Can you get it to drone in Park, while rev'ing up to 2k?
Wonder if maybe you have a vibration induced drone. The OEM exhaust is known to drone in some cars, and Jag came out with brackets that clamp around the cats and then bolt to the transmission housing.
If it will drone in P while up on stands, you could experiment with clamping the pipes at various places to see if you can tame the drone.

 

Mostly it just does it under load at 2k. Coasting or stuck behind something big it's pretty quiet. I don't know that I could duplicate it on the stands and I hate climbing under a running car on them. Goal for tomorrow is to finish the exhaust tips so we'll see how that effects the sound quality. Good idea on the hangers though.

 

Since you are driving now don't forget you will be doing 67 when it shows 65. Not a big deal but in case you pass by any of the speed cameras.

 

There is an outfit that has matched paint in aerosol form should you decide the homegrown solution isn't to your satisfaction...

2007 Jaguar Xk Colors of Touch Up Paint

I have never used these guys but on my previous BMW board some folks have bought this paint and touched up bumpers and such with success.

 

+1
I bought from this outfit for my Lexus, base color and clearcoat.
I bought a small amount, non-aerosol, came in glass jars.
Matched very well.

 

Happy to hear the car is on the road

 

OK, complete kick in the nuts type evening. Picked up a check engine light this evening on the way home, P0420 (Inefficient cats)...

This showed up as well with a short 42 item list of things that need fixed before next Friday so it can chauffeur some kids to the prom. '68 Chevelle wagon with a 6-71 blown 427 4 speed combo.


Jealousy in the background maybe...


Got a mystery box from the postman, look what was inside...


Finally state of the car, nose is off, nothing obvious wrong up here. took about an hour to pop the nose off.






This would be a great time to put the new lamps in but one's bent. This was a one step forward, two back evening. Kind of miffed about the code and my programmer can't clear it (I really didn't want to hard boot the car again but WTH maybe it'll clear some of the other oddball stuff). So tomorrow, maybe refinish the headlamps or maybe do the exhaust tips. The existing tips are pretty sooty so I was dreading that the cats weren't working well enough. Still that's a kick in the sack.

 

Wow, what a crappy day. This one is starting out where yesterday left off. Became wide awake at 5 am when I stepped in a pile of dog crap outside the bedroom door. Guess one of the dogs was sick because once that mess was cleaned up and I fell back asleep the wife discovered a big mess downstairs and there was no peace in my house.

Eventually woke up and came down to get some peace and quiet in he shop. Made a shopping list, oil new spark plugs and the little white marker lamps for the headlights. Off to Autozone, great deal on Mobil 1 if you wanted an STP oil filter. I didn't want the filter so no deal for me. forgot the lamp so no lamp for me. I did pick up a set of NGK's to replace the used Autolites. Possibly they'll burn cleaner and help the cat become more efficient. I was also reading some past threads about having the gap too wide causing some ignition quality issues. I mention this because the car was kind of surging yesterday morning on the way to work. Something wasn't happy.

So, new goal for today is to run out the Walmart and find some cheaper oil and lamps. Get the car warmed up and change the oil. Then get the front end back together, possibly painting the grill and removing the rest of the emblem while it's visible. One of the plastic support structures on the passenger side is broken allowing the bumper cover to flop at the bottom wheel lip so I'm going to try and sort that out too.

 

OK, back to progress. I got the plugs and oil swapped out. Filter is crusty and the oil looked old. Plugs looked nice but they had a .048" gap, not the .035" spec. Engine ran pretty smooth and was getting 18 mpg. We'll see what these do for it (if anything).

While the front end was apart I swapped out one lamp. The reflectors inside looked good, the shutter moves freely and springs back in place. Funny that the lamp has the motors for side to side as well as up and down... Old lamp is very grey where the light comes from. Not sure if it's age related or just an attribute of the HID lamp. Bent lamp is in the background. The vendor says they are sending a replacement.


I decided to repaint the grill section. A bunch of 'grabber' clips hold the tabs in the slots to retain the grill sections.


