Hello All,

I bought a 1995 XJR back in May 2017 on a bit of a whim, after fancying an old smoker XJ for a bit of a road trip. After looking around, I found the straight 6 R is very good value at the moment and thought why not. It's a second car and not driven all the time and for a while I wasn't sure if it really was for me. It's taken a while for it to grow on me, but when looking for information on-line this forum seems to be the best source; so I thought I should join and say thank you to the contributors for what I've gleened so far, specifically recently in the cold weather, for "heater not working".

If anyone is interested, here's my journey do far:

I paid a little too much (I now know), for a car that had been a bit neglected, but it was local, the seller took a part ex. (saving me the hassle of selling another car) and I liked the combination of black exterior with black interior and dark wood veneer. It had 12 months MOT by the skin of it's teeth, with some ropey weld repairs, but I knew this would give me time to make some proper repairs before the next MOT. It had 141000 miles - nothing for the AJ16 engine everyone says. I looked at it in the rain and was rushed as I was late getting to the seller (I shall kindly call them a small independent dealer) who was about to close up for the day, so over-looked / missed plenty of things and made a snap decision. I hadn't really wanted a project, as I already have another different project car that I didn't want to be distracted from, so that didn't work out...

There were 3 main problems I had living with the car at the out-set. I didn't like the lack of head room, I'm 6' 2" and the car has a sunroof; the handbrake stuck in my leg and was uncomfortable; I didn't think the throttle response was as good as it should be for a 320bhp car. These were fixed in the order of: I adjusted the handbrake to be as tight to the centre console as possible (a bit of brute force); I removed the drivers seat and made some modifications to make it adjust lower so I could get a better driving position; I bought & fitted one of Andy's (XJREngineer) crank sensor brackets, to give it a little ignition advance, and suddenly the throttle response was more like I thought it should be and that was the turning point for me.

So with the car finally more to my liking, I decided I should hold on to it for a while and start spending a bit of time & money on it. I've had all usual problems, based on the issues rasied by other ownbers:

Coil packs replaced (due to cracking on more than one causing misfires)
Leaky cam cover - gaskets replaced
Fixed the blowing exhaust by cutting out the rotten centre boxes & replacing them with pipe. It's a little more throaty, without being noisey - it could probably do with a new exhaust at some point, as the rear boxes aren't in great condition
General service, eradicating slipping SC belt, gearbox oil & filter improving gear change etc.
Welded the cracked exhaust manifolds as a temporary repair, pending potential replacement at a later date
"business card" repair on the clock, which works some of the time, so it needs a proper reapir really
Removed old-school car phone & replaced centre colse lid
Fitted X308 head lights (dipped beams were cloudy & one had a cracked lens)
Fitted XJREngineers's crank sensor bracket (great mod, very good value for the very noticable performance & throttle response improvement)
Rust repair - this was a biggy, it was worse than I expected and I needed a little thinking time after the initial thoughts of breaking the car. I've replaced the front LH front floor pan & LH sill repair (inner & outer), footwell repair both sides, repair to top of bulkhead on the LH. inner front wheel arch repairs (rust propogating from the liner mounting holes), RH rear wheel arch inner (at the back) repair. Replaced the rear subframe mounting brackets, the early type without the drain hole had rusted well
New tyres, with the wheels refurbished at the same time
Heater wasn't heating, fixed by replacing engine thermostat (cool running engine in cold weather) & the brushes in the heater pump (it wasn't working) & a clean of the ambient air temp sensor, which looked like it was wearing a wooly jumper. The A/C was great in the summer though
Replaced an O2 sensor (lets see if the fuel economy improves with this & the thermostat replacement)

