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^^^ So Phil you didn't do anything today after all?
I did the C1095 repair for the ABS/Trac Fail warnings. Steady on every trip after reaching 12.5 mph. Code reader fought me but I managed to capture C1095, pump motor failure. I remembered this common "failure" and looked up the threads.
The repair was quite easy. Didn't need to bend the brake lines much at all. Resoldered the connections. Was unsure that it would really be cured. But it was, no more warning lights! The pump motor is just fine. Thanks Aholbro and motorcarman, among others.
Mrs wasn't happy with her manual passenger seat and kept pestering me about it so eventually I bought a Daimler seat with every single option possible and proceeded to swap the entire base, below are some pics I've taken, they are not in correct order but you'll get the idea.
Yes, I've moved the heat pads too so will now have a passenger heated seat, all using sports seats too, dont think I ever saw one like that!
Its not an easy job, must have taken me ~6 hours.
If anyone decides to do this, don't cut the whole for controls in the same place, on sports seats they are in slightly different position.
Welcomed a new X300 to the family on Friday... found on Hemmings, drove back to Santa Fe from LA on Thursday. The drive was a nice way to wrap up a business trip, and I got to take the missus to a nice restaurant this weekend as a belated valentines day date. 1997 VDP Carnival Red.
She ain't perfect, but the to-do list is manageable and the interior leather is almost perfect (coffee, I think).
So, I washed her, vacuumed everything, and put a nice coat of wax on the outside. Very happy
SleekJag12 - you are 100% correct. Kind of addicted to the 20 spoke chrome wheels too... there was a VandenPlas shaped hole in my heart since the drive to Texas last June for fathers day.
Perhaps one day, if our paths cross, you can introduce me to the dark side of the 6.0L v12. After I get a few more years of scar tissue and experience with the 4.0L six, of course.
there was a VandenPlas shaped hole in my heart since the drive to Texas last June for fathers day.
Originally Posted by cafe flyer
Perhaps one day, if our paths cross, you can introduce me to the dark side of the 6.0L v12. After I get a few more years of scar tissue and experience with the 4.0L six, of course.
Continue on the path, you will. Useful will be your Jedi skills when you are face to face with the Dark Side.
Retroffited a power seat that I put together from a Daimler seat couple posts above.
Socket for the main loom is hidden in a hole under carpet close to transmission tunnel. That's also where seat loom link that plugs to seat bolts on and hides in secured with metal clip. That red plastic cover is where ground for the seat link bolts on. The plug is sadly covered in a black foam that after 25 years turned into a very sticky black plasticine, horrid stuff, needed lots of brake cleaner to get it off the socket. Plugged in and all was well.
All works now and I have a fully electric passenger sport seat, even the heat pads works great. Mrs is finally happy
Tap and die set was needed, these seat bolts are so easy to crossthread and they are made from a soft metal.
1997 VDP Carnival Red (Ruby Tuesday)... more like over the last two weeks, but what the hey:
(1) New floormats from eBay, extended rear mats that fit the VDP perfectly seller goboilers1
(2) New windshield wiper.... only took me 20 minutes to figure out how to install it on the hook more time that it took to order it
(3) Cleaned up the front of the engine, 122k miles of road gunk and engine fluids... looks much better, and will show any leaks if/when they are there (suspect a valve cover gasket is in my future for Ruby Tuesday)
(4) Harmonic Balancer replaced with no cursing, lost skin, or bent/banged up car parts! Helped to have my son along, who made the puller and the holder, and has done this before... so happy to have that done! thank you for this post and
(5) Along the way, took off the pulley tensioner assembly and cleaned it down to factory finish, regreased, and re-assembled
(6) Radiator and condenser grommets replaced... amazing how many people just never even look for these... "what is that clanking noise?" thank you Forums!
