Yeah, I am procrastinating. The Jeep is up for SMOG this year.
Hate the process, and last year deepened the hate with the
Jaguar's alleged failure of the "snap throttle" test, idiocy at it's highest... Will I go there, even if I'm offered a "free oil change",
Most likely not.... Best, the shop that just did the test with equipment, not "looking for smoke"!!!!


Disgust with the whole thing growing....


Bright side. sunny days, Out to the yard, fresh air and sunshine...


Yesterday was recycle "pick up" day. My "offering" was a small stack
of obsolete electronics. Most, if not all functional, but well out dated. My thirty year old COMPAG desk top and it's key board. HP flat bed scanner, VHS player, etc.... Oh, a sack full of 120 to 12v transformers
from olden stuff. Load lightening in progress..,


Relevance? More Jaguar time? .


Carl

 

look I'm sitting there praying to the car gods. to favor the xjc.

 

Well then is this a different car?
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...4/#post1422816
Sorry if I've missed something but it's Spring and I've been a little busy.
(';')

 

Nope, its the same car. The truth is its smgdata in the picture. He was the one who bravely took the 12C in for the SMOG check as I was out of the country. I didn't know there was any praying going on..... I just got to enjoy the fabulous text message that "It Passed" :-)

 

This weekend was A/C.......

We have the dual gauges, and a vacuum pump so it was a case of flush, pump down, check for vacuum, fill, freeze.

Actually smgdata did all the hard work, I fixed the fence and cooked dinner, but it was a team effort all the way.

We fitted an aluminum compressor which is lighter and a bit smaller than the original.

After some research (again, not by me) we will change the expansion valve to get max performance out of our r134 conversion.

 

In other news...... we replaced the electronic fuel pressure gauges with mechanical ones as we were having problems getting the electronic ones to read. I have the same gauge on my XJS and its fine, but it's fitted inline. The set up on the coupe uses the cold start injector lines, so the sender is effectively on a dead end, which doesn't seem to make the electronic senders happy. The small mechanical gauges fitted in the same space and allowed us to easily dial in 29psi per side. Performance is excellent.... Better pick up than my XJS for sure.

These are the gauges we are using.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TYY3OBK..._gjW7wb7DFK1N0

 

In even more news we started the conversion from 5" to 7" headlights.

I was a bit puzzled about what parts I needed. The reality is you need 3 parts per side.

1. 7" headlight. I got a simple sealed beam unit but of course you can go for a halogen upgrade or anything else you feel like here, as long as its 7"

Sealed Beam Halogen Headlight , Sprite , Mg Midget

2. 7" buckets.

Universal Plastic 7 Headlight Bucket Assembly , Sp

3. The 7" chrome rings. This is the only Jaguar specific part. I got a set second hand off ebay. They are scarce but they do come up now and again.

The buckets I got fit in perfectly with no cutting or drilling required. Attached a comparison of the rings

 

So much better with the 7" headlights!

 

In some mid week news, we finally plucked up the courage to go to the DMV. Luckily our black plate was ready so this will be the cars first CA registration.

 

Um, why did you need courage for DMV? I would think the SMOG shop would be more frightening. After the car's stellar performance, DMV should be a walk in the park!

It's cool that you got Black plates.
(';')

 

I want to take it back and get another smog just to see how much better it will pass now that the fuel pressure is where it's supposed to be now. haha

 

You'll have to do it in two year's time anyway. I just compared this year's smog report for the series 3 with what SARC did when he transferred custody 18 months ago and it's oddly (and unsatisfyingly) both higher and lower, depending on which value you look at. Still, a pass is a pass.

 

We are currently off the road (despite nice new shiny license plates) because the fuel lines that run from the trunk, over the rear mufflers and into the tanks are shot. I found them in a very sorry state last night while I was removing the tank cover for some remedial painting.

Full fuel line replacement was on the job card, but it's now came to the top of the priority list. I intend to replace every line with Stainless Steel Braided line. I think I can reduce the number of joins significantly by doing this. The way the car is set up is crazy. For example, from the fuel return valve we have valve --> hose --> metal piece --> hose --> tank. 3 joins within 2 foot of each other. Using steel braided line this will become fuel return valve --> tank (1 join)

The only issue I have found is that I couldn't find a 3 way fuel return valve (as is fitted in the coupes) I could only find a 3 way fuel feed valve. I bought 2 of the fuel feed valves thinking that would be the end of it, but unfortunately I failed to notice the fuel feed valve is 1/2" pipe and the fuel return valve is 3/8" pipe. So, I will have to have joins and and adapters to convert the hose sizes. Not ideal, but as those fittings will be the AN type, it should be ok.

Would love to hear if anyone knows where to get the 3 way RETURN valve (meaning 3/8 pipe size)

Another possibility is to try and revive the existing valve once I remove it.... we'll see.

 

"Metal piece". Don't you wish you could interview the engineers who designed these cars?

 

This weekend was devoted to things on other cars in the fleet, but we did get one nice package...... all stainless steel braided lines and black anodized connectors to replace every single crazy metal and rubber line from fuel tank to engine bay and back again.

 

Progress on the fuel line rebuild in the trunk.....

We removed both tank covers to gain access to the connections (feed and return) that come out of the bottom of each tank. We drained the right hand tank, which so far we haven't used because the change over valves are shot. There was smelly gas came out, but no particles or rust........ and the outside of the tank looks great, so I think we will get away with not dropping or swapping the tanks.

We started to disassemble the fuel lines in the trunk. As we speculated before, the metal lines running to the tanks were in really bad condition on one side of the car. There is a picture of the remains of the pipe, which literally came apart as we tried to pull it through the cut out in the body. I would estimate the metal wall thickness is less than one third of the original thickness. Feels a whole lot better having this out of the car.

Everything else came ut of the trunk pretty easily. We got left with a nasty pile of rotten and mangled pipes, which will be going straight in the garbage.

Tomorrow we will scrub and paint the trunk with rust proofing paint then start reassembly.

 

Maybe pour a 2 liter bottle of Coca-Cola in there over night? I mean, if you're going to scrub it anyway... Nah, never mind. It would help with the rust but the ant colony it would attract would definitely not be worth it.

 

Have a look at the pictures of both fuel senders we removed. So, you don't need to ask what the tanks look like or why the contract has been set back a few weeks.

I was on the fence about new tanks, but the car has removed the debate.

Trying to find something positive out of the weekend to post.....

1. I cleaned and painted the trunk cavity in semi flat black rust proofing paint, so that will look really good with the steel braided fuel lines.

2. We made a nifty tool for removing the gas caps from the top of the tank. This job we had feared, but thanks to the forums we knew NOT to try levering it in any way, because paint damage was assured using that method. We got a straight piece of exhaust pipe and cut 4 slots in it. These slots matched up with the fins inside the filler cap..We drilled a hole through the pipe so we could get a bar on it. With one of us pushing down on the pipe and the other providing turning force, the caps freed up pretty easily. Once they were moving it was easy to wiggle them upwards and out of the car with no paint damage. See attached pictures of the tool. Not exactly snap-on quality, but it did the trick.

 

Bilt hamber de-oxit or failing that a solution of warm citric acid would work, and no ants to worry about.

 

.

yes! i went the same route with the original Jag fuel system.

Nascar plastic fuel cell(so long rusty tank), all aluminum lines and AERO-QUIP, stainless lines, blue red colors, SX adjustable FPR.

filter and pump as shown, custom fuel rails(NO rubber hoses) hi pressure O-rings top and bottom