Who else owns a car with a mind of its own?
 

I it's coming summer here and with that where I live brings hot days. Bad news to some jaguar owners.
About late winter my SII began getting to hot for my liking. Sitting at dead centre of the temp gauge while in motion and creeping slowly while stopped at lights or in peak traffic. So I flushed the entire system, said goodbye to the rust water and put fresh coolant in it. - problem solved ran no hotter that 1/4 of the gauge if that makes sense.

2 months later blew the radiator hose (bottom hose from transfer pipe to bottom of radiator). DAMN. So parked the car up and ordered a new one. Took a little under a week from the UK to arrive. Fitted that and re filled the car with coolant and bleed the system. Now I know that I should have replaced all of the hoses at one time but I'd just bought the car and receipts said they were done last year. Hmmmm....

In between then and now I have had numerous 'come and go' issues with internal wiring and the carbs (HS8's). Having replaced most the wiring and dismantled and re assembled the carbs to clean, polish and tune them. I had the car running as sweet as a nut.

3 weeks ago I thought "I'll change the brake fluid today" and drove it to work - no issues right? WRONG. I arrived at work pulled up and put the car in park and then I could hear the sound of water sizzling. Opened the hood and the hose from the water pump to the transfer pipe had blown. I thought F@&$ me. The car knew I was about to work on it. I ordered all the remaining hoses and did the brakes anyway, bandaged up the blown hose and drove it home and parked it up.

The hoses ended up taking two weeks to arrive due to a delay by customs. But I made sure I at least turned the motor over every few days.
When they finally arrived and I installed them I was absolutely wrapped. Jumped in to take it for a run and got out the drive and the car was jerking spluttering and carrying on. So turned around and went home.
Anywho a long story short the timing was out (I'd not touched the Dizzy while doing the hoses), the carbs were out of tune again??!!. The horns packed a sad and aren't working (tried a new relay and a new horn pad - I had one spare), and the windscreen washer motor died.

I'm befuddled. I'd done nothing but wind the motor over to keep it going or it gets hard to start after sitting. Over all it's in good condition, it just knows how to try you. Or to force you to take up drinking or smoking, whatever's your poison.

Surely I can't be the only one with a temperamental Jag/Daimler??

Alex.

Heh, heh....yeah, sounds very familiar ! Not with my Jags so much ....although they've all have certainly had their moments....but with many of the other older cars I work on.

That's just the way it goes with 25-30-40 year old cars :)

Hang in there and just keeping fixing this as they pop up. Sooner or later you'll be done.

Cheers
DD

And when yer done, you start over again! Sounds like your car and mine were consecutive at the assembly plant. In the last while I had all sorts of seemingly unrelated issues - now my 4.2 block is fragged.
Oh well - nowz my opportunity to rebuild better - stronger - faster....

Doug you aren't wrong. I've had a few older cars most with their hiccups. It's just been a bad month for my SII. Got no better today. I drove off and it was running sweet then it started spluttering again. Pulled up to adjust the carbs and for no reason the header tank cap popped off and I was showered in a fountain of antifreeze. I was so mad.
I might just park it up for another week and leave it until I'm less annoyed with it.

A side note to that - hot antifreeze and sunburn don't mix.

Alex

Convert
 

This is why the SBC conversion is so popular. I ask myself a simply question...Would I get dressed, and drive the Jag to a wedding with my wife? That's the acid test for me. Every performance change I make has to be consistent with answering that question yes. The Jag has to be reliable. The spare tire has to be useable and accessible. It has to look great and drive right.

Just check my experience with the boot lock under X300 threads.

Well yesterday was no better. The car gained a hole in the exhaust at the end of the y pipe. So I shelled out $200 to have a flexi pipe put in and have numerous other small exhaust problems fixed. The car felt like new again.
THEN I pulled up into the driveway and stopped to open the gate, jumped back in and the engine temp had jumped again 3/4 the gauge this time. I thought what now. So instead of heading for the garage headed to the carport. As I was moving steam poured out from under the hood. Great another radiator hose !! Wrong.... Hot coolant then poured out of the fan vents into the front footwell. It's just lucky I use old towels to protect the foot mats from boots.
Switched it off and heaved and groaned and pushed the car the rest of the way into the car port.

What lies ahead for me? I have a feeling the heater core might have blown. Unless there is any more hoses in there somewhere I have forgotten about?

When I bought the car the coolant looked older than me so I wouldn't be surprised if something's rusted away in there. I might also do the fluid clutch on the fan. Two birds one stone. Does anyone know where I would be able to get one in New Zealand? Or would it be easier to put electric fans in?

Cheers

Alex

It's not just the older cars that have minds of their own y'know !

I know that Frasier haha. It's just been a huge tantrum from my SII. My XJ40 did have it's own mind but it was a wild cat that was tamed. Lots of niggly issues with the electric dash telling me things that weren't true, some of them alarming when your at 65mph!

I once had a 1996 BMW 540i, it got to about 300,000km and I started having issues with the indash computer. Start the motor and it'd chime and say "CHECK ENG OK" it became a joke that if you didn't ask how the car was when you walked up to it to go somewhere, it'd ask you to check it.

We own older Jaguars... Isn't that part of the charm. Or have I been seduced by the car???

Sorry Fraser I've just noticed autocorrect has changed the spelling of your name in my last post. Apologies

No I believe it's part of the charm, 20 odd years ago my mother had a SI. It was worse off than mine. You name it it happened. She loved the car. Dad wanted to put a V8 in it and she said no. So they rebuild the motor in 1989-1990 she kept all the receipts. Cost them near on 10k back then and they did a lot of work to that car. Still I was younger then I don't remember why they sold it but I remember talk about the motor having developed knock. It was de registered in 1995, so the motor must have died again. I look on trade me (new Zealand's eBay) while I browse the rest of the jags thinking someone will have rebuilt it again and saved it.

I don't know how alike your engine and mine are alike (AJ16) but the most likely hose to fail on my car due to the engine heat is the one at the left rear of the head that connects to the heater control valve. At the engine end of the hose where it connects to the metal stub sticking out from the head it gets really hot and literally will start falling apart. Since it is right against the firewall the steam might enter your foot well.

Good luck finding it.

Bob

OK, here is a real question for you to answer.....

When the engine is stone-cold, is there any pressure release when you lift the coolant pressure cap off ?

Reason I ask is because these 4.2 long stud blocks can crack between bores and allow combustion gas to enter the water jacket and blow out the coolant.

I first suffered this syndrome (combustion gas in the coolant), with a Rover 3.5 V8, (an old Buick design bought by Rover). It took me months to work out I had a head gasket failure. Mind you, I was young and inexperienced then. Now I have the experience but am too old to make use of it !!

Hey Fraser,

I too may be to old to cut the mustard. But I'll never be too old to lick the jar.