Hello Everyone!

I posted the following message last night on the British forum. Today I found out about this US version. I joined here, too. So you may see this thread in either place. One additional question I have for anyone here is, will XJ8 cast wheels fit properly on my 1982 XJ-S?

I'm the proud new owner of a 1982 XJ-S here in the US. I live in the US along the Mississippi River in Illinois. I bought the Jaguar non-running in the freezing cold two days ago without much close inspection, so I'm certain I'll have lots of surprises. One of the good things about the car is that the odometer shows only about 65,000 miles. I know that the pre-1983 odometers don't have the 100,000 digit, so there's no absolute way to know if it's 165,000 or even 265,000. But, considering the shape the over all metal is in, I'm guessing it might be correct. I crawled all along the bottom and found only surface rust. Unlike other cars from the 80's in the Midwest, rust bubbling or rust through is nowhere to be found. Even the only had rust I could remove with a . I could find no evidence of an accident.

The car sat uncovered in California undriven in the hot baking sun, so the paint is peeling badly and the plastics are cracking. The roof headliner has fallen. Much of the powered items don't work. Windows, locks, windshield wipers, instrument cluster, etc are dead. Turn signals work, but the rear right driving light flashes instead of the amber turn signal for some reason. I'm finding the instrument cluster a bit hard to get out. The power antenna kept trying to go up and down until it died and after I tried the warning lights, the fuel pump stopped working. When I find the appropriate fuse block, I'll check there for answers.

The first issue addressed was the twelve year old gasoline in the tank. Damn, I hate that smell! I quickly learned that a siphon hose doesn't reach the bottom of the tank and ended up pumping the rest out with the fuel pump. I've done marathon reading on what to do first in a case like mine. The sump/surge tank was a big disappointment. It was not only full of varnish, it's also badly rusted. When I pumped the first gas from the sump tank it was black! The filter in the sump tank had fallen off the that's slipped over the metal pipe inside the sump tank. The filter is cylinder shaped and about . I don't know if it's the original or the larger later upgraded filter that I read about. Whatever the case, it's useless. My local auto parts place had no listing for it. I'm currently soaking the insides of the tank with Phosphoric Acid in hopes to get it usable; at least temporarily. I'd like to get the engine running to see what issues I have there. With eleven gallons of gas left in the main gas tank, I'm hoping that kept rust from forming, but I'm afraid what level of varnish might be hiding down there.

The brake disks are not gouged but are blackened and need resurfacing. I don't look forward to dropping the rear to pull them off, but if that's what necessary, it will be done. There's drag from the brakes, but the car can be pushed. The exhaust is rusty, but I haven't seen any rust though yet. The oil looks new on the dipstick, but I'll change it as soon as possible. I was disappointed that the plastic tab on the broke off the first time I pulled it. The metal cap for the is completely rusted through. I'll need to find a new cap for that.

I suspect that baking in the California sun made the wire insulation brittle and I'll have to work through it all. Besides the engine not running (it cranks okay), the wiring seems to be my biggest current problem. Tires are checked and bad, but still inflated. Unfortunately, it has 50 spoke wire wheels that I'll need to replace from what I've read. Repainting is a necessity with all the surface rust and peeling paint. Upholstery needs repair with seams restitched. All in all, I'm pleased with what I've found so far. I definitely need to find a good service manual to start sorting out the wiring. After I get it running, I'll pull the spark plugs and do a compression test.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome. I'm happy to have found this forum.

Happy Holidays!

BlackQueen

 

looks like you got your work cut out for you on that one, hope you enjoy it.

 

Wow, a lot of LOVE and time and she will be just fine!
Welcome to the Site and the ownership of your XJS!

 

Man, you are brave! Good luck with that one.

 

I worked for a guy about 30+ years ago , he had a saying when I pulled some of my projects in. I admire your spunk but your judgement ain't hitting on much. Good luck.

Don't know when the ignition changed but don't see a Lucas amp on top of the engine maybe Opus ignition my understanding that can be a problem in its self. 82 could be pre-he engine, can you say gas guzzler

Buy a JDHT dvd with manual and parts book and other good info,best bang for the buck

Hope you got payed to haul it off. Seriously Good luck and have fun.

 

Welcome! I don't have anything technical to add, but be sure to update (we love pictures) us on your progress!

 

Unplug the antenna, the circuit board shorts and it'll drain the battery. Good luck with it! You'll find plenty of help here.

 

First, welcome to the forum! Second, what is your goal with this car? The money and time this car need spent on it, to make it even drivable(?), are most like FAR more than its worth. A 82 XJS isn't a sought after commodity. Unless this car has some sort of sentimental value, you are in for a long hard ride.
With that said, I wouldn't wait to get it running to do a compression check. If it will turn over at all, pull all the plugs, and do the compression check first. If this engine has very low to no compression on one or more cylinders, I would stop there, and decide what to do next.

 

And so the fun begins. Lol.

 

Those are all very good questions. I guess it's one of those eye of the beholder situations. My goal is to get it running without doing irreparable damage in the process, then evaluate how far I want to take it as a rebuild. I don't intend to rebuild the engine if there's low compression.

