I dropped my 94 xjs 4.0 off at the Jaguar shop in SF. He said I am missing all of my rear shims between the differential and the shaft. My tires are being eaten up. ...he said its really bad and waay off. The car has body work on the back so it was apparently hit pretty hard and they did not put it back together correctly.

Question now is where do I get the shims and how many go in there?

 

They are available from any Jags Parts Operation, or if you are blessed a wrecking yard.

They come in thicknesses from 3.5mm to 7,5mm.

This parts drawing may help.



Item #3 is what you seek.

If you want the part numbers, let me know I will list them for you.

 

I think item #3 is what you want. I think this illustration is for outboard brake cars....which I think you have. Inboard brake cars used thinner shims.

I suspect any Jag dealer or Jag parts specialist can get them

Halfshaft Assembly-From (V)188105 - Parts For XJS from (V)179737 to (V)226645 | Jaguar Heritage Parts UK


I'm not sure if there's a common or standard thickness/size to use as a starting point. You might have to order a small assortment of sizes to hedge your bets.

Others will chime in.

Cheers
DD

 

I'm an idiot I was thinking of my XJ40 rear end so deleted this post

Not enough RED is my excuse

 

You need enough shims to give you 0.5 degrees to 0.75 degrees of negative camber (ie top of tyre sloping inwards towards the diff). If your car has had a big-ish shunt, are you sure it is just the camber than is off, and not the body fixings for the cage and the radius arms, or even the cage itself?
Greg

 

Good question. I could not figure out what was wrong with it so I actually brought it to a jaguar specialist. Johns Jaguar in San Francisco. He knows these cars in and out and said he was going to put it back up on the lift and let me know what is going on.

I plan on doing the work which is why I ask about where to get these parts. It looks like a fairly easy job. Though, if he doesnt charge too much, maybe its best I have him do it since he has all the equipment and has been working on these cars for a good 40 years.

I'm not sure what it will entail if the cage is bent. How would you fix something like that? Or do you?

 

If these guys are good and they are diagnosing it properly for you, getting them to set the camber is a good plan, as they can measure it accurately. To actually insert the shims once they know what is needed is not a long process - undo the four driveshaft nuts each side, insert the shims, do them back up.


Let's wait until they diagnose to see what they say, but if the cage is bent, a decent second hand one is easy to find. The only real worry would be if what the cage is bolted to is misaligned. This is most unlikely though, as a shunt that hard would write the car off.
Greg

 

they said it needs shims on both sides. he said it would be a lot in labor because you have to eye ball it, put shims in check them and then keep doing it until its straight. he said about 3 hrs each side, each time. so we settled on me getting it as good as I can and then bringing it in for them to check it.

all that said. If I can get stock shim size, if there is such a thing, it would help greatly as a starting point. They do not know of such a thing. I can look at my 1991 and see what is on there. That car is straight as an arrow. Is it the same differential rear end set up on a 91 as there is on a 94?

is there anything special about these shims? Would some robust washers work? I am far from a purist who things everything needs to be as stock. Do shims just exist because they are easier to install than 4 washers? I will save hundreds of dollars going with washers. money that could be well spent on a radiator for the 91 v12.

 

any advice on how to do a DIY alignment. reasonably priced tools to buy?

 

I would not use washers. all of the torque to the wheels goes through these joints they MUST be proper shims or you could suffer a failure.

Setting camber is not too hard. All you need to do is level the car in the garage, use vinyl tiles a jack a home made camber tool (ill describe this later) and a water level, (a long bit of clear plastic tube almost full of water) water levels are highly accurate.

Put grease between 2 tiles to act a a turn plate, you will need 4 of these to go under each wheel. Pop the hub covers out of each wheel and measure from the centre of each hub. Find the highest hub then level the car to this hub using the tiles, this is important, if the car is not level then the camber measurement will not be accurate. If you take your time with this you WILL get it better than any shop would. Al;so make sure your tire pressures are correct.

To make a camber tool use a bit of plywood a couple of screws and a plumbob, I've posted a pic of one I got off the net, mine is packed but very similar to this one. Use Pythagoras to mark your degrees along the bottom and you are set to go.

