Hi everyone,

My XJ40 has a couple problems and maybe y'all can help. There is a leak coming from front right corner and it is the windshield wiper fluid. I don't know if it is the reservoir or a hose, but I do know that it is washer fluid. Additionally, the digital screen on the dashboard (I have an 88) does not work and neither does the trip computer. Is this common? I can't find much elsewhere so you guys are my best bet. Finally, the central locking is tempermental, as the rear door locks tend to get jammed in the lock position and I have to crawl back through the car to unlock them. Thanks!!

 

Digidash will be cracked solder joints and it will need to be resoldered. If you can, remove it and take it to a laptop and/or phone repair centre and ask them to check and resolder all connections. If you dont have any experience with electronics I dont think you'll be able to fix it but removing it yourself should bring the costs down a lot. This is a common fault with early cars although a working digi dash, at least in my opinion, looks much better than the later dash
Re the leaking wiper fluid, remove the centre vent with the windshield wipers, the black plastic trim and inspect the whole thing carefully, the nozzles and rubber lines.
The rear door locks might either need some lubriaction(use a graphite spray not WD40!), alternatively swap the door actuator from left to right and right to left. This way they will work like new, I did this to my old XJ40.

 

Hi wpaturzo,

Welcome to the Jaguar Forums! It's great to have you with us!

katar83 has already addressed your questions but may have missed your report that the windshield washer fluid leak is at the front right corner. You'll have to do some disassembly to find the problem, but here are a few possibilities:

1. The reservoir is made in two sections with an O-ring seal at their juncture. The O-ring may have failed, or the seal for the fluid level sensor may have failed (it's marked NSS in the diagram for "Not Sold Separately"):




2. The reservoir may have cracked.

3. The electric washer pump (part 1 in the diagram below) connects to the base of the reservoir with a rubber grommet, part 11. The grommet may have failed, the rubber hose that connects to the pump may have cracked, or the hose nipple or takeup tube of the pump may have broken:




I grabbed the above diagrams from jaguarclassicparts.com, the parts service of the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust. It's a great website for looking up exploded diagrams, part names and part numbers.

Another great resource is jagrepair.com, hosted by our member Gus. Here's an example of the kinds of documents available there (some are incorrectly filed in the XJ6 & XJ12 section):

Jaguar XJ40 Electrical Guide 1988-89

Also see this thread from the home page of this XJ40 forum:

XJ40 HOW TO quick links

You can download an important repair manual here (the pdf is missing a couple of chapters but is still very helpful):

Haynes Jaguar XJ40 Repair Manual

Cheers,

Don

 

The reservoir is made of rigid "plastic stuff" and is located as mentionned in a front corner just between the wheel and the "bumper"; plus it is 30/40 years old. And finally at the bottom the output part for liquid as seen in the drawing posted by Don

A bunch of causes for breaks in the piece itself and for leaks.
This my experience still to be solved!

I wonder if someone found a working solution while avoiding to change the whole. I am personnally thinking of inserting a souple bag (think to the 5 liter bags used to sell wine) inside the original reservoir if it is possible to connect the output system and the level sensor.

I