We dropped the front subframe the other day, to make it easier to get at and change all the bushes. We're also going to clean up all the metal and repaint before re-assembly.

Sadly we damaged one of the fulcrum (lower wishbone to subframe) bolts drifting it out and new ones are really expensive, so consider yourselves warned. It also took a two metre (six foot) bar to undo one of the front subframe rear nuts. Not just to crack it off, but all the way off the thread. It appears Jaguar cross threaded it in the factory. The man on the off-side air gun clearly paid more attention as those bolts came off much more easily.

Please excuse the poor quality pictures.







There is now a support under the engine. Standing under it with it hung from a beam is really quite scary.

There's some refurbished manifolds, an Andy bracket and a couple of other bits and pieces waiting to go on too. Plus it's a chance to finally fix the leaking sump you can see.

Suggestions for how to finish (as in paint, etc) the subframe and wishbones welcome.

 

If you can get this stuff Stop Rust POR15
I have used it on my Capri resto its amazing drill it hammer it grind it goes on with a brush looks like sprayed on awesome

 

Hi, i am in the middle of a subframe rebuild on my 95 XJR. I am treating any rust with Hammerite cure rust and then zinc primmer from Screwfix (cheap) and finish off with smoothrite. The lower bolt is £20 odd pound from British parts.

I am thinking of using poly bushes to try and reduce some of the tramlining and fitting new front springs and uprated bilstiens all round.

I have spare subframe bolts if you want them.

 

POR 15 is amazing stuff! May I suggest buying the pack of small cans if you cannot use all of it in a day or so.

 

I'm unsure as to whether I should replace the springs. They're about £50 a go, but that's only twice the price of the bolts that hold the spring pans in place (plus another £50-odd to rent a spring compressor for a weekend). The shocks are being replaced for known good OEM second hand ones, but if they fail, they're easy enough to replace without the springs coming off. The bushes are all being replaced with OEM as the sport ride is fine for my driving style and I'm trying to cure a clonk, not replace it with a squeak.

Does anyone know how tall an unloaded set of sport springs should be?

 

The poly bushes will make it tram-line worse if anything

I would only use them on the upper control arms as these seem to be part of the reason they tram-line

I was subscribed to a forum that was only for the XJR6 cars and purchased a set of anti tram-lining bushes from a fellow XJR owner
he had designed and manufactured these to combat the tram-lining issue I think he used to go by the on-line name of fasterstill not sure if he is a memeber of this forum but he might be

From personal experience his upper bushes removed a fair bit of the tram-lining but it was still there
When my tires wore out I put a set of 235/50/17 tyres on the car this did more to remove the tram-lining than anything else also made the car a bit more civilised on rough roads also allowed me to get the rear end out in hard corners better
That is just my preferred way of going round corners fast (LOL)

 

The subframe is now back in. It's a lot easier if you lift the rear of the car to match the front! We just positioned it under the car on the trolley and dropped the car down on to it very carefully.

The oil leak from the sump is fixed and the leaking oil cooler bypass loop has been removed, cleaned up and fitted with fresh O rings. The old ones were completely shot.

The biggest pain was taking the radiator out, as the nearside gearbox cooler pipe nut was seized solid. After about an hour we gave up and cut the pipe.

 

looks really nice