 

As Warrjon says, you MUST buy the proper shins from Jaguar. They are expensive but are essential and safety critical. If you look at the link Doug gave above, they are actually called driveshaft spacers and come in thicknesses from 3.5 to 7mm.


Also buy new metloc nuts for the driveshafts from Jaguar. These are "one trip" items. Use the old ones for the trial end error, and replace with the new ones once you have it right.
Part number 31 in this link
http://www.jaguarclassicparts.com/uk...nit-components



If as Warrjon mentioned, you set the car level on the floor, as the spacers are sized from 3.5 to 7mm, it will be fairly obvious and easy to measure how far the top of the tyre is out. On your car, if there are NO spacers in the driveshaft/diff joint at all, the carwill have a HUGE amount of negative camber (ie the top of the tyre should be tilted inward towards the diff quite dramatically). Is this the case? If so, you should be able to measure the tilt pretty easily. Now, because of the geometry, a wheel that has tilt of (say) 5 mm inwards at the top compared with the bottom, will NOT need a 5mm spacer, but a thinner one.


What you could do is to trial and error with washers until you get a slight negative camber. Then measure the gap the washers are making between the driveshaft and the diff output flange, and only then buy the correctly sized spacer from Jaguar that you need.


Courage, you will get there!
Greg

 

thanks for the info. Its definitely something I can handle after reading it.

the idea was to use washers to get the proper thickness, then measure it and order the shims, as mentioned above. However, instead, I could just order everything I may need and send back what I do not use. Im thinking this is what I will do. I am pretty sure XKS Unlimited will allow returns on the shims I do not use. So I will be ordering 1 of each shim.

I am also going to check my 91 xjs to see what is in there. It is stock and has not been tampered with. that may help get me in the right ball park, using what stock shims come installed, purely assuming they all ship with the same shims. I can then add or subtract from there.

the tech who looked at it said he could see the camber being off from 20 feet away. they left all the shims out of both sides. he was saying the passenger side is the worse. I will soon see myself what is going on.

 

I would think If the original spacers are missing altogether the rear must look like a swing axle setup it would be so extreme. According to workshop manual 0.5mm shim will alter camber by 1/4 degree. An alignment shop could surely run their equipment and from the results you would know what thickness you need each side.
I think the '91 will still be inboard brakes so will not have spacers, just shims.

 

Baxtor
Good point. I suppose there are both the spacers referred to above (which on the outboard braked axle are required for sure) AND the camber shims to fine tune the camber, which on the inboard braked axle are all that is needed. I believe the spacers are to compensate as necessary, given the different layout of the outboard braked axle, for the lack of the inboard brake disc that acted as a spacer.


What we do not know yet is if Hoodun has definitely identified if his axle has omitted the spacers, or if it has no shims or if both are missing. Also, I have assumed it WAS an outboard braked car we are discussing, perhaps Hoodun could confirm that too. Over to him?
Greg

 

I have since edited my post Greg, wasn't quick enough getting to it. It didn't register immediately that any mechanic would leave everything out and not think it looked wrong.

 

I am confused by the 2 tiles with grease in between them. Are you saying to just level the car off with tiles? I have a large slope in my garage so I will have to use blocks of wood along with the tiles.

 

The shims are definitley all gone. I thought shims and spacers were the same.

Its a 94 with outboard brakes.

These are the best photos I can get for now:

 

DELETED...... Just read Gregs post

 

I found this pict which I believe is the same as mine, or close. It has huge silver spacers where I do not. I do appear to have a shim though? I'm ignoring the blown seal for now.

 

Looks like you are definitely missing the spacers, but that is not a standard XJS rear, as far as I can see. Get the camber in the ballpark with washers and then, as you said, measure the gap with an electronic gizmo which are now dirt cheap eg: Vernier Caliper LCD 6" 150mm Electronic Micrometer Measuring Gauge Tool Latest | eBay
and then order up the correct spacer, If anything go for more rather than less negative camber. Then if it is more negative than 0.75 degrees, use a shim to reduce the negative.
The XJS rear end is far better with half to three quarters of a degree negative camber than less than that, I have found.
Greg