I assume that's because one might drill into the fuel tank?
When I ran wires for the quarter window autodown function, I tried for hours to snake them through the opening for the hydraulic hoses with no success. Gave up and drilled a small hole in the bulkhead right next to the hoses, no issue.

 

You got it!

 

I had no problems getting wires to run alongside the convertible hoses - you need an electricians wire puller which you push through from one side. If you have the roof partially open this makes it a lot easier.

 

I used a variety of wire fishing tools before giving up, but didn't try it with the partially open roof, maybe that's why I couldn't get through. Hopefully there is no next time, but if so, I know what to try. I admit the drilling did have me a bit nervous!

 

No joking, I used some "intimate personal lubricant" and it really helped feed the wires through... I actually keep astroglide in the bottom of my tool chest now lol.

The other trick was not trying to push the interconnects through, just wires, I terminated them with interconnects afterwards.

 

UPDATE:
The wire harnesses ARH-JAG2P and AIH-JAGRCA from Discount Stereo came in on Friday and the installation fairly simple. The AIH-JAGRCA harness was connected to the Ai-NET cable and the RCA outputs at the radio. In the trunk area the second Ai-NET connector was connected to the Ai-NET going to the new amplifier. Ignition "ON" I had power at the AMP. I then used the ARH-JAG2P harness to plug into the existing speaker harness, it was all plug and play. Testing the now modified system showed that everything was now functioning as it should. I have 6 of the 8 speakers working. The 2 door speakers are not working. I have to recheck connectivity of the wires going to the door speakers before I remove the door panels to check the speakers.
With 6 speakers working the system sounds fabulous. I still have not removed the rear seat as yet because I have to back the car out of the garage to get the left front seat out after which I will be able to remove the rear seat. I connected and ran the backup camera cable over the open top to the stereo system and it works. I used the reverse lamp wiring to trigger the backup camera when I put the car in reverse. Once I get the rear seat out I will fish the cable through to the front via the opening where the hydraulic hoses for the top goes. So far, I am very pleased with the functioning of the upgraded system. One more successful day. I still have to install the TORQUE software to get the ALDL gizmo working. My wireless connectivity to the my internet in the garage is very poor. Once I get the car out of the garage I will have a better signal but that is for a later date.Thanks to all of you who contributed to help me through this installation. What a great bunch of people on this forum.

 

@dibbit I have not investigated this as yet. I have the top fully down to work comfortably inside the car. I plan to pass the backup camers cable/s through the space where the conv top hoses go. From the trunk area I can get my finger partially through the hole where the hoses run. I guess when I remove the rear seat, I should see the hoses on the other side? Does the top have to be fully open to access this area or partially open?

 

I think you get best access with the roof partially open - you should be able to see the hoses through the gap looking down towards the roof hinge.

You don't need to remove the front seat - the rear seats are held in by (IIRC) just four bolts.

 

dibbit: thank you for your prompt response. I am removing the front seats to re-upholster them. At my age, I am no longer the contorsonist I once was so with the seats out it makes life a lot easier for me. The seats would have been done already but I mistakenly ordered the incorrect seat covers from Lseat. I have since returned them and they are sending me the correct ones in about 15 days. With all the seats out I will be able to do a proper cleaning of the interior floor carpet so I am not unhappy about that..
Another thing I am doing is mounting the 3 gauge cluster when the OEM radio lived. I already extended the 3 gauge cluster harness to reach down there. I have to do some trimming of the gauge cluster and relocate the cluster harness connecor as there is very little room on the left side of the cluster the make the connection. A forum member in the UK who did it on his car is giving me some advice on how to do that. One of the ways is to de-solder the connector and install the wires from the harness facing the front of the car. I will determine what's best when I start to do it. Will post some pictures of the process soon.

 

I was able to remove the rear seat and I saw a hole where a part lkie a pin of the side panel is anchored when installed. I put a flashlight at the hole and saw the light in the trunk area.
I used a drill and made the hole to look like a figure 8 and used 2 grommets on each of the circles of the figure 8 and used some silicone to hold the grommets in place. When the silicone was cured I fished the backup camera cable through the now Figure 8 hole into the cabin area. I ran the backup camera cable alongside the existing wiring and behing the carpet on the transmission tunnel.up to the new radio. I had to drill a hole at the bottom of the metal frame where the trim goes to pass the cable into the space where the old radio was. Now the trim sits flat against the metal frame.
For those interested, I am relocating the 3 gauge cluster down where the OEM radio lived. A member from the UK who did this on his car is walking me through the process to cut the plastic of the 3 gauge cluster and the trim to make it work. I am almost there with this and I will do a write up of the procedure as I am documenting the steps as I go along. Everytime a made a small cut I connected the 3 gauge cluster to make sure everything was still working. One thing I did do was to purchase 2 trim pieces as my original was very brittle and broke into pieces. The ones I got were from the XJ8 where the only difference was the area where the OEM radio went.The rest of it was identical to the XK8. I guess they put a different radio in the XJ8.

