Hello again!
Further to my introduction thread, I'd like to start a thread for my car. Since the car is relatively complete, it feels a little misleading to call it a "build thread", but that's the theme - a place to describe any meaningful updates to the car, share photos of what I'm working on, and solicit input on whatever challenges I'm facing. It will also serve as my maintenance records because I'm rather bad at keeping track of those otherwise.

So, the car. It is a 1992 Sovereign in Westminster Blue (JFG). Touching briefly on its history, this car was sold new at Budds' Imported Cars in Oakville, ON which remains a Jaguar and Land Rover dealer today. Its first owner was in Brampton, ON until about 1996, then it lived in Alberta until mid-2007 when it came back to Ontario. I am not sure if that first owner moved to AB or if the car was sold to someone there. In 2012, it was bought (sold to? traded in?) by Toyota Town, a dealer in London, ON, after which it was sold to an owner in Windsor, ON, sold again to an owner who never put it on the road, and now most recently to me. In 2012, the car had 48,552km. Today it has 51,768km. No maintenance records were available with the car, but I have not yet purchased a car with maintenance records and am not particularly concerned about this.

Although I'd call myself extremely mechanically competent for a "home gamer", this will be my first experience with anything not originating from North America, my first car with Lucas engine management (though it sounds like it's just a licensed Bosch system likely very similar to my Fords), and my first experience with the Teves system. I'm approaching this as a car I need to learn more about before I start messing around too much - but that won't stop me from messing around mildly in the meantime.

I bought the car in moderately non-running condition. The seller had provided a video of it running in the ad, but across a number of showings prior to me seeing the car, it ran out of gas. New fuel from a gas can did not revive it. After poking my head underneath and observing the car's physical condition (particularly it being not rusty), I took a gamble and bought it anyway. First, I did pick up a new battery for it as the old was very dead and expanded from having been frozen previously, but found with the new battery it still would not start. I prepared myself for the possibility of a failed fuel pump as I didn't believe I could hear it priming. I returned to the car the following day with some tools to try to diagnose that fault and confirm the problem is inside the tank. I had brought the new, but now mildly ran-down from cranking battery home and charged it overnight. I brought an additional gas can of freshly purchased premium.

First, I checked the fuel pump inertia switch. The switch did not appear to be tripped, but I smacked it to make it trip, and then clicked it back down again, to exercise its contacts.

Then, I verified power at one of the fat wires on the fuel pump relay.
Then, I verified that the other fat wire on the fuel pump relay becomes hot for a couple seconds, then turns off again, when the ignition is turned to run.
So, we know the computer is commanding the relay on, and the relay is passing voltage into the wire that goes to the pump.

While doing that, noticed that I heard a distinct "fluid-ish" sound from the engine. It is a sound that I could believe is fuel squeezing through a pressure regulator into a return line.
Repeated key cycles to prime the pump repeated the same noise. I checked the pressure regulator vacuum port and found it dry, which is good.
There is no pressure test port on this system and opening it with a wrench would have been messy so I opted not to do that.
I tried to start it, and found it sputtered to life, would not gain any RPM with the pedal, and stalled quickly.

I looked at the distributor contacts and they looked OK. I then opened the air filter box. I couldn't get it open enough to actually see the media side of the filter (or, for example, to see if it was full of mouse nest), but I was able to create a gap allowing unfiltered air in.

The car starts and runs! It has a bad miss on at least 2 cylinders, but when it's brought above idle it runs pretty smooth but won't hold a constant RPM. I was initially concerned as this sounds alarmingly headgaskety to my mind, but the oil isn't milkshaked, there is zero smoke, the exhaust smells about right aside from a hint of unburnt fuel. Compression test will be a priority. I will note that with each subsequent restart it has ran better and better. It has improved to the point now that I could believe the only outstanding fault may be mildly fouled plugs, perhaps a vacuum leak, and perhaps a dirty mass air sensor. Do keep in mind that despite all the words I said here, I didn't actually change anything meaningful except for fresh gas and many attempts to start it. Unless the inertia switch was tripped and just didn't look like it.

I popped it in drive and took it around the parking lot. I managed to verify that it moves under its own power both forward and back, and seems to have at least 3 of its forward gears, with shifts that felt confident. Sweet. I immediately went to rent a truck and a trailer, and hauled the car home.







Washing it the following day revealed there are some paint deficiencies which the large amount of dirt on the car had been hiding. It has a couple scratches from items being stored on top of the car, as well as a small spot of rust here and there which likely started as small paint chips. These will require attention to keep the car in the condition it presents in today.