(7) Perhaps most importantly, removed the chrome exhaust tips and polished them to factory shine with the paraphernalia purchased to do the dimple wheels on the 1995 silver XJ
(8) Wait, no, this is most important... gave the 1995 Silver XJ to my son, took a sunday drive with him, and he started the instagram channel "reed_x300_collective"... sniff... proud papa
cottonwoods reflecting the graceful curves of the cars... somewhere outside of Madrid NM
what I do at night... polish chrome at the bar
home-made puller, torque bar for tightening leaning against the wall, and the wooden brace that holds the 3/4" extension for when you loosen the harmonic balancer nut with the starter
the long 3/4" SAE 16 bolt whose thread matches the factory hex head bolt that holds the harmonic balancer on... amazingly easy to get the new harmonic balancer on with this! I have two extra, Message me if you would like to have one on hand (ordered from Grainger.com... awesome site for nuts and bolts etc)
I'll need to get myself some stainless rear boxes too, had to go the cheapo route for now as car ran out of MOT and exhaust started blowing literally a day before I was going to take it for the MOT and cant wait for new ones. Anyway here's what happened...
So this muffler is utter chinesium garbage, only got it 4 years ago for the previous car. Felt robbed seeing this huge hole so I've decided to fix it with a piece of old Jag front wing
Should get another couple years out of it now. MOT next.
Silver 1995 Xj6 - worked with my son to help him change the lower radiator hose and the bast**d hose... gave us a chance to clean and re-assemble all of the air intake before the throttle body, as well as the black air "compressor" that feeds extra air into the cats on cold startup. We forgot to hook up the coolant temperature sensor, which resulted in a very high idle, then unable to start after shutting it off... following the advice of wise veterans, we poured some whiskey on the rocks, chilled out for a few hours, then came back and checked all the plugs. Re-filled and topped off coolant, cleaned the O2 sensors, car purrs like it should.
Red 1997 VDP - Sent clock off to Module Masters for repair, ordered Aux/bluetooth device for factory radio from Discount Car Stereo, replaced the front valance and fabricated new clips to go with 6mm hex head screws instead of the crappy plastic single-use fasteners (I hate those things), and replaced the hood and truck struts. Thank goodness for the forums on the trunk struts! Fabricated a 20" "strut removing and replacing tool" from one leg of a tomato cage - huge help in loosening the clip in the bowels of the car behind the back seat, in getting the socket off the little ball, and in holding the clip open till the new strut was back on the ball (once seated, just pull the tool back and the clip slid right into place). No more chance of hood or trunk causing injury, esp when its windy in NM. Also am on the sixth careful coat of polyurethane on the steering wheel, carefully filling and sanding the places where it cracked... on final sanding and coat now, glossy and smooth, important for something that you see and touch every time you drive. Oh, and new buttons for the two remotes, installed after dis-assembly, cleaning, and new batteries... these remotes are pricy, if you can find them.
Finally, made a sunday trip to Starbucks this afternoon for a well-deserved beverage and a twisty-road drive with my son in the silver car. It was a good day/weekend
the end that you wedge into the clip to loosen it away from the socket the flat end that you use to get the socket off the ball 20" is just about perfect real OEM buttons for the two remotes... yay! new hose, installed... a lot easier to get on, esp with a heat gun, than to get the old one off (the cleaning was fun too... thank you paint can opener and patience) old bast**d hose, failed on a rev test initiated by my son, thankfully in the driveway new valance, installed, with the new fasteners... much stronger! painted black, just because (maybe to help prevent rust) making fasteners with metal, nuts, JB weld, and patience
Quite productive day today, I have FINALLY got to changing gearbox oil. I think I've bought that oil 5 or 6 years ago. Have to say I really dont know why I haven't done it earlier, the difference is clearly noticeable, gears change much smoother and that's with only 4l of oil changed!
I've got the rear end up on stands, started the car hoping that this might actually cause the oil that is in converter to flow to the pan but no, even with the car in drive/reverse I've only managed to drain approx 4l of oil and that taken roughly half hour. I'll have to repeat it couple more times, wont be waiting another 5 or 6 years to do it though
I've also finally removed driver side door card and lubed up door check arm. It not longer opens like a victorian wardrobe. Was always very creaky since I bought the car. Also somehow managed not to break any door card clips! As a last thing today, I've connected back my bluetooth adapter to the factory radio. Last time I had it apart I forgot to plug it in
If that check arm is making popping sounds, you need to shore it up quickly! Probably a how-to on here somewhere, but can be done with door card in-situ, IIRC, so you've likely not lost any time in not doing it while you were in there. The basics: Dig a C-shaped foam block out of the door at the check arm. Undo the fixings and fit large fender-washers on the back side. Also on the front if they'll fit, I can't recall if so. But if it pops when you open/close, then the door sheet metal has a crack. Some number of openings and closings later, a chunk of it will break off and the door side of your check arm will be free-floating and no longer checking the door. Can still be repaired then, but is much more involved.
