Assembled the grill today. It needs the mesh in black. Looks a bit weird in silver/unfinished... But I'm convinced, it'll look awesome when the entire car is done!

 

Progress sir, me like !

 

Nice results, Daim!
But imo, needs the brackets in black too, so you don't see them through the mesh ... details details details

 

Already planned mate. Same as the mesh needs to be black

 

T-stat upgraded w/ new front shocks & mounts.

Only issue is now my hood/bonnet doesn't release on the passenger side ?! Any tricks or tips you educated lot ?!

 

~~~USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION!!!~~~
Several threads on the matter by working from the inside wheel well and a making a small hole there.

 

Done deal I'm just going to will/positive thinking lol it loose until someone's here to press down on the hood as I pull the release. Not too keen on drilling & removing wheels after all this work today lol.

 

It is not the cable, but the plastic cup on the latch which normally snaps, preventing the latch from opening.
I hope for you on an easy solution, but I can't really see what other will cause the problem.

 

Yes I've noticed the cup trim seemed to wander a bit previously. I may have put too much effort in closing it, celebrating my repair conquest lol.

Sounds a lot like my 1st marriage lol.

 

I don't know if this counts but I took her out for a 300 kilometer ride. Very nice.

 

Of course it counts,hope you enjoyed your drive.
Take Care.
Andy

 

In fact I had 80 km to the Harley dealer but I took a detour as the weather was really nice.

 

So today we gave her a bath and tried to isolate a slight clunk in the drive train when stepping on loud pedal at very low speeds, all U joints seem good no loose wheels. Replace wheel cats that someone thought they needed more than me.

 

Well, the 255/40-18 Hankooks, which came with the car, drove quite nicely but it looks like they all were out of round.

After a l-e-n-g-t-h-y consideration I decided to get Continental PremiumContact 6 in 245/45-18. They were put on today and the difference is like night and day and shakes, vibrations and wobbles are gone. Which is nice.

 

Tracked down an E-5 torx socket w/ plans on doing the ABS module solder fix this weekend. Car's riding much better w/ the new shocks & mounts although I am still getting a light creak/squeak from the center dash wood. I plan on removing it & securing maybe w/ some graphite lube. Also good to know that my low coolant light every 300 or so miles will be a thing of the past w/ the housing upgrade.

 

Drove me old XJ8 home. Was a different world again. Had an ABS fault code, which has gone again... Weirdly. Couldn't delete the code either but it has now gone. Weird...

Now I also need to find out why my gas system doesn't work...

 

Check the hood pull in the footwell it can fail, have a look at it and the cables running into it - you can get a set of grips on the cable end and pull to release the stuck side.


I did fluids and filters, new summer tyres and a couple of hoses for it's yearly inspection - it smashed it as usual

Got a few runs planned taking in some historic roads in Wales and Scotland this summer and any UK members that want to tag along are most welcome I may put a post together on this at some point in the coming couple of weeks.

One of the routes takes in Jaguar's development road from the 1950's to present day - the same road a lot of publicity/brochure pictures taken for the X308 and X100 cars.

 

In the process of refurbishing the wheel center caps the Eric Jansen way.
Andy

 

Installed this little "gender-bender" :-)

Not a big job... also got a bike rack to use with it.

 

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Spent the morning getting the cams locked down and sprockets off to get the tensioners swapped out, and was again surprised how nice they looked. The left bank tensioner was fine, no melted plastic, good spring tension, apparantly 80K is not enough to make ‘em fail, can’t see what all the fuss is about. Right bank tensioner has just the beginning of a crack, and if the plastic chain-contact cap weren’t missing, it wouldn’t be suspect either. The only question was, how was this so bad as to make the chain jump a tooth on the sprocket? That thought kept nagging at me until the bulb lit up: The mystery plastic piece, shown in close-up, has tooth marks on it, indicating that when it failed it got in between the sprocket and the chain, and the force of the turning sprocket made the wedge of plastic push the chain over the tooth. Everything seemed so much more pristine than my 130K engine with melted tensioners, but that engine hadn’t jumped a tooth. Replaced tensioners, and it ran like a charm.