New Jag owner
 

Just purchased my first Jaguar, a 94 xj. I’ve always liked Jags and now that I have a family and need to haul kids I need something with space. I picked this car up for $500. It doesn’t run but I should be able to sort it out. I have the plan to drop a Buick V6 from a GN in it, but for now I want to get it going and enjoy it.

I hope i can can come back here for some help. I look forward to enjoying this car.

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Nice example, especially for that kind of money. I would not drop a Buick engine into it. Those engines are virtually bulletproof, easy to maintain, and silky smooth.

I crawled underneath of it and looked everywhere I could think of rust being. I didn’t come across anything at all. The car was supposedly in Florida for years. Are there common places where they rust first?

Mechanically it seems solid, and the interior is pretty good shape. Nothing that I can’t scrub and detail out to make presentable.

The lady had it listed as make offer, i offered $500 sight unseen from her description. What is a fair price for that car?

Also for the engine, I have always heard horror stories of maintaining these engines. I do want to try to get it running and put some miles on it.

That's great to hear regarding no rust. I have seen newer American cars being completely caked in rust underneath. The wheel arches and by the windscreen A pillar corners are the areas rust likes to show up on these cars. It can usually be caught early and corrected. I'd pay five hundred any time for this car, even not running. There is a guy by me trying to sell an '88 XJ6, also not running, for $3,000.

These engines are no more expensive to maintain than an American V8. It's the Jaguar V12 engines that cost more due to complexity. Plus, most components are easy to get to. A spark plug and wires change takes maybe twenty minutes. Oil filter is on the left side and can easily be accessed underneath.

Look up the XJ40 section here. You'll be able to get a lot of help there. Best of luck and welcome to the forum.

Hi Tonyorlo,

Welcome to the Jaguar Forums! It's great to have you with us.

Many problems with Jaguars are due to very simple issues, such as a battery that is anything less than fully healthy, dead or dying blue Hella relays, worn distributor cap & rotor, dead Crankshaft Position Sensor (CPS), corroded ground points, a failing Park-Neutral switch, etc. There's a huge knowledge base for these cars and plenty of members here who will be anxious to help.

Buick V6s are great engines (some are even relatives of the Rover V8), and the turbocharged GNX is legendary. But I would definitely recommend that you get the Jaguar AJ6 engine running and enjoy it awhile before you consider swapping it. Off the top of my head, the 1994 version was rated for about 235 bhp, so it's no slouch (that's a lot more power than most normally-aspirated Buick V6s were capable of). And the Jaguar straight six is as smooth as silk, which is appropriate for the character, elegance, ride and handling of the car.

Note that for most climates the correct oil viscosity is 20W-50, which is still available (Jaguar recommends Castrol, but other major oil companies also offer this weight). Lower-viscosity oils such as 10W-40 may promote leaks and increased oil consumption. You do not need synthetic oil in these engines.

Setting the transmission to Sport Mode gives more spirited performance, especially if you use a good Dexron III equivalent like Redline Oil D4 ATF, which performed best in our '93. A lot of these cars have had Dexron VI or some other incorrect fluid put into the transmission, so once you have the engine running,

Looking forward to your next update!

Cheers,

Don

+1

Plus these cars have a top speed of 140mph. Most current Jaguar saloons are electronically limited to 121mph for some strange reason.

Thanks a lot for the positive reply’s!

I do plan to do a full fluid change on it so I will deffiently use the fluids you recommend Don.

I am am glad to hear these aren’t a nightmare to maintain and pay for! I got a pile of invoices with the car, it had a lot of work done by a shop in Florida. I did see a cap and rotor replacement, as well as a lot of other things. One of the previous owners put almost $3k in maintenance into it between 2010 and 2013. It has newer tires and a newer battery.

I will do like you guys suggest and fix the current engine, aside from that and a through detailing my only other plans are to replace the stereo. I have a ton of old gear lying around.

2 things I noticed going over it earlier, small things but I will have to locate the parts.

Passenger side front marker lense is broke. Is this going to break the bank?

Drivers side interior door handle doesn’t work. I assume that’s probably just a broken cable.

I was born and have always have been a GM guy, but I can respect a good engine. When I put a V8 in my s10 12 years ago I got a JTR book for reference. Jags that Run, and ever since I’ve always had the desire to do that swap.

I really wanted an earlier car, but I had 2 things I was looking for. A solid body and a solid interior. All the older stuff that was in good shape was 10x the cost of this car. I’ve always been fond of the large square headlights on them too.

Another small dumb detail that appealed to me with this car is that the rotors are on the hubs rather than the diff. More unsprung weight isn’t good, but I would think it’s much easier to change.

It is the older Series 1, 2, and 3 XJ's and the XJ-S that were often lumped with foreign engines. The owners couldn't take the time to learn how to fix whatever was wrong and went that direction. They were and continue to be cars few wanted to buy post conversion. I've seen maybe one converted XJ40 in over twenty years of being an enthusiast. The door handle issue is a common one that is well documented here and other places.

Lol I did see quite a few forsale listed as unfinished v8 projects when I was searching.

What service manual do I want to get? Can they be sourced online somewhere as a pdf?

This sticky thread in the XJ40 section has a lot of good information.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ck-links-5911/

Haynes has a manual for the car.

https://haynes.com/en-us/jaguar/xj6/...=Shopping%20US

As far as the radio goes, they now have cassette to Bluetooth adaptors.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ssette-217029/

I’ve been scanning through the stickies and am picking up some good info.

I would really like to install an older clarion head unit that I have in the car. I will most likely install new component speakers and amp, so I will only need a constant 12v, switched 12v and ground.

I snapped led a few pics of the service records they gave me.

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