Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[white exec]

A house near us in Surrey had them too. Leaves sitting on top get blown away, and, as you say James, the small stuff passes through and gets washed away. The guy's son worked for the industrial filter mfr, who supplied him with long lengths of the stuff – seriously processionary hedgehogs.

[Zelandeth]

Something I'll maybe keep an eye out for in the future then.

Yesterday I threw the driver's door back together. I reinstated the weatherproofing behind the door card before refitting the card too of course.



I'll probably pull the wood off for several more coats at some point when the weather is better (now I know I can get it off without having to fully dismantle the door), but it looks massively better than it did.

[myglaren]

Why the multiplicity of joysticks Zel?

Certainly improving in the looks department.

[Hell Razor5543]

One for each wingmirror (or possibly a redundant one in case the primary one fails )?

It is possible that Jaguar were trying to tempt James Bond away from Aston Martin and had fitted the guidance systems for TOW missiles!

[white exec]

Pinball. Or Bagatelle.

[Zelandeth]

One for each wingmirror (or possibly a redundant one in case the primary one fails )?

It is possible that Jaguar were trying to tempt James Bond away from Aston Martin and had fitted the guidance systems for TOW missiles!

It's actually slightly different...one controls the left/right adjustment on the passenger side, the other the up/down adjustment one the driver's side. If you want to make yourself choke, go look what they change hands for. One day I'll strip it down and fix it. Though it's a bit of a moot point as the mirrors stay where they're put at least.

Pinball. Or Bagatelle.

Pinball would always be my choice... Medieval Madness please...If that's not available I'll take Bride of Pin-Bot...Genie probably my third choice...though it's tricky to pick between that, Centaur or Firepower as number three...


--- ---

As noted a few posts back a few of the coolant lines on the Jag are showing signs of failure. The left hand top radiator hose in particular was ballooning quite alarmingly. While this is probably at least in part just due to old age, it felt like the system was maybe pressurising more than it should. I'd also spotted a couple of drips from the outer seal on the expansion cap.

I had a sneaking feeling that these would prove to be connected. This is because the expansion setup on the Jag is a bit strange (no surprise there...the whole coolant system is a bit strange), with the overflow tank buried inside the nearside front wing. It's totally inaccessible without removing the wheel arch liner...and you could be forgiven for not even knowing it's there. Through this tank is the only route for pressure in the system to vent. Fine...except for the fact that the line between it and the cooling system is a thin rubber hose which is bent through a tight 90 degree bend right after it disappears from view from the engine bay. As such this hose is very prone to kinking. The bottle itself is also a cause of trouble as of course being totally hidden from view it never gets cleaned, even if the cooling system gets serviced regularly (let's ignore the fact that Jaguar *recommended* that two tins of Barr's stop leak be added after each coolant flush for now!). So it tends to end up full of horrible organic slime.

Each enough to check though, just disconnect the hose from the header tank overflow line and see if you can blow through it. It should be easy to do, accompanied by a gurgling noise from the dip tube in the hidden tank. There shouldn't be any real resistance.



Oh.

We had double that on there and still zero airflow.

Well that won't have been helping anything then!

Play was stopped at this point by marble sized hail. However I've cobbled together a temporary solution to allow me to drive the car locally for the next few days while minimising the risk of blowing coolant hoses.



Have also wrapped some cable ties around the hoses which are bulging to hopefully help keep them together until the replacements arrive (a full set has been ordered). It's a horrible bodge...but sometimes that's unavoidable!

Any guesses on how many inches of solid mud I find in the bottom of the expansion tank when I get to it?

[Zelandeth]

Courtesy of a gent in an AA truck earlier today I was made aware of the fact that the reversing lights on the XJ-S had stuck on again. They did this once a couple of days into my ownership but after a bit of exercise of the gearshift they sorted themselves out. I'll need to investigate where the switch is and look at either cleaning/lubricating or replacing it in due course.

Just now though I don't have time for that...so the reversing lights have been temporarily disabled. Didn't know off the top of my head if they have a dedicated fuse so just pulled the lamps out.



I'd also noticed that the voltmeter had been sitting a little lower at idle in the last couple of days. Now I know it under reads (presumably due to voltage regulation issues in the panel itself - it's on the to do list) so the actual value indicated isn't important, the fact that it's not sitting where it usually does is what's worthy of note.

I have been doing quite a few short journeys though, after dark and with the heater going (and the demister setting runs both blower fans flat out), so it's quite possible the battery is just getting a little low... I'll give it a night on the charger tomorrow.

