1985 Jaguar XJ-S V12 HE

that ^^^^^

Looks much better to me!

Visually maybe not...Though something still needs changing as it's way, way too quiet. Though I do have a sneaky plan to possibly do something about that currently in progress. If it works, excellent...if not I'll only be out a few quid and an hour of work, so we'll see!

Roll your own back box delete?

Pro stock hood scoop ??

Well that worked well...Mission Burble has been a success.



Well...refined rumble anyway. Burble is more of a V8 thing.

Pretty much what you want really. Quiet refined Burble at the low end, but proper howl above about 3500rpm.

The ominous sounding ticking/chuffing noise has been identified. It's an inlet manifold leak right next to the injector for cylinder 6A.

I could tell pretty much for certain that it was nothing to do with the exhaust because it was coming from the wrong place. It seemed to be coming from within the V rather than the outside. Hence me wondering if it was combustion gases leaking by the plug or possibly signs of a leaking head gasket.

Then I noticed a bit of oily residue (because everything is covered in oil) that was "wobbling" in an odd way on the manifold to head joint just forward of the fuel injector.

I was just about able to capture this on camera, though access is appalling, because V12.



Reasonably sure this is the source of it as if I stick a bit of grease on the end of my finger and put it there the ticking immediately stops. Though this is the first time I've ever heard a leaky exhaust manifold like tick from a leak on the inlet side.

Well as the inlet manifolds are scheduled to come off as soon as the injection parts arrive anyway that should be sorted at the same time as obviously new manifold gaskets will be going on then.

Have started to do a little bit of cleaning up in the Jag's engine bay while I was hunting for the ticking noise, just to make it slightly less unpleasant to touch. To be honest I really just need to hit the whole engine bay with the degreaser and pressure washer as there is just so much caked on congealed oil in a lot of places it's not even funny. The timing cover on A bank has obviously been leaking in such a way that it's dripped onto the alternator fan, which has done a fantastic job of liberally coating that entire quarter of the engine bay from sump to bonnet level in the stuff. Also explains why the belt keeps slipping!

There were a couple of obvious leaks I could easily do something about short term though - the PCV connection into the manifold on B bank had obviously been weeping slightly for decades, just isn't a particularly snug fit on the barb the hose sits on. One hose clip added to hopefully resolve that problem.



It's very obvious where I've given the inlet manifold a bit of a scrub around where the oil was..So the manifolds *will* clean up okay with a bit of a scrub. Just a shame so little of them is actually accessible!

Information labels are mostly actually in surprisingly good shape under the grime.



The whole lot really needs a darn good scrub from top to bottom. I'll probably look to give it a going over once before I start pulling manifolds off as I really want to reduce the odds of me dropping gunk into the engine - though properly blasting all the crud off the lower areas may as well wait until after I've sorted the cam cover gaskets as I'm reasonably sure that's where about 90% of the oil is coming from. Though getting rid of at least some of it will help show up what's historic and what's still currently escaping. I've never had to actually top the oil up - but having said that it does take something like 11.5 litres of it so you need to lose quite a bit I imagine before it will show on the dipstick!

If anyone enjoys the really fiddly work associated with detailing engine bays...Be my guest!



he immediate urgent job for the Jag though is tyres.

What I hadn't spotted when I looked at them originally (and observed that there's excessive wear on the inner shoulder), was that the driver's side one is worn far more badly on half its rotation to the other half - and it was the good side that I originally looked at. It's still legal as the tread is still above the legal limit over more than 75% of the width of the tyre and it's not down to the cords or anything like that, but it definitely needs changing now. The fact that it's got about 0.75mm more tread on half the tyre than the other probably accounts for the horrible out-of-balance like vibration at specific speeds.

The rears have plenty of tread, but are pretty cheap, the best part of ten years old, and starting to perish in several spots. As with the front ones, they are also the wrong size. The car is currently fitted with 205/75 R15 tyres with a speed rating of H. It should be wearing 215/70 R15 W tyres really. I can't recall what load rating they are, but definitely lower than what's stated as being OEM fitment.

This size doesn't give me a huge amount of variety for appropriate rubber, it's a very common size for van tyres so you have to do a bit of sifting through the listings to find what is actually applicable.

While I'd love to fit the Pirelli Cinturatos that were original spec - at £400 odd each, that just isn't happening. Much as my sense of order would enjoy actually having the specific tyres listed in the handbook on the car. It needs to be a period looking tyre though, something with a very modern tread pattern would just look violently out of place on a car like the Jag. Plus I'd really prefer a tyre with a nice squidgy sidewall like would originally have been fitted to ensure we get as decent a ride as possible.

The one I seem to keep coming back to is the Vredestein Sprint Classic, which the cheapest I've found so far is £224 apiece over here on MyTyres.f anyone has seen them cheaper anywhere else please feel free to sing out. Camskill are one provider I've heard a lot of people mention, however they only have two tyres available in this size, and they're both van types.

Pretty much wherever I go, that bill is still going to sting!

Still waiting for the air conditioning pulley puller to arrive. I got duped by a dodgy Amazon page again, which proudly proclaims to be a UK based seller in several locations...however has a tiny asterisk and states in about 0.2pt text "Goods may be dispatched from our warehouse in the People's Republic of China." So that will turn up at some point down the road...precisely when though is anyone's guess. At least it's not massively urgent.

Had to make another run up the motorway today and can confirm that the exhaust is not at all obtrusive at speed, which is nice. The cruise control is also behaving far better now I've adjusted the cable a bit so the actuator is actually pulling the cable straight rather than at about 30 degrees as it was before.

I imagine once the tyres and brakes are done it will be like a different car to drive.

These are supposedly car tyres but don't really have that "period" look about them www.vintagetyres.com/shop/tyres/maxxis-ma-p1-215-70r15-98h fair bit cheaper though, lower speed rating unfortunately.

Or there's something like this which is a bit too muscle car for an XJS really.. www.longstonetyres.co.uk/tyres/215-70-15/215-70-15-b-f-goodrich.html