Thanks to the ‘’help for the XJS owner’’ by Kirby White I have solved a major problem with my xjs v12 that Three Euro and Jag garages would not touch. The vehicle lost power and a white smoke came from the engine. I towed the vehicle to a very good mechanic who was baffled and did not want to touch it. Three other garages would not touch it, even tho I would haul it 300ks to their door. I turned to Kirby Whites book which I downloaded from the net and immersed myself in it.The symptoms indicated that the rotor had shorted in the distributor cap and shut down one side. Being a V12 , one side would still run while still pumping fuel to the dead side. I explained what the book said to a friend and we went into the distributor and sure enough, the rotor shorted and distributor was not damaged. Thank you Mr. Kirby you saved me thousands of dollars and back to great driving. The book is a Bible and a must for XJS owners. If I would have tried to drive the vehicle with one bank a fire would most certainly have started.

 

Agreed, the Kirby Palm book is a fantastic resource. It's answered a ton of questions for me already, and I've still barely made a dent in it!

 

I take it yours has the Marelli ignition?

Thanks,

John
1987 XJ-S V12
64,000 miles

 

Yes, it is a Marelli. I contacted a half dozen Jag garages here and nobody had one or even carried an after market rotor. I have found out that finding a mechanic that understands the XJS, is like looking for hens teeth. The people I talked to, all said ''the XJS is to time consuming''. It is now running absolutely perfect thanks to Kirby's bible.

 

Agree about the power of "the book"

You were relatively lucky......... the resulting gallons of unburnt fuel from one engine bank that goes into the exhaust is known to catch fire from the heat of the catalytic converter. The resulting fire has been the death of many XJSes.

Trying to drive the car at all in this state will result in a fire pretty quickly (I know because I drove 1 mile home with mine like that and I was well and truly on fire when I got there)

My failure occurred because one of the coils failed (The system has 1 coil per bank) I bought 2 coils, replaced both, and keep the working original coil in the trunk just in case. You will have read in the book about the Marelli fix to the distributor..... well worth doing.

There's another key point in your post also......."very good mechanic who was baffled and did not want to touch it". I think there are bad mechanics. Then there are good mechanics. Then there are good Jaguar mechanics, then there are good Jaguar XJS mechanics. There are so many quirky things about XJSes that you really need to have someone who knows the cars in detail (or use this forum very frequently)

 

Amen!

Cheers
DD

 

Totally agree with you, I am so disappointed in the ''jaguar mechanics'', if they cannot plug it in and diagnose it on a computer, they are lost. It is most unfortunate in this Province that I cannot find a retired person who has emigrated to Canada and knows the XJS. I thank the Forum for being so knowledgeable and keen to help. Compound that with Kirby's book and I feel more at ease. In my opinion, the XJS is one of the finest automobiles ever built. I know it has faults like any other vehicle, but nothing and I mean nothing matches an XJS that has been maintained and in top condition. Maybe a Maserati Ghibli comes close second.