TireSmoke.org

Problem#20
Status: Open
Description: Vent direction control might be sticking

When I first tested the fan controls, the fan speed changed as expected, but the bulk of the air was directed at the windscreen as it would be in defrost setting. A few bumps down the road, it finally switched, no air at the windscreen and the dash vents blowing strong. Then I tried defrost and it wouldn’t switch back. It goes full heat so I didn’t allow it much time. Probably not important as long as it is stuck on the dash vents as I probably will never drive this under conditions needing the defrost setting.

I have a few more known problems to document, but I am done posting for the night. I will leave you with some proof that this is a nice looking car at ten feet. You'll have to trust me that it runs, drives, and stops more like a 46K mile car than a 33-year-old car.

For question 11, about who drives with their fog lights only. I do, and others do too regularly too as I notice while driving around. In my Mustang, I just do it during dawn / dusk driving cuz it looks cooler IMO. In my Ranger, I use it this way mostly when it's raining during the day and "headlights are required", but not really helpful. Plus it looks cooler.

-BP

I'm thinkin' there ain't a lot a Jaguars in the Dakotas. Just sayin'.

Basement Paul wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2024 7:00 am Plus it looks cooler.

-BP

Your post really made me think. As a teenager, I loved fog lights. All the cool people had aftermarket rectangles hanging down below their bumpers. My first pickup had fogs mounted on the grill guard and aftermarket clearance lights, so I had two switches on the dash that turned on cool lighting. Jaguar put aftermarket fogs on their cars at the factory and so it is really cool to have the factory switching and wiring. It is interesting that they thought it was cool to run with fogs only. I bought this car because it looks cool, to me at least. I have loved this design since I was a teenager. Cool isn’t a bad thing. I need to get back in touch with my teenage self. One of my problems is that I have not owned a car that I thought actually looked cool since my last Jaguar. I began buying cars that I thought were fun to drive, but many of them I thought were awful looking (turbo Forester, for example). Many of those cars had fog lights but fog lights stopped being cool in my mind and started just being something functional to use when the edges of the road needed a little more light. Kris did ask the other day if the Jag has daytime running lights, an interesting point of safety in a region with 65mph two-lane roads. Maybe I will fix those fogs and run fog-only to be better seen, and to be cool.

I ordered front shocks. I now think there is a good chance that is my clunking and the shocks were cheap. I didn’t order the rear struts yet. There are four of those and I haven’t yet figured out the installation procedure. In looking at all of this suspension stuff and watching numerous videos, I realized something about this car. Jaguar used the same basic front suspension and the same exact rear suspension on numerous vehicles over the course of more than 20 years. That rear suspension assembly has long been popular with hot rodders who wanted bolt-in independent suspension for their projects. Parts are available. Parts are not expensive. The system is simple to work on, although cumbersome and somewhat dangerous.

This car has a reputation of being temperamental and hard to maintain, yet I am finding that there are many people out there running these as daily drivers. Most of them are in Great Britain, but there are a few Americans on their third or fourth one who have managed to get serious mileage out of these things. The V-12 is stout and actually pretty simple. The 1991 model year on my car might sound relatively modern, but the entire car is pretty simple and was probably falling way behind in technology in 1991. The only thing intimidating about this car at this point is the packaging. They really crammed a huge engine with all of its accessories into a very tiny space. Everything is in the way of everything else. Working on this car will require patience and a lot of disassembly.

“with a hood that goes on forever”. Should be room in there!

I have a question. Did they make a Euro Bumper package for this thing? I mean, in the 70's and 80's guys would switch out the big American bumpers with the amazing crash ratings out for more stylish European versions. Is that a thing for this car?

-BP

As far as I know, the American market defined this car. It was low production and over half of the cars came here. I think the second generation was primarily about bumper standards. A lot of people don't like the black bumper extended out on shock absorbers with the chrome trim attempting to tie it into the car, but that is the look I always knew and liked. It adds to the sense of length on this thing.

Today I put another 25 miles on it. I decided to go for a hike in the park so I drove the Jag. It was good to get my mind back on other things for a few hours, and it was fun driving there and back.

I have been firing on all cylinders between photography, bicycling, hiking, and working on the car. This has not felt exactly 12-cylinder smooth. I think I am more of a three-cylinder with a lumpy cam, bouncing around from one firing cycle to the next. I have a lot of work and evaluation yet to document. I will start with a couple of minor updates I did on Tuesday.

Problem#13 Windshield Chip

I bought a Permatex windshield repair kit. I had the perfect afternoon with sun (for UV curing) and a comfortable temperature right in the recommended range. When I did the VW, the crack became less visible. I am not as confident that this bullseye is less visible, but I think it looks slightly better. I don’t know if these kits really work, but it is worth a try.

Problem#18 Central Locking System

I took a closer look at the central locking system because I would like the ability to lock the cabin if we go to a store or restaurant. I think the locks on the doors are actuated by motors and the lock on the trunk is a solenoid. All three of those clearly function. I believe there are position switches on the motors that verify that locking/unlocking has been achieved. If the switch fails to confirm, the locks cycle and then fail. The end result seems unpredictable, sometimes ending in a locked state, sometimes unlocked. I suspect that the problem is in the passenger door, but I don’t have a good reason for that suspicion. I think the solution will likely involve pulling the door skin which I don’t want to do just for this purpose. I pulled the fuse which is marked as power mirrors and door locks. I will see if I lost anything else by pulling that fuse. The mirrors are set for me. Kris hasn’t driven it yet so that might present a problem for her. We usually can find a compromise position that works for both of us. By removing the fuse, the doors and trunk now operate logically as a traditional key system.

