So, my son lives in Germany and has decided that the needs to have a XJR (all are supercharged, right? I have a X305 and I'm not familiar). He found one in Austria but there is a catch. It started life as an automatic. The owner, who seems to have a Jaguar shop and collection, converted it to manual transmission using all the correct Jaguar part numbers, mechanical and interior, so it appears to be as close to an original manual as one can get. That's not necessarily the catch. The thing is he didn't complete the work. The car presently does not run, or rather the starter will not operate because the wiring harness from the transmission to the ECU has not been connected, Additionally, the clutch is either not adjusted correctly or the throw out bearing is not correct because there is too much clutch travel and it barely separates and there is a rumble in the driveline attributed a worn middle bearing. These issues reported by the owner, my son has not yet seen the car, he's headed that way this weekend.

The owner seems to be familiar with all of the conditions and does not regard them as serious, He just needs to move on because he says he just bought a XF SV8 (XFR 4.2) and 6 additional Jaguars dated from 1938 to 1951.

Now in my experience with the X305, the wiring harness is one and done, if a circuit is not used it is simply not plugged in. I added heated front windshield to mine, simply bought the sub harness, the windshield and the appropriate HVAC controller and plugged them into the main harness. If the same is true for the manual transmission/automatic transmission it should be a simple task at least get the car to start.

Has anyone experience with this iteration of the car and what do you think of the proposition?

 

I assume that you mean "X350", and not "X305". X350 were built from 2003 to 2009 (in X358 guise).

If it is an X350, there is no way that the conversion could have been done "using all the correct Jagaur part numbers...", because X350s did not exist with manual transmissions. All were automatics.

And yes, XJRs are supercharged.

Best regards,

Thomas

 

This has been done to at least 1 S-Type R that I have seen but that involved CAN bus hacking and a lot of custom electrical work. He did eventually get it working and driving but still had errors that were not solved.
The biggest problem was posted above by Thomas-S.?

The car was never offered with a manual transmission so there are no factory parts for this. Can it be done well yes but do you have a list of all the parts he used or adapted to install this? Plus he even admits it's not working and he built it!
I would be hesitant to take over such a complicated and undocumented swap from someone else.
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Sorry, the X305 pertains to my car here in the US, its a 1996 XJ12. My understanding is that the XJR, I guess the X350, was not offered with a manual in the United States, however it was available with a manual transmission in the UK and Europe. Most are automatic, but he has seen a number of factory manual transmission XJRs in Germany, Italy and the UK. They command a premium price in the used car market. There is one in Italy right now offered at 23,000 euro, this work-in-progress is offered at 17,000 euro.

This is a picture from a document I came across sometime ago. It's called Jaguar XJ "1996 Range" and is promotional for all models offered that year in the UK. Note the manual gear shift lever. This is RHD; the European market saw the same car with LHD.



I also attached the section covering XJR and XJ Sport from the document.

All that said, it seems that, since it wasn't offered in the US, we here don't know a lot about changing from automatic to manual using the factory correct bits. I'll just wait until he sees the car this weekend and reports back.

 

Well, that's the point. You either talk about the 1996 XJR Range, then you are in the wrong forum here, or you talk about the X350, which was built from 2003 onwards and was never offered as a manual, regardless of the country it was sold.

Please make sure which model or type you need the information for. Based on the picture and the scan of the brochure you sent, you are in in the wrong forum and you would need to place your question into the correct one. I would have said that the one you need is the one for the X300, where also the XJR was a 6 cylinder engine, and not a V8 as from the X308 onwards.

Best regards,

Thomas

 

There was never a manual gearbox for X350s anywhere. You have still not stated the actual model year of the car your son is looking at. XJRs are not necessaritly X350s, as it's obvious from the brochure you posted that there was an X305 XJR, which may have been available with a manual in some markets. Converting automatic to manual is not something I would want to pursue, and buying an incomplete conversion is the biggest Red Flag I can think of, other than a hole in the side of the engine.

 

Okay, I got it. I didn't notice the year range in the forum header. I think the car is actually 1995, which would make it a X305 as you point out. Thanks for your patience. I'll move the post over there and get the designation and year right.

 

Sorry I thought you had a different model. My fault.
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No problem at all. Just make sure that it really is a X305, because I seem to remember that the X305 is the 12 cylinder, whereas the others, including the XJR, were labeled as X300.

Best regards,

Thomas

 

Given the date you posted it would have been a great April Fools topic.