Yes, that was my first thought that metal is cracked but no, was just creaky arm, go figure. Added lots of grease and silicone spray and its good as new and still super quiet. Another productive day today.
Started with rad and heater core flush, new coolant, followed by another gearbox oil change, this time with filter and new gasket and ended with engine oil flush, followed by new oil. filter and even added some additive to treat the cat.
Glad I did gearbox filter, one pan magnet was full of clutch material, probably half a cm thick layer on top of it, the other one surprisingly clean. Top of the filter was covered in clutch material sediment
Not a pretty view, I was actually surprised but gearbox still seems perfect and when I bought the car few years back, oil was still pink, not sure if this is normal or not, first time I did filter myself, clearly a good idea to do it once in a while.
Was a bit of a pain to get the pan back with my teeth in the floor pretty much, crawling underneath the car but its doable. I think the filter I had(bought 10 years ago) was for an older box and I had to chop of pick up tube at the bottom of the filter to fit it in(x300 filter doesn't have a pick up)
Oil change as always its messy but also needed changing, think last time I did it was 2 years ago, maybe 3.
Only diff oil now to change, that might happen next weekend.
Well its a nice long weekend, and finally not raining after like 2 months of almost constant rain, so there is not better time then now to get a few things done.
- So i gave the girl a nice well deserved wash,
- I took out and remounted my LED headlights so they sit more centered and look much neater install.
- i replaced the LCD screen on my clock, (realised the new lcd has 1 missing line, but not worth replacing again for that, is only the to line of the first one so only affects 6 hours a day, LOL. i think the lcd got slightly damaged in transit)
- adjusted my bonnet strikers so my bonnet closes better and sits flush now.
hopefully get another couple small things done over the rest of the weekend too.
Well its a nice long weekend, and finally not raining after like 2 months of almost constant rain, so there is not better time then now to get a few things done.
- So i gave the girl a nice well deserved wash,
- I took out and remounted my LED headlights so they sit more centered and look much neater install.
- i replaced the LCD screen on my clock, (realised the new lcd has 1 missing line, but not worth replacing again for that, is only the to line of the first one so only affects 6 hours a day, LOL. i think the lcd got slightly damaged in transit)
- adjusted my bonnet strikers so my bonnet closes better and sits flush now.
hopefully get another couple small things done over the rest of the weekend too.
realised i could nbot handle the fact my clock was still buggy. partly due to the fact it was just annoying, and partly due to the fact that i can't accept fixing something and leaving it half done....
took it out today... realised that it was a loose connection on the ribbon cable to the PCB....
so used some hot glue (ontop of the ribbon between the white shroud , the heat from which will help adhere the glue on the cable down, and then put the white shroud on and pressed it down very tight until the glue cooled and set so that the hot glue now creates a shim to ensure good pressure and connection..
not sure what job is next on the list.
leaking power steering is certainly a priority fix, it is leaking from the low pressure before the pump and the high pressure near the steering rack. i think i need to replace all hoses.
Just bought my manual XJR back from the third owner it's had since I sold it in 2017. Actually in better shape than I sold it, which is a relief. Now to hunt down the cause of a rough idle.
Returned from a trip to CA, and treated myself to an easy task -
1997 Red VDP got a new antenna for the factory radio. Took out the whole power up/down unit from the trunk, removed the cover, cleaned up the crud in the gears and ramps etc, re-greased everything, re-assembled with new antenna. No rust, very quiet now, no popping/grinding. Nice little project with not much at stake and I could start and finish it in about an hour or two. Satisfying.
Now I gotta buy some gear oil and replace the goo currently residing in the diff...
02-19-2022, 01:53 AM
more time that it took to order it
