Figured it was time to put up a thread about this thing....

I call it the Mystery Project because it's all a bit of a mystery, not sure exactly why I bought it, not sure what i'm going to do with it, and it's basically a mystery as to why someone would let a car like this go to crap, as the previous owner did...

It was the cheapest registered S-Type in the country, so maybe it was morbid curiosity that made me buy it, you know "how bad can it be?" LOL they're always worse than you expect....

So it's a 2001 Sport, 3.0 automatic, Platinum Silver with Charcoal leather, 223'000kms on the clock.

Haven't got much of the history of it, it was sold new to a diamond trader, then it was sold to the guy I bought it from in Feb 2008 for $24'000 with 145'000kms on the clock. Service book shows it was last serviced at 206'000kms in September 2012, so the last couple of years he just let it go.

Now I picked it up for a few thousand, sight unseen, from the other side of the country. It was throwing up "Gearbox Fault" on the dash with apparently no codes. I figured at best it could be the shifter cable adjustment, at worst a few hundred for a rebuilt valve block.

So I got a friend to go & have a look at it, take it for a drive & report back the general condition, he says "yeah it's OK" so I wire the money & get it on a train over to Sydney.

Here are the pics from the seller









Took a few weeks to get here, and when it arrived, well....disappointing...it's pretty rough...

First Impressions:
Every panel scratched & scraped, all four corners scraped badly.
Different make of tyre on each corner
Window tint bubbling & cloudy
Passenger side mirror busted (a long time ago by the looks)
Brakes rusty
Won't go into drive, need to put it in 4th to get a gear
Wheel trims all pretty rough
Windscreen chipped
Drivers side headlight adjuster broken, reflector is rattling around
Left rear door deadlocked shut
Drivers door lock playing up
Electrochomatic rear view mirror is cloudy
Interior smells BAD, cloth on the A pillars is coming off

So, what to do....?

First thing get rid of that towbar, it's a shin-smasher!

Then off to the carwash, let them at it for an hour to get it cleaned up.

Doesn't look too bad from 30 feet away, and a spare car always comes in handy, so i'd been dailying it, which has been handy since the diff in the XJR started making some horrible noises and is now off the road...

Checked the oil, was a little low.
Coolant was low.
Brake fluid was at the level but very dark.

Hooked up the IDS to read the codes, well hello!



P0731: 1st gear incorrect ratio
P0734: 4th gear incorrect ratio
P1383: VVT bank 1 over-retarded
P1388: VVT bank 2 over-retarded
P1588: Loss of spring return on throttle body

Figured the first two were from the shifter cable, and the second two were from old engine + old oil.

Then hooked up the ELM with Torque to get some live readings;

Engine is running hot, idling at 105°C !
Fuel trims are all over the place

Oh dear...

So what I have done so far?

Replaced the busted lock https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...57/#post985710

Adjusted the shifter cable which improved the shifting a lot, and the fault took longer to occur, but still shifting very rough. Since put in a new cable & it's improved even more but still not great.

Put in a new thermostat & changed the coolant, now idling at 93°C.

Oil change (without the filter for now) and put in a new air filter, it's running a lot better and actually has some power now. Will do the oil & filter in a week or two.

Fixed up a few little things that were broken or loose (like the cupholder in the center console) lights not working.

And then, the right front lower ball joint collapsed
Exchange vertical link with new ball joint and exhange front wishbone in for about half of what I originally paid for the car....
At least it's safe to be driving now LOL

So that changes the way I feel about this thing...i still need a beater to get around in, so might as well keep it, gotta get my money's worth out of it...

Needs new tyres & lucky I just picked up a new set of Yokohama's at half price will get them on next week.

Then on to getting the mirror replaced and the old tint removed....

Another sensible purchase

 

I've just started looking at S-types for sale yesterday. But this is far from what I want to replace the wife's Mazda 3 with. It's got to be a reasonable price and a reasonable car.
The Mazda is destined to be the "P" mobile.

Good luck.

 

The good ones are still well over $10K, you get what you pay for...

 

I'll be looking in the 15K area I would think,and that seems to bring up some pretty good looking cars. But just got to get one more kid out of school and we'll be looking seriously.

 

That's the same reason I have kept the Rover 75 connoisseur over the years. Always good to have a spare car and have never regretted buying it new and it has 260,000km on the clock with nothing major ever going wrong with it.

The other reason for keeping it has always been it's too cheep to sell!!!
Sadly its going as is my 4x4 and her indoors Magna beater.

We are moving interstate and it just not worth paying the transport and converting the rego. I's do it on the 4x4 but I doubt It would get rego interstate given the level of mods.

