So,
I'll summarise first to save you a long read in case you can't be bothered with it, I'm actually gutted but I am afraid the XJ didn't even make the start of this trip, let alone finishing it. I took the P38 instead and it was perfect in every way other than fuel cost.
We left on Thursday morning, had a breakfast stop at Bakewell, drove entirely back roads to Ribblehead viaduct, did a walk to the top of one of the peaks there called Whernside, then drove up to Kendal, stopped in a hotel and ate fish and chips. The next day, this morning infact, we drove to Haweswater, did another trek up a big hill, I fell over into a very muddy hole, I found this amusing my wife less so, she went swimming in a tarn and then we had lunch and drove home down the M6 and hit NO TRAFFIC AT ALL, literally first time that has ever happened to any southbound M6 journey I think I have ever taken.
So, you may recall that in my first post on this thread I stated the following...
"I am in the extremely rare position where most of my fleet of scrap heap dodgers are actually road worthy so there are a number of contenders."
Oh how quickly this changed.
So we'll start with the other choices that I had and first off the L322 range rover, works a treat but ran out of MOT and as it happens now I have taken a look at it, needs a tyre and the steering rack is leaking (AGAIN) so it was out of contention.
The glorious Renault Modus was treated to a cam belt and water pump replacement, a wash (it had been stood out in our garden for at least a full year, probably more) and then I took it in for MOT on the Tuesday before we were due to leave. I was expecting an easy pass, of course it failed, I think a hungry mouse has had a go at some of the fuel pipes because it has a fuel leak from the top of the tank. So it wasn't an option to use and now I have to another thing to fix.
My 'great from 10 yards away' MGBGT has had lots of effort recently to make it run better and I took it for a little shake down run in the hopes it would be my back up just in case anything should happen to the Jag (more on this later!) sure enough, it drove wonderfully, the engine now willing and responsive and sounding better than ever, my work on the carbs and the ignition system finally getting rid of a partial throttle flat spot. However... When I returned home the temperature gauge looked like this:
Now I have suspicions about the accuracy of the old capillary gauge, as the car didn't have any other signs of running hot however, didn't seem worth risking just in case there actually is a problem here and finding a real problem 200 miles from home, down a lane in the lake district didn't strike me as a good day out so decided this car was out too!
That leaves us with the P38 and the Jag.
The P38 had been merrily taking my wife to work and back with no real problems since the MOT ran out on the L322 and since I did a load of work on it last year, it has been a reliable old friend so I was pretty sure I could count on it but with a P38, you just never know!
And now for the Jag, I had been working hard on preparing it as well as I could do for this trip, I had made a long list of jobs and had actually completed all of them! It was things like improve the windscreen washers with a new pump and the addition of a non-return valve in the washer line, full spanner check of the brakes and suspension, checked and double checked the fluid levels, really went through it and fixed and improved some little niggly issues that have been present for ages and that I had forgotten about, that sort of thing.
A chance came up to use the jag for a run up to the in-laws, a round trip of 100 miles more or less. This test went so well and I was so confident in the car, I even took to a stretch of the M6 with no hard shoulder on the way back home. After getting home, I let the car cool off and decided to have one last poke about underneath (this was Saturday night and we're due to leave Thursday morning) I found a little drip of coolant sat on the bottom edge of the front subframe, so I had a good look about and found that a little metal tab on the PAS pump had been gently wearing its way through the bottom hose and had made a little pin hole that coolant was weeping through, something I must have overlooked in my excitement of getting my rebuilt engine back in and running! "No big deal" I thought, I got the little metal tab sat where it was out of the way (it is a necessary part of the drive belt tensioner assembly) and ordered a new bottom hose from a supplier that I was confident would get the part to me by Tuesday at the latest.
In the mean time, I remove, clean up, paint and fix a little pin hole coolant leak in a metal coolant pipe the runs as part of the bottom hose and has a drain plug (the welded in boss of which was leaking a tiny bit) and a heat exchanger for the transmission oil, I'll stick in a picture of it so you can better understand what I am talking about...
I gave it a good look over and all seemed well (more on this later).
Monday comes and goes and I figure at some point on Tuesday this new hose will turn up, I wait in on Tuesday and then get an email in the afternoon from Fedex saying they can't find my address and so can't deliver my item, disappointed I get straight on to Fedex customer services, giving them the GPS co-ordinates for the end of my driveway, I get a response within 2 hours from a human being via email saying thanks, information was passed on to the driver and they'll deliver tomorrow (Wednesday). We get to 15:50 on Wednesday and I get the same 'sorry we can't find your address email', I would have some sympathy if perhaps I lived on a new estate but my house has stood in the same spot for 120 years and everyone else can find the bloody thing. Angry and now desperate, I drive to the other side of Birmingham to David Manners Group who are thankfully open longer on week nights, they sell me a bottom hose and I go on my way home to fit it thinking disaster has been averted!
With the new bottom hose on, and a final check over I take the car for a test drive up the road and back. I drive the car back in the garage and immediately notice a trail of fluid, up the drive that appears to be coming from under the car 
I have a look and that transmission fluid cooler has decided that it doesn't fancy it anymore, there must have been some corrosion on one of the stub pipes that clearly, my quick go over with a wire brush disturbed and allowed the pipe to fail when it got warm and had a little pressure behind it.
So there I was, 21:30 Wednesday night, trans oil all over the underside of the car, my drive way, the garage floor. This left me disheartened, disappointed and unwilling to come up with a noble bodge solution to get it going so I simply put my tools and my stuff in the boot of the P38 and on Thursday morning, set off in that instead
In fairness to the P38, it really was ideal for the task at hand and there were a few situations where I was very grateful for working air con, a high driving position and a 70mph comfortable cruising speed (70 in the jag is screaming away thanks to the under geared BW65 three speed that is fitted!)
My wife and I had a brilliant little trip though and we plan to do another before the end of July so there is hope for the Jag yet! I have ordered a standalone trans oil cooler which should arrive next week and once that is on and the trans fluid topped off, we should be fully back in business!
I shall leave you with my sincere apologies that on this occasion I couldn't share photos of the Jag proudly sitting in front of Ribblehead viaduct but when I do get her fixed, she will take us somewhere else fun, I'll tell you all about it and I'll get pictures for proof!
Cheers chaps.
I have a look and that transmission fluid cooler has decided that it doesn't fancy it anymore, there must have been some corrosion on one of the stub pipes that clearly, my quick go over with a wire brush disturbed and allowed the pipe to fail when it got warm and had a little pressure behind it.