Itemizing some defects or other aspects that will require attention:

• Paint deficiencies as noted above
• The radio antenna mast is missing. The motor appears to run so I believe this may be as simple as just buying a mast and ensuring none of the old mast is broken off inside.
• The radio does not output any audio while appearing to otherwise work. But if it has any internal static-canceling features, this may simply be because of the missing antenna mast. I haven't tried cassette or CD yet.
• The small thin piece of brightwork that spans the trunk lid above the license plate is detached at the right end from its plastic retainer. I have not looked closely enough to figure out if it can just be clipped back on or if something is broken.
• The instrument cluster backlighting is illuminated at all times that the battery is connected. Therefore, I am keeping the battery disconnected presently. Some searches online have found people implicating cold solder joints on the lighting control circuit board (which the headlight, hazard, and fog light switches are part of).
• The rear suspension makes an obnoxious clunk noise when traversing bumps. My current suspicion is that the car retains its hydraulic suspension components, but that the system is not operable and is depressurized which may be the source of the clunk. I haven't looked closely at any of this yet.
• VCM indicates "FUSE 1". I have been unable to identify any blown fuse so far.
• The left rear lock actuator appears to either be broken, or the mechanism it acts upon is sticky. It tries to work but does not succeed, and pulling the knob up by hand finds it to be very stiff.
• The tires, while having plenty of tread and holding air, are not in roadworthy condition. I will most likely swap something inexpensive on to make the car roadworthy and worry about a proper tire, better suited to the car, later.
• To my expectations, the exterior lighting is working a little bit weirdly. The front side markers do not illuminate but it isn't clear to me that they are designed to. At all times when the car is running, exterior lights seem to be on regardless of switch position. I'm not sure if this is a way of implementing DRL or if something is wrong or what else it may be.
• All of the fluids and filters will need to be changed.
• The ignition lock cylinder is jammed/seized (shows no evidence of abuse/attempted theft) and was removed from the car to facilitate unlocking the steering column and starting the car with just the switch. I did receive original Jaguar keys with the car - one black and one green (valet?). All other locks function correctly.
• The idle quality/engine running issue definitely requires attention but it is my hope that throwing new plugs, fuel filter, and air filter at it (+clean the MAF) may take care of most of it.

So my work's at least somewhat cut out for me, but I don't think it's going to be terribly hard to get the car to the point of being usable.

That feels like a reasonable break point for this post. I have another update to add as well, but it's a bit of a separate train of thought, so I'll pre-emptively beg forgiveness for the double-post.

 

The immediate update I promised:
This past Saturday, I went to two self-serve junkyards (auto recyclers, if you prefer) looking for parts for both the Jag and my other vehicles. My findings were as follows:

U Pull R Parts (recently formerly Cherry Picked Auto Parts), Toledo, OH
1990 Vanden Plas


I did channel a little bit of Clarkson by getting the lock cylinder security bolts out using a hammer.
Items purchased:

• throttle position sensor, as I've noticed it's a ludicrously expensive part to buy a replacement for, should it ever be needed
• ignition switch, lock cylinder, and key (did not wish to disassemble the doors to get all of the locks out, so will be content to have my car use 2 keys)
• the lighting control circuit board so that I may have a spare in pursuit of my instrument cluster issue
• power seat switch bezel, as one of mine has a crack

All in, around 30 USD.

I moved on to Parts Galore, in Detroit, MI
1990 XJ6


This car was in substantially worse shape, and was also substantially more picked-over.
It did allow me to figure out how "swappable" the 4-light setup is, and the answer seems to be "very easily and cheaply". Aesthetically I do prefer the 4-light setup but I am disappointed to see it makes use of North American standard sealed beam lamps. I figured they would be separate bulbs and housings specific to the car.



I did not buy any parts from the XJ6 as my hands were full with things from this:



But this is jaguarforums, not lincolnforums.

 

My previous XJ40 3.2 was a one owner car and did a lot of inner city driving and tended to be a bit rough around the idle. I did a run of 350ks just after acquiring it and it settled down quite well.
In your case those are extremely low kilometres for a car of this age. With the low compression on two cylinders, I suspect the exhaust valves are leaky due to carbon build up.
That is a common problem on the later AJ16 engine, but I think it could apply to the AJ6 engine as well. Basically, cars that are only driven around town will foul up the exhaust valves.
The cure is to get the car on a highway and give it a good flogging with high revs in intermediate gears. You might want to throw in a good dose of upper cylinder lubricant.
In my AJ16 case it took 50ks to bring back two low compression cylinders to even compressions all round.