Worth doing a quick alternator function check though...

Everything off.
Natural idle: 13.1V.
Fast idle (~1500rpm): 14.1V.

Headlights, heater blower, rear window demister and stereo on...
Natural idle: 12.1V.
Fast idle: 13.8V.

So it's looking a bit weak under full load maybe. However I do know the idle is a little low...so I think I'll give the battery a good charge, tweak the idle up to the proper 750rpm and then have another look at it.

The idle speed being low is something it's easy to miss on a V12 as they're so smooth. She was idling at about 400rpm when I first took ownership of the car and yet there was no sign of vibration or anything.

[myglaren]

400 rpm is a lot of bangs a minute though

[white exec]

Both fans 'flat out' when demister (presume radiator fans, with the AC) is switched on - sounds a bit overkill. Low speed would surely be sufficient.
Your measured voltages don't sound a problem.

[Zelandeth]

There's only one setting on the ventilation system which directs any air whatsoever to the windscreen - and that's the dedicated demist setting. This overides the temperature control and simply calls for as much heat as possible, sets the air distribution to 90% windscreen, 10% footwells and turns both the blowers on full. A/C obviously on too, but there's no way to turn that off unless you turn the ventilation system off altogether...which also closes the flaps so there's no natural airflow!

They were trying to be really clever when they designed the heater in this car...note the word *trying* in this case!

[white exec]

OK, When you said 'both fans' I thought you were referring to the radiator fans, which would pull a lot of current. Having said that, cabin heater fans on PSA cars will pull 20-25A each when on full speed. Radiator fans can be anything from 120W to 310W apiece, so a huge current pull when working at full speed together.

[xantia_v6]

Having the voltmeter drop when stuff is turned on is normal on these cars (at least on the ones I have owned).

The reverse light switch is under the centre console, I think it may be just a standard micro-switch, but my memory is a bit hazy on that.

The Ventilation system on the XJ-S is a bit strange and very complicated, but you can't turn off the refrigeration system without also shutting off all the air-flow, and there is no manual switch to force recirculation, even though the recirculation flaps are electrically controlled (with an electric vacuum valve and vacuum actuator of course).

[Zelandeth]

Definitely need to look at tweaking the idle speed up a bit...450rpm is a little on the low side...book says 750.



That might be a job for tomorrow.

Today's task was to see if we could restore sanity to the reversing lights. A quick search on Google revealed that the switch is on the gear selector assembly inside the car rather than outside...surprisingly sensible!



It just screws into the side of the selector mechanism and there's no need to strip that down to remove it.



It was very obviously gummed up, requiring the plunger to be manually pulled back out rather than snapping back out under spring pressure.

Turns out all it needed was a good clean and a dose of fresh lubricant. Ten minutes later everything was back together and the lights behaving as they should.





Tiny little task in the grand scheme of things but nice to have it ticked off anyway.

Fuelled up again this morning...9.8MPG and £92!

[Zelandeth]

Had a look at the temporary expansion bottle today after a decent run. About 3/4 full (and I put a bit of coolant in the bottom of it to help prevent air being drawn in as things cool anyway), so doesn't look like I need to worry about it overflowing.



The hoses also feel firm but not absolutely rock solid like they were, so it looks like the pressure is being managed correctly now. If the weather permits I'll try to get the inner wing metalwork off and strip out the proper expansion tank and its pipework to be cleaned at the weekend.

As fixing the reversing lights was deceptively easy, I'm sure this will be an utter pig of a job to make up for it...

[Zelandeth]

Courtesy of an idiot in an Audi RS6 who decided that headlights are for loosers and that they're too important to give way to mere mortals on roundabouts I wound up with a bit of a cleanup operation to do. I wound up with most of the meal I had just picked up and two milkshakes on the floor.



I had secured everything, but apparently not sufficiently to withstand full on evasive maneuveres.

On the plus side the main carpets in the Jag simply lift out. So getting those out wasn't a problem and they are now drying in my conservatory.



The thing about mid brown carpets is that they can hide quite a bit of grime! While most of them weren't too bad (save for the not inconsiderable amount of milkshake!) the driver's side front one took quite a while to get clean water running off.

The carpeting on the sills however appears to be glued in place so cleaning that will require a bit more effort...seems like this might finally be the excuse I need to actually get around to picking up a wet vacuum cleaner. Would be useful to have around, not least because Autotrail felt it necessary to fit pale beige long pile carpet in the cab of the van...and it's filthy.