Ive estimated we need at leat 3 containers to move and it make no sense to have 2 more for cars that are easy to replace

So tho that end we will transport the XJR and sell the rest and start be looking for some new cars in Qld when we settle. Either an R75 or xtype for the misses and a 4x4 dualcab ute.

Cheers
34by151

 

Another mystery, solved, kind of.

I figured out what the smell in the car was, it was/is the carpet in the boot, previous owner must have spilt something nasty in there, from the smell i'm going to go with prawns or fishing bait, since I found a couple of floats under the back seat.

So shampooed the carpets & thier in the sun now, was a real nasty brown/yellow that came out of them...



Possibly related to the smell, I also found a spent 12-gauge cartridge under the seat too...

 

Check under the spare for a shovel

Cheers
34by151

 

My Jeep smelled of BBQ onions for two years on and off when we got it, we were using it a lot to go 4x4 on the beach and finally traced it to the underlay in the boot. Every time a bit of moisture got anywhere near the boot carpet....bbq onions.
New underlay,problem solved.
The original owner had an Indian restaurant,I assume he transported some cooked onions at some point.

 

Well the smell is gone from the carpets, and the cabin of the car, but it's still there in the boot when you lift the boot floor up, the prawn juice or whatever it was must have run down under the battery, i'm leaving the boot open & the carpet out while it's parked up, hopefully that'll air it out, also sprayed some Glen 20 anti-bacterial in there, don't know if it'll help. Will probably have to take the battery out & give it a blast with the hose.

Got the new tyres on this afternoon. Brand new Yokohama Advan 245/40/18's, proper ones made in Japan, $133 each including fitting from Taleb Tyres in Arncliffe. The car is so much quieter now at speed, it's almost becoming Jaguar-like.

One of the old tyres was disintergrating internally, when the guys de-mounted the tyre a couple of handfuls of rubber chunks were loose on the inside, which explains the noise.

Gearbox is still playing up; slow to engage drive, shifting hard, throwing up GEARBOX FAULT on the dash and bouncing around between 3rd & 4th (I think) so I guess it's a shift kit with the replacement springs that's needed. Haven't been able to check the fluid level yet, so i'll do that before I buy a kit.

 

So when are you going to turbo it?

 

Something like this?



I see something like this on the horizon, 2JZ-GTE? Maybe? LOL

 

Passes the 10 meter test pretty well

 

A few questions for the S-Type experts....

1. Do the side mirrors from the facelift 2003MY onwards fit the earlier cars?
2. Is there meant to be a carpet lining on the underside of the parcel shelf in a 2001?

And a general list of things still to be done on this car;

Shock bushes need replacing
Tint needs removal/replacing
Gearbox issues need sorting (rebuild kit)
Windscreen needs replacing
Windscreen wipers
New headlight adjusters & polish the "glass" as it's all cloudy
Oil & filters, spark plugs, etc
No heat from the heater, very handy seeing as it's winter here...

Once that's all done it'll be a decent car, apart from the scratches in the paint...

 

Am I the only one who cringes seeing a trailer hitch on a Jaguar?


That's probably the source of your "gearbox fault."


It's a Jaguar, not an Escalade. There's no telling what the guy towed with that thing, or for how long. I wouldn't be surprised if he burned out the transmission pulling a 5000 lb travel trailer ever summer. Or, considering the floats and the fishbait smell, he may have been pulling a boat.


The only luxury car I'd consider buying that the PO had installed a hitch on would be a Grand Marquis/Lincoln Town Car.

 

No me too...

To be honest, I have seen some nice cars and been interested in buying them until I spotted the towbar .....its always put me off.

I know it can be removed but its always worries me as to what its been towing / how long and how often?

10 metre test....PASSED

 

Just out of curiosity, what's the ten meter test? That's got to be close to twice the overall length of an S-Type. My 1978 Grand Marquis is less than 6 meters in length (18.5 feet), and that thing is huge!

 

How does the car look from 10 metres away?

 

In Texas, when you have a crappy car that looks good from a distance, we call it a 20 footer. Looks good from 20 feet away. Same concept, only in real measurements instead of metric!

 

Yeah maybe he towed a boat with it....

The towbar is definitely not a genuine Jaguar one, the wiring was the biggest hack job I ever saw, I ripped it all out yesterday when I had the battery out to clean the boot. a half dozen relays taped together & the wires tapped from the right rear tail light with scotch-loks.

The hitch will come out with a few bolts but it'll leave a big hole in the bumper, I found a near perfect bumper at a wrecker near Canberra in the same colour as this car, but it'll be pricey (as parts are in this country).

Need to get the gearbox sorted first.

10 meters is 30 feet, so you'd call this one a 30-footer

 

2jz all the way!!! 1000hp s-type would be the best thing ever.