Hi to you all,

I lost one of my wheel center caps the other day and it was a mystery!!!

I then had a hell of a journey......

I went on ebay and due to things being tight, I bought cheap replacements around £9.99 for 4, yeah okay, they are not JAGUAR!

I went for black and was surprised to find three of them broke on fitting!!

I then complained and thought they were rather brittle and was dismayed to say the least, I questioned myself (butter fingers?) and awaited the replacements..

I now had 1 spare and 4 new, so it was a cinch... or was it?

2 broke!

I then complained again and they refunded me, I then went on a new journey, a venture of discovery unto new horizons, a deep breath, new frontiers, okay, I chose RED!

I humbly began my quest, 1 fitted fine, no problem, then no2 broke followed by number 3. SH..... why oh why.... ??? is life so unfair?

Anyway, I discarded the curse and the conspiracy and emailed the supplier and they chose to send me out a pack of 4.

Before fitting, I called and whinged indiscriminately and discriminately to friends and one said to heat them, before fitting and thank you Dean for suggesting VASELINE!!

I then left the new caps on the radiator, fetched the vaseline, a rag and my Dear Fionas hairdryer.

The first one broke, I then decided to heat the caps fanning them and the wheel center bore whilst lubricating them too.

Each cap took over 15 minutes to fit but, presto hey, it worked!

I have a new zest in life today and it's reassuring to admit, if it ain't broke, don't look at it... at all, because when I do look at things, they look back and I start to worry, don't go out there!

Seriously, I think I had a helping hand in my downfall at the start, thanks to good old fashioned "Scottish Weather!"

But I wanted to post this as a little bit of knowledge goes a long way and I've learned a great deal thanks to my X Type!!

Ps, i now have 4 lovely center caps, ooh and a bag full of broken ones!!!

Regards, Stu And I hope you are all enjoying your plans up to Xmas!!!

 

Those look good. Sounds like it was a lot of trouble though.

 

Stu,

Did you thoroughly clean the wheel centres before fitting the new caps?

The perimeter of the hole in the wheel centre and the back of it (arrowed) are impossible to clean properly without removing the wheels.



Admin Jim recently recommended Sonax Xtreme wheel cleaner to me and it's fantastic stuff for easily removing all traces of dirt without damaging the clearcoat.

Encrusted road dirt here prevents the cap from pressing in easily and risks breaking one of the four plastic lugs.

A properly fitted cap in a clean wheel should rotate quite easily but be firmly held in place by the lugs.

Too late to help this time but you'll know in future!

Your X-Type is looking good.

Graham

 

I had some red centers like that from ebay...they are all chrome now...be careful about what kind of wheel cleaner you use, the stuff I used stripped the red paint off the caps. btw you can pry the decorative metal part off the plastic part, pound the metal disk flat (cover it with a thick towel when you hammer it) and use it to replace the horn emblem on the steering wheel. I did that with my extra cap.

 

Justink201, got a photo of the post-op steering wheel?

 

Very good replies Gents and equally well recieved!

I never use wheel cleaner now and the reason I cheated was I started to replace the caps when it was pretty cold and windy and I never removed the wheels as I have had job issues and didn't have the cash/time as usual and I wanna get a set of ramps and really get to grips with my Baby when the time is right but vanity got in the way, I just felt half a man with 3 center caps on.... Doh!

04xtype04, the white 3.0L looks good too and I still want a Jaguar fleet and I think Red White and Blue on the drive will look ACE!

(maybe not so if Scotland gets the independance vote though!!) Yoiks!

Regarding the paintwork, I resorted and went back to Pureguard as I swear it's the best and it's just too expensive though it covers up the marks and scuffs from a Dundee white van man very nicely, I'm still looking for him! It actually happened the day after I hiked down to Liverpool and drove back up the road!

He went in the back of me on the forfar road roundabout just after heading into dundee and I stopped and flashed my lights and he shot off like a mad rabbit.

I had a vision of me in my X Type impersonating Steve McQueen from the film "Bullet" in a mad car chase but there was too much traffic and I'd hate to lose it over a traffic incident and someone gets hurt.

The thing that bothered me was I reported it straight away and headed into the police the next morning but the cops weren't really bothered even though I still have the guys registration!

I have mates in Dundee so it wouldn't take too long to find as the private reg is one of those private plates that go in tandem with the rest of their vehicles, I'm sure of it.

Then, when I've a few other issues sorted, my Baby will not be recognisable after the

make-over she's gonna get!!

Re the center bores, I did gouge them out SOFTLY with shampoo and I was just amazed how good the hairdryer and vaseline helped.

I am proud of my \baby and thanks to you guys for the support, I've had an interesting couple of years lately and you guys just add the cream to the cake.....

Thanks again, Stu

 

Word of caution about steering wheel ornamentation, the factory growler is bonded to the airbag in such a manner that it cannot become a missile in the event of a deployment. I had a customer that liked the growler medallion that came fitted to the X300 airbags so when he replaced the XJ6 with an XJ8 (growler was embossed instead of a medallion) he glued a growler to the airbag. We told him what the implications were if that bag deployed and he removed it. My girlfriends X-Type airbag medallion is dented and faded (the previous owner must have been pretty rowdy with the horn to dent it), she's complained several times but I'm not buying an airbag to fix it. Especially when she can't even keep the car clean!

 

Took me a while but here ya go.