(Originally had posted this in the wrong forum so am leaving here to see if I can get any help)
Hey guys,

I was gifted a 1996 XJ6 from an Uncle when I graduated from college last year. According to him the car was in great shape, (he had driven it daily) with regular inspections and he had recently replaced some parts for me (though the sides of the bumper and fender are so dink'd up I'd say he need parking help) and it only had ~100k miles on it. Unfortunately, around January after some issues occurred I brought it into a European car repair place where they told me I had blown a head gasket, needed to replace the right brake caliper (it had been locking up), and to replace the power steering pump as well as hoses. They wanted about 5.5k for parts and labor to get the job done but with student loans I just cant pay that. I've been saving up a little money because I'm tired of looking at it every morning, and was wondering if the oracles of the Jaguar forums could give me some advice on fixing her up. I'm certainly a rookie/novice and new to the forums, but if you guys could maybe throw some links at me that would have instructions around how to replace the calipers and the power steering stuff I'd really appreciate it. Also, any links to places to order parts that are reliable would be helpful. I only put about 5k more miles on it before the issues came up, so it'd be a shame for the car to waste away. I'll probably end up paying to have the head gasket done because I'm not confident in my ability to be able to replace such and important part.

Thanks for the help, I know I'm not a huge car guy in any way but any help would be appreciated.

 

Estowell ........come over from the dark side , he's not your father


The power steering reservoir commonly leaks on the hose clamps as the rubber hose ages . simpley cut an inch off the 2 hoses for better hose material and reclamp .

The steering pump noise goes away after you replace the original 20 year old worn out fluid with fresh new fluid of yhe proper type .

The procedure is to warm up the fluid and drain it from the lowest point reasonable and refill the fluid . This may give you a 50 % new / 50 % old in your total system and a second refill cycle ( after you operate the system a week to mix the fluids ) will give you 75 / 25 and so on .

Calipers are non jaguar specific and cheaply commonly available at your local parts store . Remember to place the bleeder hose in a U shape during the bleeding process

the head gasket deserves a second opinion and write down the reason the mechanic says and ask him for proof and report back to this forum , if the mechanic refuses to cooperate on this point tell him a different mechanic would be willing to work with you .

A good link for part information is this link :

https://www.jaguarclassicparts.com/u...-xj-x300-parts

Never put your battery in backwards and even a shop ill do it , so watch .

Keep asking questions

 

To reinforce the point made by Lady P regarding the head gasket, you would I think be making history as the first person on this forum ever to need a head gasket on one of these cars........
Can you describe the symptoms?