And a pair of 9 mm head speedy nuts hold the emblem onto the grill. Popped it off so I can turn a replacement once the new emblem shows up.


Finally, decided to go with a little shine up front and sprayed the grills with aluminum paint. It looks almost chrome and wears OK but will rub off if pushed hard. I did the LS in bronze and loved it. Might do this that color down the road or a titanium color.


More to come. Still torn on hard boot or just run it and see if the codes go 'away'.

 

Just purely out of curiosity, why are you hesitant to do a hard boot? (I assume you mean disconnect battery and touch terminals?? )

 

Mostly shift points. It took a couple days for the car to learn how I drive. Not a big deal now because the damn thing was dead enough it wouldn't start a couple moments ago. Sat in the shop overnight with the hood open. Never saw the Nav unit power up while working on it today so who knows. I did have the bumper and headlamps off. Well, it's unhooked and on charge now.

One thing I did fix was the broken bumper supports on the passenger side.

Before it flopped about 2" away from the support:


After it's held pretty well with just one inner fender screw. Took quite a few passes at the vise to get the 1" x 1/8" flat aluminum strap to connect the dots.


I also figured out how to fix the windshield washers where the quick disconnect fitting was broken. Found that there was another at the lamp washer so I'll just lengthen the 3/8" hose and make it one run. Some times you need to cheat to succeed because I couldn't find that fitting online.

 

Headlamp seems to be a success. Made a huge improvement in light output, on one side Sadly it's still looking at the ground. AVS and TPS faults still present. Car was missing a lot at idle on first start up. That's new and totally different from the Autolite 3924's that I pulled. Ran and shifted fine. Seems happy. Grill looks pretty good in the dark. It has a shine now which freshened up the front of the car. Still need to redo the headlight lenses. I did plug it into my battery maintainer to top off the battery tonight.

120 mile road trip tomorrow to Carlisle PA for the Spring Auto Swap Meet with my oldest son. 15 miles of car 'stuff' for sale. Should be a fun trip if the car doesn't do anything stupid. Looking for small stuff for obvious reasons.

 

This is true in car repair and beyond...

 

Road trip was a success. Car handled and road great. Felt like a big block rolling up the interstate. Pretty good time and definitely sore on the way home from all the walking. Car didn't make it worse which is a good thing.

I think the car looks better with the painted grill. It has a nice metallic look vs the ratty mottled finish it did have. I did notice that the plate mount doesn't fit correctly and think it isn't OEM. I don't like it an plan on doing 'something' with it to reduce it's foot print.


Loot. Got a meguires headlamp refinish kit, some LED strips that may become DLR's. A bunch of stainless hardware to put the belly pans back on. Got two Pypes 2.25" band clamps and some 3/8" heater hose for the windshield washers.


More to come.

 

No real update for today except my replacement headlamp bulb showed up and the \\R center caps. The caps are loose in the Toba's so it's either wrap them with electrical tape or heat the legs up and bend them out. The growlers were loose too so maybe it's just a Toba problem.

Got my butt kicked by the wagon as the tie rods are running into the oil pan and we haven't found a combination of frame and engine mounts that will raise the engine up where it needs to be. Total C/F...

 

I just replaced mine this morning with some ebay ones. It wasn't the diameter but that the tabs are longer than the oem ones so they arent pulled in tight to the wheel. I just put a rubber band around the tabs for now and that seemed to work pretty well.

 

Give the tape a try. The rubber bands won't hold up in the weather.

 

I posted up in apost8n8's thread that I used my heat gun to soften the tabs and bent them outwards. Now the caps lock up tight in the wheels. Took about five minutes to sort out.

You could do it with her hair drier when the wife isn't home.

 

Yes, it's ll about the journey...
BTW, you mentioned wanting to reduce the foot print of the front tag. Have you heard about the Show 'N Go plate? It's a moble front plate bracket that stores beneath the car when you don't want it showing. However, as you know, we need to display. I added one and it works really good.

 

Ken, thanks for the idea. I had thought about it but I've found myself putting the nose over stuff more often than not so it wouldn't work out well for long.