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I have just put a deposit on an old S type jag for the boss women to drive. It will need a window regulator for the front left window (and who knows what else to get a roadworthy certificate). I've found window repair kits on amazon when I googled this. Has anyone tried these and had any success with them?
No doubt I'll have lots of questions when I get the car home. eg: how to service the slugomatic gearbox... which diagnostic system is best for the car ( eg: my wifes other car - a poogoe rcz) I have a cloned copy of diagbox to use on it. Do I need to pull it apart and check the cam tensioners etc.
Congrats on new to you S Type. Year and engine would be helpful.. While having coffee look at the "How To Guides" in the S Type forum. You will find loads of information.
Oh woops, it's a 2001 3.0 V6 (I was looking for a v8, but they are rare out here). It should be the 5spd slugomatic gearbox. The car is in very nice condition for its age and has about 130,000kms on it. I could only find three for sale in the entire of australia with proper manual gearboxes, and they were all thousands of kms away from where I live!
On the early models, you'll find a Ford 5R55N transmission. This is a variant of a VERY common transmission sold around the world. Any semi-competent transmission shop should be able to take care of it for you. I put over 350k miles on mine before it died, which I think is phenomenal for a slushbox.
If servicing it yourself, be aware the logistics can be a bit tricky without a lift. The car needs to be level with room to get underneath, so four tall jackstands are required. In the back, the jack points are the only place to set the jackstands, to further complicate things. Don't use a jack under the differential, as it's not intended as a lift point.
One last caution. Make sure to loosen the fill plug before draining the fluid. If you drain the fluid first and then find the fill plug seized, the car is now immobile. If checking the fill plug first, and it won't budge, at least you can still drive the car.
I've been a car nutter as long as I can remember (my earlier memory is trying to "help" my father pull the door hinges from a Renault 4 .... I was probably 5 years old at the time). Not a lot has changed... I'm 50years old now and I still have to pull everything apart I come across.
For the last couple of decades my daily drivers have been a Citroen CX2500 GTi Turbo (my father imported from the UK in the mid 90s), followed by a Range Rover classic. Obviously I still have these and they will never be for sale. My wife has driven a 407 HDi 6spd poogoe for the last 13years. I've never really liked the car, but I have to admit it has been a brilliant car, and the youngest daughter now drives it (she got her license recently). The boss women had been saying for a few years she wants to get a small fun car and got a Poogoe RCZ a few years back ... and surprisingly to me I quite enjoy driving this. I don't really like modern cars. Anyway, now she last lost access to her old poogoe she has been saying for a while she needs another 4 door car (while refusing to drive my range rover, or Citroen CX ... or Citroen DS ... or well you get the idea, she thinks the real cars will break down if she drives them).
Anyway, I've been looking for any 4 door passenger saloon that is nice and comfy. My idea is a nice big v8 .... a proper manual gearbox ... big and comfy cruiser. You know they don't exist really this century. And the boss women is certainly not interested in proper cars .... I kept finding big old benzes, BMWs, Jag XJ v12 ( ie: all the cheaper but interesting old car). And they are all a "NO" for some reason ... Women are weird right ?
Anyway, in my searching I spotted an Stype V8 for sale locally ... Hmmm.... A sweet little v8 in it, sadly it was a slugomatic. We went and took it for a drive. Now THAT is a car, no stupid big clown wheels that give a crap ride and break when they hit potholes. Kinda effortless performance. I would have purchased that car in a heartbeat, but it was covered in hail damage that you couldn't see in the for sale pictures. So I started looking at S type jags (as they are very reasonably priced). And found a quite low milage car owned by someone that can no longer drive about an hours drive from my house.
I do all my own work on my cars, so I'm not concerned about working on it. eg: a drunk crashed into the range rover a few years back. So I just repaired and repainted it myself
So I will do any/all of the servicing myself.... Because I enjoy that sort of thing.
I figured I'd whip the lights out to sand/clear and have a look under the car. I was thinking I'd just need a window regulator and headlights polished for a roadworthy ..... Just stagging looking under the thing. Every boot ... the bushes, anti-rollbar drop links, ball joints top/bottom front and back .... the tie rod joints ..... all of them ... They are actually in good condition, but the dust boots on ALL of them are heavily perished. This will NOT pass a roadworthy test here (they are incredibly stringent and take photos of everythign they have checked). Wow ... what a HUGE job this going to be, I'm going to have to replace EVERYTHING. Even if I can buy just the boots, it all still has to come apart, every last suspension component.
That will teach me to buy a car without putting pulling the wheels and putting it up on a hoist
So first job to get this car its roadworthy (or warrant of fitness maybe?) is the headlights. I figured it would be easier to remove them. That is actually involved as you have to find all the hidden fasteners. The bumper has to come off which means the wheels. Well I chucked my little impact on the nuts that will undo the 27mm range rover wheel bolts... and it wouldn't touch them. So I moved onto a 1 meter long breakers bar.
Holly crap ..... what brain dead moron tire fitter put these wheels on. I gave up and dragged out my 3/4" monster rattle gun (used for crank bolts and driveshaft bolts ... designed really for trucks). Even it rattle for a second before spinning the nuts off How in the hell would I have got these off on the side of the road if I got a puncture!!
