It was a beautiful Autumn day here yesterday and unusually warm, so after doing some garden work, some gutter cleaning and sweeping up leaves I washed my cars. The Triumph and Jaguar both got the usual two bucket wash using Autoglym products and a waxing using Aqua Wax. Before the winter comes in I'm hoping to get the car polished and a proper wax coat put on.

 

Shoulder is still acting up, but getting a bit better, and I guess giving it a wash to get rid of 2 1/2 months dust is a good exercise .
Then added the one and only sticker I will ever put on her (well, technically it is a glue-less patch), the Jaguar Club Taiwan.

 

I inherited my fathers XJR after the gearbox chewed up its internals, so i did the only sensible thing and bought another one as a parts car. Spent the last day and half swapping out the gearbox so its back in business

 

Error , do the supercharger and normally aspirated engine versions share the same transmission in the X308 series ?

 

No, the supercharged engine uses a Mercedes Benz transmission.

This one had an unusual failure where it locked up and broke tooth on a sun gear, which then did some more crunchy crunchy and made metallic soup.

 

After being able to get into the depths of my Jag yesterday, I now know why the POS rubs like a BOS on a cold start and all of a suddenly snaps into normal life.

After watching the fuel trims (short and long term) whilst the engine was running, it has become clear, that the LPG system has some too smaller injectors resulting in it running lean (without correction). So the ECU enrichens the mixture to run normal according to lambda.

As the LPG system is ran more frequent than the normal petrol, it causes the long term trims to run rich. Making the cold start richer than it should be (+7%) under petrol...

So, the POS starts normally, runs a few seconds, runs then like a BOS, switches to LPG to run like a sewing machine.

On the 15th of November I'm off to Berlin to get the injectors replaced OR have the software corrected or have the pressure increased to compensate.

 

Well, I guess it technically counts as today for the end of it?

Drove it to Salem, MA for the Halloween festivities, and then over to Boston for the Guns N Roses concert, and got home just before 5 AM this morning. 600+ miles, 10+ hours driving. And true to form, with the girl in the seat, never skipped a beat. Soon as I get on my way to work this morning, TB hiccups and makes me clear it. Almost like she's smirking at me. Taunting me and daring me to find time to get it fixed. Smooth as silk to impress the gf, but when I'm by myself... should name her Christine..

 

 

I did about 60 miles in mine today as I had to go to my parents house, and she wasn't hanging round either. She may only be a 3.2 but when asked she picks up her skirt and runs.
Sitting comfortably at 80 on cruise on the motorway, people moving out the way they see her bearing down on them. Get off the motorway and into the first town and I'm held up by a Pensioner in a Toyota saloon doing 20mph in a 40 zone, but owing to the urban environment and oncoming traffic no option to pass. After a while I knew the road opened up into rural A Road Twisted bliss, with a straight to start things off. Hit the Sport button, drop the J gate to 2 and she blistered away. From there I kept the taps open until I hit the next village and after then it was a tight twisting B road to my Parent's house. Exactly the conditions these cars are made for.

Going home was much the same, had to show the Yuppie in his Sporty looking golf a clean pair of heels. Just goes to show how well these cars can perform when all the suspension is in good order, she corners like she's on rails. Love It!

 

What did I do today? Well, drove the bugger and tanked it up.

Ordered some new upper wishbone bushings from Mahle (have had the best experiences so far with Mahle), a new MANN oilfilter, 10l of Mannol 10W40 Extreme oil (@ €2,15/liter cheap as f**k but really good stuff, always get's recommended by the German Stiftung Warentest Nord), soms more AG52 tranny fluid (Mannol's version of ZF Lifeguard or whatever they call it -> €2,99/liter) and what not... Can't be arsed to do the upper and lower joints yet... Just need to have the parts arrive and then the long weekend should allow me to get this done.

Also booked a hotel room fpr a night in Berlin, to get the LPG system corrected and my old tatty Shab-uar should be fine again. Then I can maybe pit even more cash into the pesky bugger.

 

I got my SC back from John Bond, fully rebuilt, rotor coating redone, and my Mina pulley installed.

 

Could lay my hands on some "cheap" mesh grill inserts in Japan.

In spite of Photoshop showing the opposite, must admit that Daim was right, it looks better, more balanced....happy.

 

I changed the spark plugs for '7' heat range NGKs rather than 'Jaguars recommended' 6. The 6s were recommended to commonise with the non supercharged just for manufacturing and assembly considerations. Really irks me the compromises for manufacturing and assembly that British and American cars do. Another example is the duct into the throttle body- two fasteners on one side- both at the rear. You know if it was a BMW or Mercedes the fasteners would be spread around the throttle bore more equidistantly. In this case-however- it DOES make it easier to work on and it serves its purpose and doesn't leak. A lot of the compromises for ease of Design for assembly/manufacture make the vehicle easier to work on (my Dodge Ram only has a couple of fasteners for the interior door cards - the rest of it is attached by moulded plastic hooks- its simple, easy to remove and works well)- some compromises are not so great. An example of the latter for me- are the exhaust hangers or fasteners over the rear suspension subframe unit on the X308 vs the X300. The 308s have the brackets molded into one unit for cost and simplicity and minimization of parts. Makes it very difficult to remove them when lowering the assembly- where as the X300 has the older school brackets in a few pieces.

 

Spent an hour getting both upper wishbones off...

 

Glad I was driving my Nissan this afternoon, driving leisurely(25-30 mph) in a housing sub-division a big collie &/or German Shepard darts out in front of me. I hit brakes as fast as possible, but there was a thud & a yelp. I stopped to check on the dog but it ran away as if unhindered. Now my car has a scrape on the front bumper that looks as if it were swiped by a grizzly bear lol. Really irks me I mean the car's only a basic Nissan Sentra, but it's in mint condition only 55,000 miles on a 2003. So I think I'm going back tomorrow & find me the animal's owner.

I really wish people would tend to their damn animals properly ! Irony is I was going to check on my Jaguar's status @ the transmission specialist.

Ok rant done lol !

 

Pressed out the old upper wishbone bushings... Was an easy job. Pressed in the two on the flat sides of the wishbones, piece of cake. Tried to press in one of the curved sections... Didn't like it and split one of the new bushes. Removed and tried another one, same split, same place. So checked the wishbone. A little 'nose' with a sharpish edge was visible. So that cut my bushes open. Waiting noe for two new ones. Tuesday is a bank holiday. I need my car on Wednesday... Clock is ticking!

 

Your way to lower the car? Just pulling the wheels up in the wells?

 

Tried to do U-joints... didn't realize how much of a pain the original ones would be to remove, then I screwed up a few of the cups/bearings off of the new ones because a needle went loose during install and caught on the inner race and bent, broke, bound up, and so on while the cups being pressed together. Managed to get one axle mostly done but one of the four pivots still feels like crap. Ran out of daylight and gave up, hopefully I can recover that U-joint with the remaining pieces I have left tomorrow, then overnight a couple more U-joints for the other side since I've used (ruined) the ones I had screwing up the one side... Almost worried I may have bent the ears on the one piece of the half shaft during R&I causing the binding feeling since I was pretty confident in the way those cups went together, but I'll find out tomorrow I guess. Hard lessons learned...

 

Oh Eric, you underestimate my powers!

 

Had the rear shock absorbers replaced by new BOGE gas-filled shocks. EUR 300.00 later it felt as if I had a new car !