1985 Jaguar XJ-S V12 HE

Synstrip is pretty effective - from Starchem - not much it does not wrinkle on contact!

After quite a bit of experimentation I eventually came to the conclusion that the correct formula required to remove the old finish from the woodwork is a combination of carefully applied heat and patience. I'm sure if I could get hold of some proper old school Nitromors (the can we thought I'd found it turned out had dissolved the bottom out of the tin) or similar I'm sure it would be sorted in minutes...but the modern water based nonsense is a total waste of space when up against what I am pretty sure at this point is a polyeurythane clearcoat.

The starting point:



After the old clear coat had been removed it was given a gentle rub down with 1200 grit sand paper just to remove any bits I had missed and to key the surface ready for the application of the new coating.



Which is a little disheartening to be honest as it ends up looking awful when the first couple of coats are applied.



However after a few coats it did start to look better, though spraying one coat when the ambient temperature was too cold resulted in a satin-like finish at close of play a couple of days ago.



Today though it felt like we actually made decent progress towards it looking decent, reasonably warm but breezy weather was ideal to get several coats added to it which has resulted in a pretty decent finish.





I think this one better demonstrates the degree of gloss we've managed to attain (even though the camera has helpfully focused on the wrong surface).



Those pieces are sitting in the spare room just now safely tucked away while the clearcoat fully hardens. Given I now have a workflow which works reasonably well for this I'll look to get the remaining trim removed and put through a similar treatment shortly. While this isn't maybe a factory perfect finish I think it's fair to say that it will look a whole lot better in the car than the flaky mess that's currently in there.

Looking good. Which lacquer/clear coat are you using?

That did come up well.

Little package arrived this morning containing the replacement switches for the Jag. Not hard to spot the difference is it?





The other two have a little bit of crazing in the lenses but nothing that sticks out so badly so I'll keep my eyes peeled for a hazard and interior light 2 switch turning up cheap. I'm guessing these are prone to cracking like this based on the mental prices that new ones seem to be advertised at on eBay. I don't care how special you think it is..I ain't paying £75 for a switch!

Second task was reinstating the glove compartment lid...



Fair to say that's improved the interior immeasurably. I look forward to getting the strips on the doors done too...not so much looking forward to having to strip them down to get the strips off though!

Main useful job for the day though was to try to track down where the oil leak I noticed yesterday was coming from.

Despite looking quite impressive based on the spatter on the back of the car and the smoke that had come off the exhaust, there wasn't any obvious drop in the engine bay.

Engine oil still sitting on full (reads about 1/2" high here because of the slope of our drive).



Gearbox oil likewise is sitting on maximum (if anything slightly over full). Not horrible burnt looking fluid either which is nice to see.



Power steering fluid is sitting on the "add" mark, but it hasn't moved since I got the car.

Looking underneath the car didn't immediately reveal anything obvious. The marks on the ground were from where oil has dropped from the exhaust fasteners and heat shields.





The complexity of the rear suspension of this car is quite something. Having seen it on diagrams is one thing, but it will take a while for the novelty of looking under the back of my own car and seeing a pair of springs on each wheel to wear off.



There were a couple of areas which I wanted to take a closer look at.

The rear of the left hand cylinder bank definitely has a leak from the cam cover.



Looking at it I suspect that the connection to the air conditioning expansion valve will want checking out given it's visibly oily. Hopefully being a flare nut it will just need to be nipped up a bit.

The other area that's obviously oily is the front end of the right hand bank. While these areas are only, neither looked wet enough to explain the degree of splatter on the back of the car I'd seen.

A common area to cause issues are the pipes to/from the front mounted oil cooler...which looks absolutely disgusting, but in half an hour of the engine running didn't produce a single actual drip...so I think a thorough session with the degreaser and pressure washer might be in order here to pin down where this is coming from.



So definitely attention needed there but I'm pretty sure it isn't the main issue.

Having a dig around did reveal a horrific mess below the brake servo though due to the small fluid leak spotted earlier.



That will want cleaning up sooner rather than later.

Eventually after the engine had been running for about 30 minutes I spotted a fresh drip on the driveway away over on the far side of the car.



A closer look at the new drop revealed that it was definitely engine oil.



This is right to the rear end of the left cylinder bank, and looking up from by that exhaust flange shows this assembly up there...





This is the engine end of the lines to the oil cooler.

My guess is we've got a failed seal in there which is allowing oil to be forced out at higher engine speeds.

Given this is a bit of a pig to get to without a ramp I may well chuck this at my local garage to sort as it shouldn't really be too bad a job on a four post lift. I'll probably just get a set of seals for everything involved here so I've got everything necessary in hand. It's probably the difference between it taking me two to four hours scrambling around on my back getting oil in my eyes versus it taking them fifteen minutes on the lift.

Finally actually got the service items ordered...



I thought I'd already done this...however it turns out I'm an idiot and while I had the items in my basket I'd never clicked the button to complete the order. Yes I am indeed an idiot.

Mine used to pour out around there for the first minute or so after a cold start, there were a couple of o rings which had gone rock hard, can't remember exactly where they were but it wasn't a massive job to change them.

Only a quick update today. I discovered yesterday that half the interior lights weren't working in the Jag. This happening immediately after I changed one of the switches involved seemed far too much of a coincidence, so I took a closer look. Sure enough, they're different. The new switch only be four pins on the back rather than six on the old one. So I switched over the cap from the old and new switches and put everything back together. Problem solved.

I've also painted the area behind the switches alongside the trip computer black for now. I will be looking for some veneer offcuts to rebuild the wood trim here in due course, but this looks better than the cracked, warped mess that was there for the time being.





The distributor breather air filter has also been swapped for something a little more standard looking.



The red anodised thing would have looked at home on my Suzuki Cappuccino...not so much on a Jag.

The switches do come apart so yes, just the clear section can be swapped. The two I changed though were cheap enough it wasn't worth worrying about too much. The tiny cracks in the remaining two really aren't noticeable so I'm not losing sleep over it... I'll keep my eyes open at any classic shows, autojumbles etc. Sure two pristine examples will turn up.

How about covering the panel in black vinyl like the dashboard top?