After spending 10minutes trying to figure out how to remove the decorative covers on the wheel nuts that is. What brain dead moron thought putting a layer of tin foil on a nut was a smart thing to do. I'm guessing we chuck these to the ******* and fit proper wheel nuts before that outer layer fails?
I've refinish headlights before, just working up through the sandpaper grades and polishing them. This time given the effort to remove them , I figured I'd coat them with clear so they'd last a bit longer.
sanded with 400grit
[
then 800 grit. I needed to keep reminding myself not to go finer so the clear would have something to grip too.
I googled the clear to use.... and one of the youtube videos had good sucess with rustoleum clear. Yeah, don't do that. After 5 minutes it reacts to the plastic and turns to ****
Don't use this stuff. I googled "plastic headlight paint"
and this isopon clear popped up, and the reviews said it was good for headlights. So I whipped into the store to grab some, the guy behind the counter said "Yeah mate, I've used it on plastic headlights its good stuff"..... I said I tried the rustoleum clear ..... "No mate, don't use that is crinkles up" ...... damn it, why didn't I come to this place first
I did change the fluid and filter yesterday. I didn't bother draining the torque converter. Instead the next two times I change the engine oil, I'll just change the gearbox oil as well. I think I'm not having any of the problems that I find when I search on this forum as the car has never been driven on salty roads. There was no problems removing the level plug or removing the pan on the slugomatic gearbox.
That's actually looking pretty good to me. I must admit, the slugomatic gearbox was my biggest concern with buying this car. All of my cars have proper manual gearboxes, I just couldn't find anythign with a proper gearbox though.
Urgghhh.... it fits, but I dont think this cork gasket is anywhere near as good as the crusty 25 year old rubber gasket (with built in shims to prevent crushing).
So I just coated the existing gasket with some goop. Its not silicon and will not effect the gearbox at all (anaerobic sealer will just wash away). If it leaks, I'll chase up another gasket with those small metal shims around each bolt hole.
I just did a lap of the street and pulled the level plug, I didn't want it hot as I'm not keen on getting burnt by hot oil
After spending 10minutes trying to figure out how to remove the decorative covers on the wheel nuts that is. What brain dead moron thought putting a layer of tin foil on a nut was a smart thing to do. I'm guessing we chuck these to the ******* and fit proper wheel nuts before that outer layer fails?...
Sorry, I previously missed your query about the lug nuts. The design is terrible, and the sloppy factory lug wrench makes it worse.
The easiest fix is twofold. Replace the lug nuts with a one-piece design. And then ditch the factory lug wrench for a socket and breaker bar:
Oh .... you have to be kidding. the wheel brace in the car is junk too ..... I'm so glad you mentioned that here. I'll chase up a breakers bar and put in the boot. Most of my old cars I carry one of these in the boot of.
If you wait long enough they come on special for about $90aud (45 quid). The idea being the tool kit lives in the boot of the car and is never touched. The best case scenario is you never use it .... But if you ever need it, the thing is there. Having tools that are used elsewhere doesn't work for me, as the day I need them, they will be lost or not there as I've put them somewhere else (yes I am that hopeless). Given my wife will be driving this car, a tool kit won't help much, but a breakers bar will be a necessity. At least the car has a proper full sized spare. The stupidity of "no spare tire" in a country like australia just defies belief. Especially when modern plastic junk cars have giant wheels that break when they hit potholes. 16" is about the magic size, as soon as you get up to 18, 20 .... 22 " wheels, the tire profile is so small, they are just unusable junk as soon as you leave the big cities. Its not unusual for cars to be stranded these days with a simple flat tire. Tire snot will not inflate a tire when the wheel is cracked and dented from hitting a pot hole!
So I ordered in one of those window winder repair kits.
How in the hell do you get this out without breaking the damn thing. I think it was partially "pre-broken" for me
The repair kits are only pocket change. They arrive with no instructions and a bunch of cable and crappy plastic clips .... I figured there wasn't a snowmans chance in hell that I'd work out how to fit that. I couldn't find any instructions online either. I was quite amazed when I managed to just copy the broken mess that was there and fit the new cables and plastic (junk) brackets.
Only once repaired, the window was tilted heavily and couldn't close. Closer investigation show the cables must be wrong. See how much higher the bracket needs to sit on the cable.... hmmm. So I hit up google and remarkably found they aren't massively expensive new. Then rapidly found out the 2001 car here, has a different winder mechanism, only available online from the USA. So will take quite a while to get here .... normally I wouldn't care, but I don't want to have this car in the last owners name for extended periods of time. Anyway, I was thinking about this, and thought "why don't I just add another lug on the cable ?? ....., I measured how far out the clip was sitting and it needs to be exactly 30mm higher. So out again with the mechanism for the 3rd time.
,,
I figured I wouldn't be able to "blob" solder on is it would either break off, or flow down the length of the cable making it rigid.... hmmm.... I found this wiring crimp on joiner, if I cut it in half its the right length.
So I marked 3cm down and found it only crimp on very loosely, but I was only after the "bulk" on the cable it would offer.
It gave me something to solder on, using a nice hot iron ( a superscope is ideal) I soldered that sucker on. That should stop it moving.
and was rewarded with one perfectly working passenger front window
New owner
... Women are weird right ? 
How in the hell would I have got these off on the side of the road if I got a puncture!!
..... I'm so glad you mentioned that here. I'll chase up a breakers bar and put in the boot. Most of my old cars I carry one of these in the boot of.