I updated the status on the original posts of these problems.

Problem#4

My new shocks arrived yesterday afternoon. Less than three hours later, I was out for a test drive. The clunk is gone! The issue wasn’t really the shocks, although they weren’t great. The issue was the top bushings on the shocks. They had completely disintegrated. With my car sounding like “parts were about to fall off”, I never would have guessed shocks. Thanks for pointing me in the easy and cheap direction on this one. Now my car is so quiet that I can notice the lesser squeaks and rattles.

As I began this work, I realized that I have only ever changed shocks on one car out of the 50 I have now owned. I am a complete novice at this work. The disassembly went mostly good for a 33-year-old car. One top nut fought me, but I had a good angle on it so I just cut it in half. The bottom bolts were only a little rusty, requiring just a little extra handle length to get them to release (I didn’t even need to try the impact). The shocks have to be compressed to remove them. One of the shocks was bad enough that it compressed easily and then didn’t extend quickly on its own. The other one required some problem solving. I tied a piece of wire around the base of the shock and a loop on the other end. I then compressed the shock and slipped the loop over the top which held the shock compressed small enough to allow me to extract it. Putting the new shocks in required a similar strapping arrangement to hold them compressed long enough to thread them into position. The instructions were terrible with no explanation of the washer positions, but everything looked similar to the original so I just copied that. I felt like I was compressing the new top bushings a lot, so I stopped when I had enough room on the top threads for the lock nut. It sure seems like there should have been a torque spec for that, but I couldn’t find one. If there was, it would have been too low for my torque wrench, anyway, but I could at least gauge by feel.

I went with the KYB Gas-a-Just shocks. They cost me $68 delivered and were actually “sold by Amazon” (why would Amazon stock this particular shock?). On the Jaguar forums, there are two popular choices, these and Bilstein. The Bilstein’s are the sportier option while these are closer to the original soft-riding shocks. While this Jag can be tuned into a race car, I bought it as a luxury car, so the KYB seemed the right choice for me.
While I was there with the front end up and the wheels off, I took a closer look at the rest of the suspension bushings. I will need to rebuild the front suspension someday, but for now the bushings didn’t look as awful as I originally thought. It helps having seen videos of really bad ones. The brake hoses look good, although not new. The brake lines all the way to the master cylinder look great, although there is some rust on some of the connections on the driver’s side under the hood.

I consider this clunking problem resolved.

On both Mustangs I bought that sat a long time, I pulled all the door panels off and lubed up all the locking mechanisms from inside, and also did window tracks too. Both needed this desperately and made a world of difference. Guaranteed this has never been done to this car either. I would recommend doing any hinge, cable, door lock, and latch on this car. Glad to hear about the shocks. Easy-peasy.

-BP

Today’s pleasant surprise was how well the automatic temperature control works. With temperatures in the 40’s, we were perfectly comfortable on our 93-mile cruise through the parks. When I moved the temperature up or down, I could immediately sense the system working. This system isn’t even digital, yet after 33 years, it still works perfectly.

The car ran well today. I enjoy the way the car handles in the curves. It really stays on its line, but get the line wrong, the soft suspension and heaviness make corrections a bit less elegant. We took the freeway home, about 40 miles of 70mph speed limits (+/-20, well more + than -). The engine makes a nice howl at such speeds, the perfect amount of audible feedback with a unique sound to it. I do wish the cruise control and tachometer were working, but I will get to those soon enough. I think the electric fan was running through the lower speed parts of our drive and it seems a little loud, perhaps squeaky. The car annoyingly lacks a dead pedal. My left foot doesn’t come anywhere near the firewall so I do feel un-braced while driving. It is more like sitting in a recliner than driving with intent.

I got three compliments on my car today, all from women. My wife says I finally found a car that is actually a ‘chick magnet’. The gas station/convenience store clerk came running out when I pulled up just to take a look at my car. The woman who later pulled up to the pump behind me also commented on it. When we stopped for a pit stop at the Custer State Park visitor center, someone yelled from across the parking lot, “nice ride”. The car was pretty unique in its day, but today it really stands out.

Problem#21
Status: Resolved (see 10/26/24 post)
Description: Key issues

I only have one set of keys so I have to be careful not to lock them in the car or trunk, or lose them. The ignition key is a Tibbe Key and will be expensive to get a spare as few people can cut those anymore. The other two keys, a domed head and a square head, are a little strange. The cut is exactly the same and the blanks look the same, but I think one has thinner flanges than the other. The domed key, the thinner one, is supposed to be good for all locks, but it is bent and will not lock the glove box. The square key only works the fuel access and the doors. It will not insert into the trunk or glove box. From extensive research, I can order the Tibbe Key from Virginia for $30 (I have figured out the code). For the other keys, I will probably buy some blanks online and have them cut locally. If the flange is too thick to work on all the locks, I will grind it down to make at least one a universal key. I don’t really care about the glove box, but it would be nice to have keys that work as intended.

Problem#22
Status: Open
Description: Steering lock not working in all positions

With the ignition key out, the steering column does not lock in any steering wheel position near to center. With the steering wheel turned to a nearly upside down position, there are at least a couple lock positions that work. This is probably not a problem I will ever work on since I now understand that I can lock the column just be turning the wheel far enough. If I ever tear into the column, though, I should figure out what is going wrong.

Problem#23
Status: Resolved 11/12/24
Description: Power antenna not working

As described in my battery drainage issue (#3), the power antenna was draining the battery so currently the connections have been pulled. Prior to dicsonnecting, the antenna was not going up when I turned on the radio.