 

My contact member from the UK sent me some measurements and a drawing of where to trim the plastic housing on the 3 gauge cluster and the trim surround.
Attached is a picture of my first fitting.

this is the first fitting of the 3 gauge cluster

2nd fitting with the electrical connector attached
I still have to fine tune the trimming of the 3 gauge cluster using 80 grit emery paper so as not to cut too much. The original wood panel for the 3 gauge cluster will be carefully cut and shaped to create a trim surround for the gauges.
As installed in the 2nd pic, the three gauges work as intended.

 

If you haven’t already, I would suggest purchasing and installing the “real gauge” system from the member here. Two versions available, one will allow your temp gauge to read accurate real time temps and the second version includes oil pressure setup for accurate real time readings on top of the temp. Reason for mentioning is if you
read up on it the temp, volt, and oil pressure gauges are essentially dummy gauges, and don’t actually show real time accurate readings, and only move to extreme high/low if a problem is present. So in essence spending all that time and effort to relocate the gauges is great, but they don’t do anything in your favor without the upgrade. Just sayin….

 

The three gauges show the time accurately and the voltage accurately. The oil pressure is on/off rather than the actual pressure, exactly the same as the oil pressure warning light. To fit the real oil pressure modification, you have to add a pressure sender, which in my opinion just adds another potential failure point, without giving you much in the way of essential information. The only time I've ever suffered low oil pressure on a car engine, was when the oil pressure sender started leaking - like a pyromaniac fireman, the pressure sender was proving it's own worth by failing.

For the real engine temp just get a plug-n-play display for the OBD port - then start a thread on here asking what the temperature should be.

 

@stevis05 Fully aware of the quirks of the temp and oil pressure gauges. Jaguar has had that dumb system going back with the XJ40. I have spoken to the gentleman at JagWrangler about the upgrade for the temp and oil gauge so that is for down the road as $$ are a bit tight at this time but it is under serious consideration.
@dibbit Due to poor internet connectivity in my garage, I was unable to download the "Torque" program to the upgraded radio to get the ALDL gizmo working. Once that is done, I will be able to get real time readings on the screen.

 

I will be purchasing the real gaugesetup from Jagwrangler soon. Just waiting to free up some of my play money. I think I have the 3 gauge cluster installed properly, just waiting for some trim to complete the job or redesign a new surround for the 3 gauge. I also sent out my seats to get them recovered with my Lseat purchase. Here is what the gauge cluster looks like in the car. Your comments are needed to make it better. During the installation of the new stereo, none of the original wires were cut so it can easily be reverted to the original config. The steering wheel was removed to get it redone by the guys who are doing my seats.

rear seat cleaned and conditioned


3 gauge cluster

wood veneer cleaned and polished

 

Be aware there was and possibly still are some bugs within torque app that can trigger "reduced performance " and other issues while running it in live mode.
l ran it for a bit but had this happen several times, usually very inopportune times. Removing Elm and a simple turn on/off fixed it each time.

 

@baxtor You are quite correct with the glitch using "Torque'' . I was not even driving the car and had the Blurtooth connected ALDL adaptor and I got a restricted performance notice on the dash. I removed the adaptor from the ALDL connector and the restricted performance went away. Can you explain to me what you did to eliminate the problem or should I just purchase a standalone gizmo for the ALDL as some other forum members have done. What they bought, I don't know but I can always do some research on it. However, it would be nice to see everything on the Joying screen. Is there an update to the Torque with Elm 327 Pro software to correct this issue? Isn't there a standalone ODB2 Bluetooth scanner software available on the market?

 

I think the issue is likely that Torque is polling too much data too quickly and overloading the ancient computer hardware in the car.

There are a couple of options in Torque you could try to see if it makes a difference:-

Disable ELM327 auto timing adjust
Don't calculate MPG

Basically anything that looks like it might slow Torque down/use less data.

You could also try different OBD apps, such as Dash Command or OBD Fusion.

ETA: I've just looked in OBD Fusion and there is a dwell time setting. I'm guessing this would be worth trying to see if it fixes your problem:-

Dwell Time Dwell Time can be configured on the Settings > Preferences > Communications page. The dwell time is the time that the app waits between each subsequent data request from the vehicle. The default value for this setting is 0 (do not wait).

 

l simply stopped using it for live data Sanchez, not my forte, l think dibbit has a handle on the solution.