I purchased my dream car Jaguar xjs conv. about a week ago and trailered it home. The emergency brake light was on as well as several other lights and the seller stated they have been on for sometime. When I test drove the car, it seemed to run O.K., but I knew it needed some work, so I really wasn't sure what to expect as far as performance.
Today, there was snow on the ground, but the streets were dry, but they also predicted snow for later in the day, so I decided to take this great looking car out for my first real drive and check to see what repairs might be needed before the summer convertible season.
On to the expressway I went and all seemed fine, but it did appear to not have the pick up I thought it would. !!!Long story short!!!
I was exiting the highway after about 50 miles of cruising and had several other cars were honking and telling me, I have flames coming from under the car. I stopped and show smoke bellowing out from under the rear of the car. Being a firefighter, I knew there was a fire station about 2 blocks away and kept going to the station. Surprise, Surprise, the engine was out on another run and the station was locked (not a nice neighborhood)
I got out and saw flames coming from the inboard brake caliper area, I proceeded to make snowballs out of the fallen snow on the ground and throw it under the car up to the inboard brake calipers, the whole time thinking "I've only owned this Jag a week and it is going to burn to the ground". As luck would have it, I was able to get enough snow on the flames and cool the area down. No body or interior damage, but the inboard brake area is burned and no brakes at all in the car.
I'm just glad the car is very salvagable. Now for the Help part.
I got the car home and into the garage and up on jacks. Is there a site that will give me a detailed explaination of how to get the brakes, emergency brake, calipers and especially the rotors off from the rear of a XJS convertible with inboard brakes. I have one of those dvd manuals, but it doesn't seem to explain what has to be done to remove the rotors, also, where is the emergency brake adjusting nuts in the car, site says to lift the carpet adjacent to the brake handle and I've lifted all the carpet on the drivers side and cannot find any adjusting nuts or cables.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. I'm learning as I go and I plan on doing as much of my own work as possible.
thanks in advance.

 

i cant help on detail because I work on sight and that job has been ages ago. but, read the info/dvd and do 1 side at a time. order a bebuild kit and replace it all. youll know when done why that job is very expensive to have a shop do. but its a good diy job to save money on

 

Most prefer removing the entire rear suspesion and then removing then calipers, rotors, etc. in relative comfort with the whole shebang on the garage floor.

In a very brief nutshell:

-disconnect brake hose
-disconnect driveshaft
-disconnect handbrake cable
-remove exhaust pipes
-remove bolts at the four rubber mounting blocks


You'll need a floor jack and/or a helper and/or a trolley to support the unit and lower it down.

It's not all that bad, really.

Removing the calipers while working under the car is misery but it can be done. However, removing the rotors requires that the lower control arm be allowed to drop wayyyyy down....which means having the car elevated wayyyy high. Higher than most DIYers would be comfortable with using jack stands.

The handbrake cable can be a stinker. Sometimes you can just lever the handbrake actuating arms enough to release the cable. If not you'll have to slacken the cable. The adjustment is below the lever but still inside the car...you must've missed it. (On reassembly don't use this as a final handbrake adjustment. Just take up the gross slack. The handbrake self adjusts at the calipers)

Considering the labor involved it's wise to do as much as your pocketbook allows while you're fixing the brakes. Any worn shocks, bushings, u-joints, differential seals, subframe mounts, etc will be much easier to replace now than later. (Well, shocks are not too difficult either way, actually). It's a fair bet that at least the differential side seals are cooked. This means removing the stub shafts from the diff, replacing the seals, and setting the bearings. An alternative is to buy rebuilt stub shafts.

Keep track of the shims on either side of the rotors, by the way.

Cheers
DD

 

To get the rotors off you have to have the car way the hell up in the air. You have to drop the half shafts to get the rotors off. If you don't have it already go check out Kirby Palms XJS ebook its free and I believe covers most of this.
Also I just did the back brakes on my car and if you go to my thread (which you can find from the front page on the XJS section I should have some helpful info on there.

Obviously the calipers have to come off first since the rotors are in them. after that the car just needs to be way up in the air ( i think) because the suspension has to be all the way down to get the rotors off. I could be wrong thought because I haven't really looked into this.
You should be able to tell though if you get under your car, remove the dust cover for the half shafts and studdy the rotor for a bit.

 

I've already removed the whole cage and have the half shafts and lower control arms off. I'm glad I went this route for the repair cause I have found several other issues that I must address before I but everything back together, such as several u-joints need replacing and the rear diff. seals are going to be replaced, I also found several brake lines that are on the edge of rusting away, so they also will be renewed. Thanks for all the info.

 

Hey 93,

Are'nt these guy,s just great?

 

Sorry that Ford did not get there on time to kick Jaguar's *** and make them fly right for you I believe 97+ is when they moved rotors back out, into the wheel area.
I am about to do all that on my 82, but luckily I got a hold of car lift for cheap
Thank you Doug for the tear down sequence!

 

I din't quite get to flames, but a few years ago with my Series 3, I had thick smoke billowing out from the rear brakes. About 3 miles previously the brake pedal had gone to the floor, and frantic pumping restored the brake. I had had one or two previous incidents, but, like an idiot, had ignored it.

A caliper piston had stuck on and heated up the disc and burned out the caliper seals, and also the bearings were wrecked, so the whole shebang had to come out. New calipers, discs, bearings and brake pipes later, it was OK !!

 

How did you know that the bearings were damaged. I've pulled the rear diff. out and was thinking of replacing the diff. stubs as a precaution, but the price is rather high and I really don't know if I need them replaced. I filled the diff. with oil and let it sit overnight to see if it leaked out any oil, and checked for play in the hubs and all checked you good (no oil leaks and no play or noise when turning the hubs) Was there something else you noticed that made you feel you needed to replace the bearings.

 

Hi 93greenconv

The outer diff bearings were reported as shot by the garage where I took the work; they also got very hot. Repairs were done by a very high reputation Jaguar specialist some distance away from my home. They are still around and I would use them again, but sold the car about 2 years later in 2002, and have only recently returned to Jaguar with an X350. The diffference in the build quality from what was a very, very poorly built car in 1980, is really unbelievable.

I had the '80 XJ6 Series 3 4.2 litre for 14 years. I must have done all the jobs under the sun on it. Was I conned by the car ? Maybe, but it looked so good and drove so well; a bit like a mistress, I suppose. No experience of them mind you !!

 

While you have it down, check the small pinion bearings on the outboard near the hub. I think the bolt for the shocks goes through these and attaches the lower arm to the hub. There are small bearings on each side of the bolt on the outside. I've had two of the three cars I had with these bearings locked up.