OB, confidence in V12 Jaguar comes from catching up on regular maintenance possibly neglected by previous owners and gradually trusting that it can be reliable.

I bought my '93 6.0 in Oct 2014, it had 77,000miles on but was 21 years old. It's my daily driver and has only broken down twice, first time it was trailered home, turned out to have been faulty fuel pump relay. Second breakdown was failure to restart at motorway services , recovery service diagnosed and fixed at roadside in fifteen minutes (bad earth to starter motor)
I have done several trips of several hundred miles without event.
It's got 101,000 miles on now and I trust it as much as any car I've owned.

I still enjoy reading everything about the car in general and particularly the V12 engine to try to increase my understanding of what everything does.

Getting there gradually, with help from this and similar forum on XJS, especially posters such as Grant and Greg both of whom are incredibly helpful.

 

Hi Paul

I do maintain her as well as I can and never stop throwing money at this Car but if they break down as you say yours did, then its going to be a big problem to try and fix it by the side of the road.

 

This Morning I managed to get the Fan Bolts off my 'Scrapper' and this time only managed to lose one Washer!

I think the Nuts are 1/2 UNF (does anyone know?)

 

Al,

That 1/2" is the spanner size you used, which also generally carries an A/F notation.

The "normal" thread size for 1/2" spanner is 5/16", in either UNF (fine), or UNC (coarse). In this case looks coarse.

Mine were all UNF. It matters not the thread pitch, as long as the nuts do up tight, the car will NEVER know what you have done.

 

Al,

I hear what you are saying, and I have been there. You are no orphan.

My first was a PreHE, and what a learning curve that was. The first jaunt outside the suburbs was really scary, but the damn thing went there and back without fuss.

As I have said before, the Grant's MAJOR service, was done as soon as it came home, and took 1 month, but as much as I did what I did, there will always be some little Gremlin that will reek havoc at the wrong time.

That car was/is so reliable that Yollie took it as her Daily, and ventured regularly to the country to visit her sister, and always drove it at insane speeds. That is Sir Arthur in my garage, and has now topped 500000kms.

Anyway, you got that NEW tool box/wine bottle holder, soooooooo fill that with wine, and if the Jag breaks down, drink wine until Greg arrives, or the car sorts itself out, whichever happens fisrt, HA, problem solved.

 

Cheers Grant

I'm hoping that my next guess, will be a lucky one.

 

What I think would be really Cool would be a Video link, so the next time I break down and someone stops to ask me if I need a hand.

Then I can say, 'I'm Ok Thanks, I've got guys in France and Australia' who are experts on these things.

Maybe not as far fetched as you think.

 

The measurement of bolt size is the major diameter across the threads. The distance across the bolt head, sometimes noted as the "AF" (across flats) size is different. There can be different AF sizes for a single shank size, so that is never specified as a bolt size, always the diameter across the threads.

Just to add to what Grant said, the bolts look like coarse thread (UNC - Unified National Coarse) and the nuts are fine thread (UNF - Unified National Fine).

As a broad general rule with Jaguars of this vintage (and older) if the threads go into steel they are fine, if they go into aluminium they are coarse.

 

Cheers Jagboi

I didn't know any of that, my knowledge of bolts is quite rusty (no pun intended)

 

OB,

Video calls pretty commonplace today on modern mobile phones, so you're sorted there!

It might be worth investing in a thread pitch gauge if you haven't got one. (They are nearly always included in a tap and die set). Only a couple of pounds. Invaluable if you're playing around with various nut and bolts and have cars that could be imperial or metric.

Paul

 

Paul:
Yeah, you beat me to it. A thread guage is very usdeful. they look like a bit of saw blade.


I also have an assortment of cards with hoes in them to measure drill bits and bolts as well. Measure the bolt shank by finding the hole that fits best. select a drill bit with the same card. Guessing eliminated.


Way back when I iwas exposed to only SAE sized fasteners and two thread pitches, my eye ***** were enough.


No more....


I have six racks of sockets;


1. Hardened deep ones in black for the impact wrenches. At ties used elsewhere.
2. Ancient 1/2 drive short sockets in SAE. Mismatched over the years. 46 to 86!!


3. Deep set in 3/8" drive metric.


4. Deep set in 3/8" drive SAE.


5. Short set in 1/4" drive metric
6 Short set in 1/4" drive SAE.


I merely preselect the ones needed. Some eyeball skills remain.


Caveat, the UNF nuts will not work on the UNC bolts!!!!
The essence of cross threading....


Carl





4.

 

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