Hi,

Just a quick question. I'm re-doing my XJS boot right now and was thinking whether it would be a good idea to cut out a bigger access hole below the fuel tank so I can easily get access to brakes when needed.

Here's the boot:

https://goo.gl/photos/EY3xL9MrNGUsDVfq7

I was thinking about cutting out a hole between both current round holes and either bolt it later to the rest of the body or just add some sort of a hinge/gasket set up so it would open/close when needed.

Tell me its a bad idea and why?

PS

I'm not at a stage yet where I can easily remove the whole frame and I need to sort out handbrake which is 3% below minimum for road test pass.

 

That is a structural panel and cutting an unbraced hole in it is not a good idea. The round things in the panel were be access holes, and you may, repeat may, be able to lever out their 'lids' and get to the brakes.
However, much good will it do you, I suspect. Cage out is the only reliable way to fix the rear brakes that I have found.
The handbrake is a perennial problem on the inboard brakes XJS. Most particularly the pads are very fragile and will not stand up to much testing, I have found. In the end, the attached is how I made mine work really well. Even if you just made up some better pads, as shown in the paper, rather than the full mod, it would help considerably.
Greg

 

Main brake pads are accessed from the front/top. Easy enough on any day.

Park brake could be a tad easier with a decent access hole, maybe. I dont, and never have, used the park brake.

I always removed the cradle on a recently purchased Jag and rebuilt it as needed, and apart from pads in the main brakes fom time to time, never gone back in there.

The park brake is a mongrel to get at and work on in situ, so as I said, maybe a better hole MIGHT make life easier, but then, how often is it dealt with??.

 

Thanks, will have to have a closer look underneath the car and see whether it would be possible to do it differently. Happy to cut out an access hole wherever possible if its going to help.
I'm currently unable to remove the whole cage, don't really have the means and space to do it so looking for a simpler way to sort out that d%mn handbrake
I'm sure I'll do it eventually, just not anytime soon.

 

The pads themselves are pretty easy to access and it is all from the other side anyway.

If you did that, you would want to weld in some braces before cutting to leave behind. You would also want to figure out how to close the panels up to reduce road noise and grime getting into the trunk.

 

I just finished doing my PB pads. A real pain buy definitely doable without removing cage or rear calipers.

I had the car on a lift. By disassembling the two halfs of the PB 'housings' from the main calipers, I fitted the PB pads individually, then reinstalled the ears.

I did have to remove the exhaust pipes over the axles to get access to them.

I didn't want to drop the cage again, as I has just done that a month ago to replace the rotors, calipers and frame mounts.

All in all, it took about 6 hours. At least two of those were spent trying figure out how to install the PB pads without disassembling the housings from the main calipers.