With mistakes come opportunity! I burned through the clear and color into the primer on the hood. But!

Gave me a reason to re-clear the hood. I took your advice and sprayed very slow and really laid a wet coat-killed me to move that slow. And I think that did the trick!

 

 

Wow, looks wonderfull
Greg

 

 

Let's try this again. posted an image above, shoulda been a link.


http://vid469.photobucket.com/albums...y/IMG_2329.mp4

 

The sound is nice and solid. Great work. I love the color you went with.

 

Thanks! I'm very pleased with the results. With brown leather and contrasting white stitching it should look fantastic.

 

I love the Old English White You are doing a fantastic job. My first XJ 6 series one was O E W I have missed that one since the day I sold her some 30 years ago.

 

I'm glad the repaint worked out. It is VERY hard to force yourself to move more slowly with the gun, but it really pays off.
2K urethanes are an enamel paint at the end of the day- they have a little time to settle and self level before they start to set up. Something like a bonnet (flat surface) is the best surface to practice really putting a nice wet coat on, almost impossible to get a run.
The photo of your hood makes me want to rush out and paint my car's hood, but it has to wait until the engine bay is completed. I just don't have the room to paint a hood in the garage with the car in there, plus don't want 2k overspray on the car.

 

Amazing work! The lines are beautiful and the way you solutioned so many things is impressive.

The bumpers look very much like the technique I used on my car several years ago. I really love the XJ bumperettes and wish I had thought of that as well.

Great job!

 

The bumpers look like yours because I copied you!

and thanks!!

 

Absolutely beautiful, superb, and much better airflow to the rads too.
Greg

 

go look at Chevy Venture Vans rear windows in a parts yard....


wife's van does not leak.... 150k miles 10 years old....
they have non visible hinges at the front edge and open outward at the rear...
and they are a glass w no frame... great respect for that gasket...



I sure hope you can bring it to the next "Brits on the Bay" car show...

 

One seat down, three to go (as well as all interior panels!)

 

The seat covers are from lseat.com.

They don't have factory colors but they do have several shades of tan that might be close to the factory tans available from Jaguar. If you had a black interior then the stock black they offer may match.

But, if you're changing the entire interior (like me!) then the colors they offer are vast. I chose brown, with off white stitching and piping and perforated center sections.

I used a combination of hog rings and zip ties to install, the zip ties allow you to vary the tension on the cover to allow a better fit.

I also installed new seat heaters-just in case the old ones were no good. Better safe than sorry.

The price? For four seat covers, perforated centers with contrasting piping, 50 sq ft of brown leather hide and shipping? $850.

 

I should note the website only lists front seat covers for the XJS and I had to send in my stock rear seat covers for them to use as patterns.

Also had to send in my head rest cover from the front seat as a pattern as well.

Assuming that they make patterns from that, next buyer won't have to send in their rear covers or head rests.

 

Seats are looking great. I've been waiting to hear what you thought of that supplier.

Really like the idea of converting to perforated center sections.

 

I would be very curious of your thoughts on the seat covers too. The price is very reasonable and I may ask them to do several seats for me.

 

I am pleased with the covers. Almost wrinkle-free after some effort and added foam to take up some slack. Installing new seat covers is difficult on old foam, and even new foam and it's sometimes difficult to tell if the foam, the seat cover, or the technique contribute to less than perfect look.

The stitching is very straight but not perfect, perfectly acceptable to this perfectionist. the piping and seams on the inside of the cover needed to be cut back to follow the curve on the front of the seat without wrinkling.

The leather is not as soft as the leather in my 02 Porsche but is softer than the leather in my 99 Infiniti. Reasonably fragrant.

Again, the only reason i can't unequivocally recommend them to XJS owners is because of the color choices. But like I said in earlier post, there are several tans that look close to the Jaguar tans I've seen. And black would probably match stock black. You could also order these seat covers and then have leather dye match to the covers and then recolor door panels and other interior panels. I've used leather dye before and it works amazingly well, especially on something that doesn't get a lot of wear like a door panel.

Best!

 

Side window installed! This is a momentous occasion as the side windows nearly stalled this project.

Recall that this is a lexan product with a special non scratch coating from a company called Optic Armor. It looks exactly like glass and appears very scratch resistant. When sighting down the length of the glass you can see some tiny waves but the same is true for the stock jaguar door glass so no worries.