To come:
I've bought new dampers & some of the bushes & bearings for the refurbishing of the suspension & subframes. There are a few more bits to buy before dropping the subframes out
Replace leaky power steering pipes (bought but not fitted yet)
Saggy headling needs sorting (it's ok in the front due to the sunroof so not a major iritation at the moment)
Sunroof needs minor rust blebs addressing & new seal fitting (bought but in the garage...)
Possibly change the diff to improve the acceleration (when the subframe is out for suspension re-furb)
Rear wheel arch repair sections to weld in (again, I've bought these already...) Rear end of sills probably need adressing at the same time
Drivers side floor pan & sill, cut out bodgy plates & repair properly as per the passenger side

I really would have been better to hold out & buy a better car. I was looking out for another to make a swap, but I couldn't find the right spec. for me. So the welding repairs made me invest time in to this car and I'm now at the stage where I think it has to be a keeper for a while and I'm driving it more it's growing on me...

Thanks again

 

Well done for saving another X300.

Many would have given up at the first sill repair and scrapped it. The car will repay your determination and will be a pleasure to own and drive.

Enjoy it and keep us up to date.

 

One thing you may want to check for possibly more power is that the throttle cable is actually moving the throttle plate all the way open when you floor the accelerator pedal. Both of my XJ6s needed this easy to do adjustment as both of them were not opening all the way.

 

It’s hard to navel gaze the future of the x300s. But they were only made for 3 years, they are the last of the straight-6 Jags, and they are a blend of old-school still can fix it and home, and modern electronics with airbags and ABS. Jag saloons have never been the investment that coupes are, but they do get under one’s skin. I think in 10-20 yrs a good XJR6 will be desirable. Getting harder to keep on the road, though.

I’m glad you’ve saved it and you’re now bitten by the bug... I was close to selling mine a month ago and buying a 2011 XJ Supersport, but whilst awesomely powerful, it lacked something that I get from my XJR . I can’t quite tell you what it is. But mine is also a keeper, 3 years in, after lots of heartache but more reward.

 

Cheers guys.

I'll check I'm getting full throttle opening, but the ignition advance makes a difference (from XJRengineers bracket) at partial throttle opening too.

Here's a couple of more scary picture of the LH floor pan for the before, during & nearly at the end - I forgot to take pictures once it was all cleaned up, sealed & painted, as I was just trying to get it finished.

 

Yes, well done sir, nice to see you getting stuck in and doing it yourself, your story is very similar to mine, and I had welding to do in pretty much the same places but on a slightly smaller scale, a great looking car and we'll worth all your hard work.

 

Good save, congrats!
I`m wondering, why its sooo rusted when it has such a decent mileage?

 

Hi Ben,

I too am very grateful for the excellent support I have received on this forum and hope I can be of some help in the future.

I noticed you have the front headlamp washers, were those standard on your car or did you add them as part of your headlamp upgrade?

Were the X308 headlamps hard to fit? I am considering a headlamp upgrade, but it might simply be more modern bulbs in the X300 units.

Nice car by the way - keep, don't sell! Or if you ever do offer it here first!

Cheers,
Nick

 

Ben,

Always good to hear the forum has been a useful source of information.

You've completed an impressive amount of work in eight months. The metal work especially as this is often the point at which many owners call it a day and scrap their Jaguar.

Graham

 

It's a steel car, that's lived in the UK for 22 years... I don't know it's history.

 

Hi Nick,

The headlight washers were on the car when I bought it. I just assummed they were original fit?

The X308 headlight swap is easy. I just bought the complete units with the mounting brackets from an on-line breakers, see attached photo. You need to get the harness connector blocks too, as they are different between the X300 & X308. They came with the bulb, which are also different. The connectors need to be swapped over and the wiring colours are different. You need to either cut & solder the wires between the two, or get new crip connectors for the blocks.

The colours are:

RH
CAR - X308 light connector
Black - Black
Black - Black
Purple/White - White
Blue/Yellow - Blue
Blue/White - Orange/Yellow

LH
CAR - X308 light connector
Black - Black
Black - Black
Red - Red/White
Blue/Yellow - Blue/Yellow
Blue - Blue/White