Well...brought the 98 to the local indie shop who's been handling my bigger XJ8 projects for a once-over:

1. Lube, oil, filter. All the zerks were hit with lube, new fresh oil, new filter.
1a. Flushed the brake fluid and replaced with fresh and bled.

2. Had a small coolant leak from one of the quick connect fittings on the octopus hose. O-ring had hardened up and wasn't sealing. Replaced fitting, new o-ring, pressure tested, flushed and refilled coolant. No leaks.

3. Replaced the original plastic tensioner pulleys and belts with OEM originals.

4. Inspected suspension bushings and rocked stuff under the car. All tight and not wiggling. Car still needs to have the alignment reset so the steering wheel is straight; car tracks fine, just the steering wheel is cocked a tad to the left. My OCD kicks in and it is a 'bothers me' issue rather than a mechanical fault. Next time.

5. Pulled valve covers...this engine's made it to 137K+ miles with the original tensioners. He's ordered the complete upper/lower chain and tensioner sets and scheduled for the end of the month to upgrade the system. None of the tensioners are missing the slip pads (he dropped a borescope down the front the check the lower ones...everything is (for now) as it should be, so his advice (it's on classic weekend-only driving insurance, so, the XJR doesn't get driven all that much) is to just do the job when the parts come in (firm quote of $1200USD for the job). I asked him to also replace the thermo and water pump at the same time since the service records I do have which stretch back to the original owner don't mention them ever being done, and he has to pull the bits and pieces off to pull the front of the mill anyway. Replace now with new and be done with it, right?

6. We replaced the J-gate surround with the O/H unit I rebuilt a month ago to get the backlight working. It does now, and all the LEDs light up, so, it's good to go. Difference in the (R) vs the (8) is that the (8) transmission has to have a microswitch to tell the computer when you shift to 4 from drive to downselect from O/D and the Merc tranny in the R is smart enough to figure that out on its own internally. So, removed the O/D switch from the J-gate assembly and will install on the J-gate we pulled to swap into the (8).

Still have to get to the body man to talk about redoing the bumper covers, take out some parking lot crease via PDR, and respraying the roof and boot, and fixing some of the peeling clearcoat on the exterior door handles. My wrench's comment about the car (it was originally a california car) is that the underside is clean, no rust to worry about, and it looks like the collision on the front passenger side was fixed quite well. So...the project moves forward, if not by leaps across canyons, then by increments (which is easier on the checkbook, right?)

When I finish (or get close) the XJR, I will probably be offering my extensively-worked-on XJ8 for sale...for a reasonable price. SWMBO is kind of hoping that I thin my Jag herd...so, one will have to go, if anyone is looking for a nice example...