Now with the humble knowledge you possess, you can bestow it upon others....nice work Paul and congrats.
Now for that 50 mph thing, did you check and/or replace your prop shaft flex discs?

 

Hello Highhorse. Yeah I did replace both ends of the prop-shaft flex couplings. The rumble isn't quite as 'angry' now (I don't know how to describe it better!) but it is still very evident, I simply haven't got my head around this yet! I can only imagine the prop being out of balance, and/or the differential is doing this? It is also very difficult to tell if it's coming from front or back, but I am leaning towards the back the more I listen and passengers say it feels like it's from the back. It's a bit like being on vibrator plates, or a cobbled road (but less violent!).

I really want to get this sorted, it's been a problem I thought would be cured by renewing the whole suspension, front and back, including all bushes, bearings and joints. When slipping the gearbox into Neutral at 50 or over the rumble is still there.

Having done so much, it seems to make sense to change the diff and prop-shaft, especially when both are available from the same 35k mile car I got the gearbox out of, what do you think? Or what does anyone else think?

 

I like that idea very much since its available. I'll trade a 122k part for a 35k part most any day.

 

Sorry I haven't replied for a while, I have just traveled to the Czech Republic, 2,000 miles, driving a 7.5 tonne truck that can only do a max 55mph, can you imagine that!!!

The back diff is being removed from the 35k mile car I got the gearbox off, and a bonus, they threw in the prop-shaft with it for £120 inc. VAT. So following my long trip I'm now on holiday for 2 weeks, no prizes for guessing what I will be doing... though I noticed the wife has road taxed the motor-home why don't our wives understand the Jag is important? I will keep everyone up-to-date with progress.

I have just done the well documented MOD for wiring in an AUX input from a mobile phone or player, but I used a 5 core flexible bell wire from the CD to a 2 pole dbl-throw switch with 6 connections. I cut the Blue & Green from the CD player, 2 cores from there up to the switch, then 2 more cores from the switch back down to the other end of the cut Blue & Green that continues to the Head Unit, the black earth was the 5th core and just connected to the black from the CD player. The last 2 connections (plus the black wire) go to a 3.5mm female input to take an AUX cable from my mobile. Now I just flick the switch between CD and AUX, not a lot of extra work to the original MOD and works a treat! The whole job cost me £14.89, will put up some pics etc on a new Post later.

Paul

 

This has now got to become a really long thread, but to maintain consistency I thought an update on my rebuild progress was due! Throughout I mentioned about brake judder, and the 50 mph rumble. I finally fixed the brake judder.

All four brake discs were replaced when I did the total suspension and bushing refurb, both front and rear, but I used after market discs, a lot cheaper I thought! The brake judder was caused by both rear discs being warped, and one of the front warped, all after only approximately 2k miles. I replaced the rear ones with Brembo discs, (not the up-rated larger discs, just the Brenbo quality) and the fronts were skimmed (one being particularly bad and took 3 passes to get the warp out). All back together and the brakes are superb.

It goes without saying I learned an expensive lesson, in my case it was "buy cheap, buy twice".

As for the rumble at 50 mph. I have taken a lot of advice from Highhorse and kept an eye on his progress with a similar problem, ie, the prop-shaft. I have managed to get the prop off the 35k miles car I got the gearbox from. I intend changing the U/J (assuming it's the same as the axle ones?), and replacing the bearing from PowerTrain Industries. Then a balance, and see if it fixes the rumble.

I've had so much information and help from everyone, I dread to think how difficult everything would have been without the people on here willing to give their time and experience to help me and others. I now feel a lot more confident about chipping in posts where there's some having similar problems to those I had, I get a sense of satisfaction offering similar advice to that I received. Thanks to everyone, will update again after the prop changes.

 

You can make it look a lot less like an aftermarket fix by stripping the anodizing and covering the braided hose with heatshrink. I've been doing it for years, cheap and simple way to reduce the Nascar feel of AN fittings/hose.

 

I had installed the braided hoses on my other car before; The braided hose look nice when new, but after a while dirt and grease got into the braided it hard to clean and become look dirty, I don't care about braided hose ant more

 

Yes, I can understand how they can get dirty and look not so good. I took some advise from 'Probsport' and removed the red & blue anodized ends, then I coated mine with a VHT clear paint, they seem to be holding up well, though after refitting the engine and gearbox, I have only done the ends going to the radiator. I may get some large heat-shrink and cover the braided hose in the future if they do get dirty, but they seem fine for now. I guess no matter how dirty yours may have got, you can still fit some heat-shrink to the braided hose, and paint the ends to tidy everything up?

I got to chat with the lady who owns the company selling AN Fittings in the UK, she showed me some examples of the fittings that are now available in black, the braided hose is available in black too. Wish I'd known that before I did mine!

 

Just as an addition, I got some 16mm heat-shrink and covered the outer hand-brake cables, I did this when I had the back-end out, tidied them up a treat and stops further water/rust contamination. What an invention heat-shrink is, wish I had come up with the idea!

 

I did mention they are available in black early on in this thread, but glad you seem to have found a solution. Heat shrink is a really useful bit of kit, far superior to electrical tape which just makes everything sticky when it eventually unwraps itself.

 

Yeah, it can be a better fix, and a one piece clean one. Heat shrink gets a little rigid after the heat is applied (I use it for the systems I wire) and will crack if overheated. The reason electrical tape looks like crap is because folks use regular electrical tape and tear it to land it vs high heat electrical tape and properly landing it off. In that case, on the ends, use a razor for a clean unstretched end. Then using an approximate 1/2" to 3/4" piece of shrink to keep it landed and looks nice and clean (I'd even consider a cloth mesh loom overlay depending on location). The high heat tape doesn't puke all over after hot summer day either. But, that really isn't a true application, the better product is Tesa 51026 adhesive wiring cloth tape, good to around 300F. You can try 3M gaffers tape, but its only good to 200F, better used on the interior.

 

Thanks Highorse, in our efforts to keep things tidy on our cars there's some useful info there. There's a few wires in the engine bay of mine I would like to tidy, but they're usually fixed somewhere and/or disappear behind some device or bulkhead. Knowing how temperamental the electrics can be I tend to leave them alone. Maybe we can come up with a way of enclosing wires in heat shrink without having to remove the wires first... that would be revolutionary!...lol

 

That's the purpose behind using the mesh overlay after wrapping your wire, it gives it a nice clean one piece looking finish. Depending on the location, you wrap your wire with the cloth tape, leaving on avg. about a 2" tale on either end, cut mesh to length between the tales and put it on, facing the seam where it won't be visible and wrap the ends with the tales.