1992 Jaguar XJ40 Sovereign

Seems to be a success - couldn't drive with the window down before as it seemed to suck the vapors in. Test drive it was fine - no noises from tank or cap. Boot still smells a bit when you open it but I guess it's had, potentially, years of fuel fumes in it. I'll monitor it over the next week or so.

All lights at the back fixed! Only one warning light on the dash and that's for front pads. I've bought a set of pads and some very heavy new discs so that'll be my next job.

I've also replaced the ariel grommet which has stopped 90% of the water ingress in the boot. The rest is coming from the fuel filler gaitor. There's a split where it clamps onto the plastic hose. The hose was also blocked - I took it out of the boot floor grommet and blew down it - big fountain of curse word came flying out! Cleaned as much as I could from the main gaitor and tested it with the kettle. Nothing really came in - I guess with it being blocked, the water would fill up and find the split to escape through. Now the drain is unblocked, the majority of it is going the right way. - I may take it off and fix it with rubber cement or just replace it.

All in all a successful day on the big Jaaaaag

Bother on the lights. The earth for them is just behind the cluster so might be worth giving that a scrub if you haven't already.

The other thing that I've found is if there's any break in the sealant holding the lamp lens on then you can get water pooling inside the lamp, which corrodes some of the connections (and leaks into the boot!). Might be worth pulling the back off and seeing if there's anything in there. To fix that I just drilled a drain hole in the bottom of the lamp so it drained out above the bumper, which seems to have sorted it.

Sorted the lights - bad earth as mentioned 👍

I've been wanting to get it prepped for the winter so I put it on axle stands and jet washed the entire chassis. I then used Lanoguard and hit the whole thing. Thankfully, it's as solid at I thought it was - I found no nasty surprises! There's a patch needed where the passenger floor goes up to the firewall near the jacking point but the jacking point is still super solid (had it on the axle stand). There's also 3 or 4 very small pin holes in the driver's footwell caused by wet carpets so it's gone through from the inside out. 

I used a wire wheel and cleaned the floors up from the inside and then hit it with some paint just for now as I'll be welding the hole up and then tidying it up from there.

Now for the current issue.... I drove it round the corner and it decided to cut out when the revs dropped down. It only did it occasionally but when it switched to LPG it did it every time.

I decided to give it a full service and change the ignition parts - turns out the plugs aren't iridium (need hotter plugs for lpg) so I bought a set. 

I changed the plugs, leads, dizzy cap, rotor arm, and coil and then changed the oil and filter.

Then I got a check engine light! 😂


When I checked the code it says FUEL 23 FAIL 23

I'm currently trawling Google for ideas but if anyone can point me in the right direction that'd be swell!

Here's some pics of some nice new ignition parts and how it looks under the arches with the Lanoguard

I expect you've found this site in your googling, but if not it's got a list of all the fault codes: www.jagweb.com/aj6eng/fault_codes.php

Also, I remembered that XJ40.com doesn't appear on google for some reason (does that mean it's part of the dark web ). It's one of the better XJ40 sites for technical expertise, so you might find something there.

Seems to have gone away now - drives absolutely great but if I put it in nuetral and rev it it cuts out. Does it everytime on LPG and occasionally on petrol. No warning lights or codes now though

Thanks man - interesting to hear that perspective! I was but a bonny wee bairn when they came out but I've always, always loved the look. Had lots of x300s and 308s but never been brave enough for an xj40 until now. I'm absolutely loving it!

Very shiny!!
Cool old thing.

Ha ha, that won't be happening any time soon!

The stereo has clearly been replaced at some point as the wires in the back of the Jag stereo have been brutally sliced at the plug. The original stereo has been thrown back in to sell the car so obviously doesn't work. Now, I could wire it up again following the colours but I suspect that it would sound a bit papp and I'm partial to some tasty sounds in my rides.

I'm wanting to keep the interior looking period correct so have been researching headunit options and I'm pretty much settled on the Blaupunkt Skagen 400 DAB:





 
It's around £140. The one below it is £80 but it's less powerful. This one is 4x50watt. It has bluetooth, USB connection, and AUX in as well as DAB radio. There's another Blaupunkt one which looks awesome but is WAY out of my budget.

This one also has different colour lighting to choose from so I'll be able to switch to green to best match the interior lighting.

Now the problem I'm having in my research is that my XJ40 is a 92 model and therefore has a 6 speaker system with some shared earths. The speaker wiring is also very thin meaning 20watts max. There are 2 bass speakers under the rear seat and 1 coaxial in each door. 

I believe the door speakers are 3.5" whereas the rear bass pair are 5.25" (please correct me if I'm wrong - there is a lot of conflicting information!)

It seems that I wouldn't be able to just fit this stereo as I wouldn't be able to wire the 4 channel headunit to the 6 channel system.

So my current thinking is - buy 4 new door speakers and put new thicker speaker wire in. Keep the back two speaker grilles for original looks but behind them fit an underseat sub/amp (assuming there's space as I've not looked yet.)


Has anyone got any experience of this in a 6 speaker XJ40?

Also - as I'm not so hot on understanding the specs - could someone please recommend the best speaker specs to match this headunit? 

Specs;

Speaker Outputs (Channels): 4
Preamp Outputs (Channels, Voltage): 4 (RCA, < 2V)
Sub-Out (Channels, Voltage): 2 (RCA, < 2V, gain/ frequency variable)
Max. Power: 4 x 50 watts
Sine power at 14.4 V: 4 x 24 watts (according to DIN 45324)