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Greetings from a new X300 owner - Everything I've done so far
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Greetings from a new X300 owner - Everything I've done so far
Come va Jaguar forums! Canadian-Italian here with a '96 Vanden Plas.
For the past almost year owning this car I've been quietly 'lurking' these forums for guidance on maintaining the big cat, the occasional issue and custom upgrades. I've been meaning to actually join the community here but kept putting it off and wanted to finish the big front end job I was planning; which I finally did recently.
The car's originally from Vancouver and apparently was owned by an older Greek lady until something happened and it ended up in a garage for ten years not running. My grandfather knows the people at this place and acquired the car in I believe 2019 and got it running pretty quick. He kept it maintained like installing a new CKPS and Bilstein B4 shocks, then last June I flew out to learn and help him work on cars (we did a Toyota manual gearbox swap on a red 1983 Mercedes 300D). In Vancouver me and my grandfather did some work on the jag as well. First a rebuilt alternator, then the Andy Bracket, and finally the front right wheel bearings. We also tried doing the diff output shaft bearing and race job, but realized how much work it would be and the bearing was still in relatively good shape, so he reinstalled everything (and reused the old seals so that side has been slowly weeping gear oil since).
A week into getting the car home I had the common fuel pump failure, annoyingly it happened down at a friends cottage 50km away! I did the easy approach of cutting out the metal body above the evap system on top of the fuel tank, turns out the fuel lines had come off the pump! Either they had come loose over the past 27 years or some monkey was in there before me and didn't tighten down the lines properly.
Early on driving the car it developed a front right clunk over bumps, first I thought it was sway bar related so changed the bushings and contacted Andy Stodart for his custom made adjustable end links. They work great, but unfortunately did nothing for the clunking issue. I then decided it was lower control arm or cross member mount related; there was a lot of engine movement too which made me believe I needed new motor mounts. Fast forward to last month I figure out that the clunk was actually from both lower ball joints with destroyed boots, and the infamously garbage lower shock bushings which were absolutely destroyed. I still dropped the springs and subframe and replaced every bushing, mount, and ball joint except for the upper control arm bushings.
I as well got fancy new stainless steel exhaust headers in place of the notorious cast iron manifolds which I believe were developing cracks. I wrapped these headers in titanium wrap, and they look great and increase exhaust gas flow by a great amount; however, it was a huge pain to work with getting small painful metal fibers literally everywhere and I'm still dealing with exhaust slip joint leaks, so I can't really recommend it (not to mention how much it all cost). I also attempted a valve cover polish, but it was taking too long so I settled with a 'brushed' metal look. Eventually I'll get a donor car and get a glossy polished cover.
At 19 years of age I have a hunch I'm one of if not the youngest X300 owner, or at least the youngest to get this deep into this car. This is actually my first ever car which was an interesting choice. I cut my teeth mechanically on it alone with just online resources, which has been an uphill battle to say the least. I'm not sure how active this forum is now or how many active X300 owners there still are, but I adore this car and engine platform and will be keeping it for a very long time.
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You'll be back to the front suspension for those upper wishbone bushes if you didn't replace them.
It sounds like you've already found the relevant model forum but if not, follow this link https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/xj-xj6-xjr6-x300-26/ to the X300 forum for help, advice and information. The 'HOW TO' thread at the top is a good place to start for information on regular issues. You can also use the Canada Region forum by following this link https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/canada-73/ to find other members in your region.
Hello, Satya,
Congratulations on all your successfully completed repairs on your new Jaguar!!
We have Many x300 owners here, and even if you don't see very many out in the wild, you'll know which car in the parking lot is yours at a mere glance, and not have to see which of the Soulless Myriads answers your fob.
Greetings from a new X300 owner - Everything I've done so far
