers could never feel, is gone. Must've had a wheel/tire issue that was somehow invisible to wheel balancing machines, including 'road force balancing'


Cheers
DD

 

Hello Doug sorry to hear you had to get rid of the Jag but I understand, the gas mileage is pretty terrible.
I was curious as to what kind of difference you experienced in power after removing the cats?

 

I still have my Jag.....and my cat converters.

It was Gospeed who got rid of his. He hasn't posted in about a year, though.

Cheers
DD

 

Howdy all, just an update:

I miss this wonderful car, tremendously. I wish I had spent more time driving it than chasing down problems. Had I done so, I might have kept it. Be sure to shop around for the least problematic car you can find. It's definitely worth paying a little more. I got a firesale deal on mine, and still had twice vested than what Craigslist considered it worth. And this was just to get to the point where it was even decent enough for me to pass along to someone else and still sleep at night.

The mileage wasn't terrible, but I had moved during the time I was repairing the car, and the longer commute didn't help. Honestly if I had been driving the car before starting the longer commute then the change in budget for gas wouldn't have been as drastic, and I would have kept the car. Unfortunately these two coincided, so my wife saw it as an unjustifiable increase. We were saving for a house at the time (we close this Friday on the house we finally found). I averaged 15mpg overall, usually 16-18mpg highway.

I did not see a lot of power increase from the hollowed cats. It was slightly louder, and not in a civil way. The unaccustomed wouldn't have noticed, but my quiet turbine had turned into a slightly raspy clunker. It wasn't a flattering sound for such a car.

My vibration issue turned out to be the very first thing I tackled...the transmission tail mount bushings...just not done properly. I had replaced the lower bushing (spring buffer), and when it still vibrated wondered if it needed a stiffer spring. Apparently I had missed another bushing that was above the bracket. The new owner said he replaced this and ALL driveline vibration immediately disappeared. I was disheartened to say the least.


My next bit of advice is to chase diagnostics first, and wait until you've sorted a few things out before you do anything you can fix with something as simple as money. I jumped in buying $800 worth of new tires, Bilstein shocks all around, and a new A/C compressor. This made everything else that came up a serious hit to the pocketbook. Had I put two used tires on the rear, only replaced the rear shocks, and waited to do the rest...I would have had the car on the road sooner, and for less initial shock to the budget. I would have found that my compressor was good and it just needed a high side line. I would have spent all that tire and front shock money on the other issues that popped up. Most importantly I would have been DRIVING it, instead of looking at it from only a value perspective on a losing project. These cars need to be on the road, and being driven is where they shine. Driving such an amazing car allows you to forgive the idiosyncrasies. And tackling one problem at a time on a daily driven car is much less depressing than a parked car with a list taped to the windshield.

I've moved on to my second LS400. It's no Jag, but it's dependable and good on my spine. My project is now something I can spend years on, and not something I hope to be driving soon (MGB GT). Life is better this way, but I'll still always die a little inside every time an X300 passes me by.

Happy motoring!