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I think colourlock can scan the colour and match it pretty accurately, if you have a dealer nearby.
Otherwise, you can cut of a small piece of leather from underneath the seat and send it in to be scanned and matched.
Thanks! seatdoctors.com matches interior code NDR with "Cream" and LFJ with Nimbus Grey. If I get good matches and results, I'll post some pics.
Have had great cleaning results with Fiebings Glycerin saddle soap and a small brush; will treat the leather with their Deglazer before applying the seat dye from seatdoctors (polyurethane base dye, not alcohol or acrylic).
Nothing special just completed my 8000km service. I'm happy to hear if anyone thinks that's an excessive amount of serving on my part but I've heard differing opinions on service intervals.
I changed the oil and oil filter, Drained the Transmission fluid and refilled, Cleaned the K&N air filter along with the air inlet and carbies. Checked the rest of the fluids and added some injector cleaner to the Fuel Tank. I'm not sure if it's a placebo or not but I'm always amazed at how well my jag runs after a little basic maintenance.
I'm also curious if someone can tell me how much oil it should take with an oil and filter change. I know the manual says 8 litres, I also know the oil filter will add to that figure? But I feel like it's taking considerably more?
Recent oil changes on my silver 1995 XJ6 and 1996 VDP used about 8 1/4 quarts of oil, if that is helpful to you. Filter change, oil bypass o-ring renewal, etc.
1995 Silver XJ6: This past weekend, found a big crack in rear exhaust manifold and two smaller cracks in the front exhaust manifold. Since this car has spent most of its life in the desert southwest of the US, I am guessing summer temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit helped make this happen (103k miles on the car). Repaired cracks temporarily by cleaning them with Dremel+wire brush and proper application of QuikSteel extreme. We will see how long the repair lasts... in the meantime, will find a good front and rear manifold + gaskets etc for a longer-term fix, and replace them both at the same time. Installed replacement rear parcel shelf (had to order from UK), re-attached rear defrost tabs which have been hanging free w bits of broken glass for years (just increases my mis-trust of fly-by-night collision repair centers), finally got rear kick-panels under rear seat to fit properly with some angle-grinder trimming, persuasion, and sweat.
1996 VDP: Repaired small crack in rear exhaust manifold w QuikSteel extreme. Tested "Cream" leather and vinyl dye from Seat Doctors - looks like a great color match; will remove rear seat bottom and do the fix in earnest this weekend (Deglazer from Feibings, leather dye from Seat Doctors, Resolene from Feibings to seal and protect). Will post before and after pics on Sunday.
Hello, today worked on my car a bit...changed coolant, air filter, put on wheels with new summer tyres ( Pirelli Cinturato P7 225/60 R16 98Y what tyres do you guys use on your X300? )...
Then started the engine, to drive back in to garage, but before closing the bonet noticed one thing. One pulley vibrates...I think this one is called harmonic balancer...should it vibrate like that?
It should run pretty evenly. I suspect the balancer has either deformed or is likely to suffer delamination.
The harmonic balancer has 2 metal pulleys molded together with rubber, the rubber eventually deteriorates, usually with a bit of a squeal at startup.
You can see in the video that the pulley closest to the engine is running smoothly and the outer pulley connected by the rubber is not.
I replaced mine not so long ago, it seems to be a consumable unit. The general options are to either source a replacement or have the one you have rebuilt.
Last week, my oldest son drove the 1996 VDP (Red) to my father in Texas as a father's day gift. It will be his last car, and one worthy of him.
(and I left an OBD2 device in the glove compartment for future CEL's and excuses to visit)
So... down to one car, 1995 Silver XJ6, with enough fun projects to keep me busy for a few months. Then if she survives, I'll get her painted and may keep her
My accomplishment for the day was getting the radiocasette and trunk-mounted cd changer in full operation. I had flaky communications between the head unit and the changer. According to several old posts here and elsewhere, this was due to a manufacturing flaw and could be fixed by resoldering a certain surface-mount component.
I extracted the head unit and opened it up. PO's smoking habit had even left ash and soot inside the head unit. After cleaning the circuit boards with alcohol, I attempted the resoldering. Hand-soldering surface mount components is not my idea of fun, but I managed. The trick is to wrap some copper wire around your iron and use the wire tip as the "iron". While I was in there, I gave the cassette transport a good cleaning as well.
After the standard re-assembly fun, everything worked. I could consistently select and play CD's without comm errors. Even the cassette player worked, even though I had to hunt a bit to find a cassette to test with.
I finally got round to replacing the differential fluid today.
My 97 VDP has the strut setup behind the diff which made things a little trickier, but after a little fiddling and a few moments of deep thought I managed to figure out how to get the fill bolt removed.
I was getting a very slight leak on the drive shaft seal, so I decided to pop the outer cap and inner cap of the diff breather and give it all a good clean. Hopefully a clean breather will remove any excess pressure from the diff, so the oil won't leak out. After a quick test drive, I have no leaks (yet), but will keep an eye on things for a few weeks.
I also cleaned the mess caused by the leak so it should be easy to see if there is an (or no) improvement.
One thing I noticed on the test drive was that I am no longer getting a 'clunking' feeling when slowing through the gears to a stop. It was very slight, but it seems to be gone for now.
It seems I'm the only one that noticed it and I thought it could be a transmission issue, which is why tomorrow I start on a transmission fluid flush. The age of the current transmission fluid is unknown, so it will be good to change it out anyway.
I also got round to checking all the connections to the Evap system and its filters. It could take a few more drives but I am hoping that will eventually complete the emissions test (fingers are crossed on that one)
Time for a beer.
Last edited by Nobeel Masri; Jul 29, 2021 at 08:31 PM.
Every couple of thousand miles I take a paper towel and dip out oil or remove the sparkplug to drain it. Installed all new seals to correct this a couple of years ago but, it still leaks into that one cylinder. May have to remove it and use some RTE which I hate to do but, any port in a storm!
The transmission fluid flush is now on the second gallon of Castrol Transmax. I have one last one to do in around a 100 miles.
I was happy to see the second gallon out was a lot cleaner, but still looked like a pinkish weak black coffee.
The improvement to the drive is pretty significant already, the car takes off a lot better now and I am no longer getting the slight jolt when shifting down through the gears to a stop,
I plan to change out the transmission filter and gasket in the next (20k miles) service. From what I have been reading in the forum, it seems Redline D4 ATF is the way to go.
Oddly, I also had a failed thermostat this week. Luckily I was monitoring stats on the OBD2 app and saw it was rising above 230 degrees, coupled with the upper radiator hose by the thermostat housing being hot and the lower left radiator hose a lot cooler it seemed a sure sign of a failed thermostat.
I did the boil in the pan test on the old one was not opening up.
Successful morning so far. Must be beer o'clock.
Last edited by Nobeel Masri; Aug 3, 2021 at 01:35 PM.
