Ladies and gentlemen,

My name is Dave, in Sydney, Australia, and today I took ownership of a lovely 1994 Daimler Double Six. It's in pretty good nick, with only 92000 kms, but that's certainly not to say that there aren't some things that need attention. While my mechanic will set some things right, I expect I have some tinkering ahead of me. I don't expect to be driving it everyday, but 2-3 times a week will be enough to give my XJS a bit of a break.

So to leap straight into your collective expertise, I have one little issue I'd like to fix - my horns. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. Has anyone encountered this? I'd usually expect this to be an issue with the contacts in the steering wheel, but as this is an XJ40 I imagine it's just as likely to be a relay or a bad connection somewhere.

I'd look it up myself on the JDHT CD I was given at sale (photos attached), but I can't seem to access any of the pdf documents on it. They just won't open in Adobe Acrobat, and the flash document will open and let me click through to "electrical", for instance, but then Adobe fails again - is there a trick I'm missing here?

Anyway, loving the car so far, and looking forward to getting her driving as she should.

Thanks all, and I'm sure you'll hear more from me!

Dave

 

Hi Dave,

That is a gorgeous car, with very low mileage (how do you say it in metric, "kilometerage?")!

Regarding the JDHT CD, it may not be fully compatible with the version of Windows you are using, or the version of Adobe Acrobat. I seem to recall that the Acrobat version that came with my CD was 6 or something like that. Another possibility is that there is a file on the CD that you need to install on your computer - I can't remember what it is called off the top of my head, but look at the menu of files on the CD and one may be obvious. I think it's a security key of some sort that is required to authorize use of the CD.

Regarding your horns, the switch could certainly be the problem, or the connection between the steering wheel and steering column, or the electrical connector at the horns, or water contamination of the horns themselves. But when the horns on our '93 began to operate intermittently, I traced the problem to the horn relay, which on our '93 6-cylinder is part of a relay module in a black plastic rectangular case mounted above or near the left headlamp. The problem was poor solder joints on the circuit boards that crack over time due to vibration. Reflowing the solder joints for all the relays in the module, and supplementing the joints with new solder, solved the problem on our car. I may actually have photos somewhere and will try to look for them.

Enjoy that beautiful car!

Cheers,

Don

 

Thanks very much Don. I have an old laptop that I'll try to run the disc on - perhaps it needs an older version of windows.

I also sorted out the horn issue. Your suggestion helped a lot, and after a good clean of the contacts to that relay module, the horns are working as good as new!

Dave

 

Gidday again Dave

As you've probably discovered a can of contact cleaner is a most useful tool for electrical problems in classic cars. All the Europeans in my motley collection have benefited at some stage from using it.

Cheers

Steve

 

Dave...

Your cars look incredible. I've always loved that color. Do you have any more pictures or a thread detailing your XJS?

 

Thanks Jeh. Neither is car show material, but both are pretty good daily drivers. I'll be putting the XJS on a more restrictive registration soon, as right now I'm only driving it about once a week.

In the meantime there's always some tinkering to do!

 

Looks incredible. I really want an XJS Coupe.