The good news is the control arms and lower ball joints have been replaced on the new to me 2004 xj8.The bad news is it was a fight to get the lower shock bolt out on both sides.I finally got the drivers side bolt loose but when I started to remove it I didn't realize the bolt was still stuck on the shock bushing.So the bolt unscrewed but pushed the welded nut off the side of the shock.I had to take the shock and lower control arm off as a unit place it in the vise and after a lot of pounding and penetrant and f*%^$ing the bolt broke free of the bushing.The right side did the same so it came off the same way with the control arm and got squeezed in the vise.Also found the bushings bad in the curved control arm so those were replaced at the same time.I had gotten the air pump kit-Thanks Andy!!-so the pump got pulled and the kit installed.One of the bolts was frozen in place and finally broke off but left enough to grab with vise grips so with some heat applied that bolt finally came out.Got lucky there!!The ride quality improvement makes it worth the time and aggravation that it took to do this.Steering is tighter and the noise over tar strips and road imperfections is reduced.Will get an alignment this week and shoud be done with the front end project. Cary

 

The lower shock bolt seizing in the bush is a common syndrome on the cars with this set-up, so it's also found on the S-type and the XK, andm, (I think) the XF, unless Jaguar learnt their lesson on the later cars.

This is why shops are always reluctant to quote a fixed price for any job involving this bush. What you had to do, (remove control arm and shock together, and dismantle on the bench), is exactly what I was told by my local indie. Fortunately in my case, these bolts came straight out.