Tracing down the wiring problems will take time, but I've done plenty of that before. Once I get my hands on a good service manual, it's a matter of how long before, not if I can fix it. There's no evidence of an accident or rust through, so the body is worth repainting. Will it be a show piece and speed demon? Probably not. I don't drive show cars. Every really nice car I've owned has been wrecked by some moron.

For $1000, I think I can afford to tinker with it and find out what kinds of potential it has to rise from its ashes and fly again. I've gotten to the point in my life where the journey is more important than the destination. What I will learn about this car and myself in the process defines the level of success I achieve. Even though I know the value of a dollar, I've been treated as little more than a commodity myself in my life. Resale and profit is not my goal.

I'll keep you posted. This is only day three since I brought it home. The phosphoric acid is working slowly. Tomorrow I'll know if I got all the rust out. I've studied the spark plug removal process and want to proceed cautiously. Working in this damp cold weather doesn't help either. Knowing what the compression is like will be a milestone.

Thanks for your input. It is food for thought.
BQ

 

This mindset will keep you sane throughout the process. Best of luck, and keep the pics coming!

 

Those who have been there before salute you!

 

Swayne,
Thanks for your help. I don't think it's a pre-HE unless someone put one of the earlier engines in. It has the HE on the trunk lid. Also, the spark plugs go in at an angle. I'll search for the engine number.

I tried to find a way to purchase a JDHT dvd with manual at the Jag-lovers.org web site, but the emails I send to the address for Mrs Julia Simpson Jaguar Cars Ltd jsimps16@jaguar.com keep coming back undeliverable. Surfing that Jag-lovers.org site was confusing until I realized that you can't get anything from it until you register and donate money. I couldn't even find anyway to contact them to ask how to get through to Ms. Simpson.

Over ten years ago I registered for a digest forum on Jag-lovers.org just to read about peoples experiences and decide if I wanted to try Jaguar ownership. I never found one I wanted to own, so tried to stop the daily email feeds from them. No matter how much I tried, I could never remove myself. The best I could do was to block the emails and send them to my SPAM folder. To this day, I check for SPAM and delete those feeds. It seems the digest management abandoned the automated site and it continues like a zombie.

So, even though I'd be happy to pay for a good manual, I'm not going to register anything on the Jag-lovers.org site for fear that it will become even more parsitic and I certainly won't donate to somewhere that doesn't even have working email contact addresses. Does anyone know of any other ways to get good manuals for the XJ-S?

BQ

 

Welcome; I applaud your 'journey' approach. Take it slowly over a couple of years and you will make a decent car. If it really is rust free, that is a very good start. After many years, much mechanical and electrical work will be needed, and it makes no difference to the cost whether the part is half gone or utterly had it!

You have a Lucas ignition car. The ignition amplifier is there on the B bank inlet manifold, as shown in your pics. B bank is the USA driver's side of the V.

Buy the manuals from Jaguar Classic parts. You budget is optimistic, say 1000 US$ per year for three years on parts. Best not to add it up!

Do not hurry it, do it all yourself, and at the end you will have a lovely car and the feeling of having done it too! Do each bit 100% properly before you do the next. Have fun on the journey. It took me several years to do mine, but when they are right and have a kind owner, they stay right with decent care and not much expenditure.

Greg

 

The amplifier is there, a bit faded, but look closely! Dead right about Jaguar Classic parts for the manuals.

Greg

 

Didn't spot it on first glance but see it hiding in pic upon further look

 

Here's a link to find the DVD's;

Jaguar Heritage. Technical Publication DVDs

 

Day Four

I decided to take advantage of the above freezing temperature and clean the California dirt and rats nests out of my '82. There won't be many more days like this and it will be cleaner to work on when I can stand the cold. Here are some photos of the result.

One of the good things is when the sun baked bubbling paint flaked off, there was no rust underneath. :-} What else is good is the job the Phosphoric acid is doing on the sump/surge tank. It's cleaning it up nicely. I taped shut the nipples so I could lay it on that side for a day or so to get the remaining rust out. The rest looks very clean.

You may notice in the first photo the front cross member and the bottom of the radiator. I took the cover and grill piece off to check and clean the area. That surface rust is the only body/frame rust I've found so far and I easily knocked the scale off with a hand wire brush. Things like that keep me going.

Thanks again to everyone with your help and suggestions!

BQ

 

Welcome to the site. Don't let anyone deter you from having a good time, cause that's what your in for. I'm on my 4th XJS that started out looking worse than what your starting out with. The straight body is key. The first thing you should do is pull the fuse box on the drivers side and clean the contacts and replace the fuses. A lot of gremlins will disappear! I have lots of parts in the garage so hit me up before you spend a fortune on EBAY. Keep us posted!

 

Thanks a bunch for the link! I'm a bit confused by the manuals offered there. There doesn't seem to be a main XJ-S manual. There's a Supplementary XJ-S/XJRS and a 6.0 version, but none specific for the earlier XJ-S. Am I missing it?

BQ