I admire your attention to detail. !

 

That's reminded me to find a rubber stopper for one of those large holes in the trunk floor.
One of mine just popped open for some reason. Weird.

 

I have found that the dust boots on the calipers can develop small holes and leaks.
That includes the new boots too - are they less well made than the twenty year old ones?!
I absolutely hate messing with brake fluid.

 

She's worthy of the hand treatment.

 

So I'm extremely pleased to report that the replacement of my front sway bar links has made a noticeable improvement in my car. (see above post from two days ago)

I wasn't really aware of any "problem" from the front end, but the fitting of the new sway bar links has definitely made things smoother, quieter and firmer, so I guess the old links were worn despite the fact that they didn't show this by either manual or visual inspection. It's a case of not realizing there was a "problem" until it went away. I'm quite amazed, and very pleased!

 

Filed my front brake discs as I've been getting a very annoying scratching sound when going over road humps etc.
At first I thought it was the splash guards, but I've changed my diagnosis to cover all bases.

filing a bit of rust off the discs - just in case

Also removed the splashguards, but I'm going to replace them later I think - mulling it over.
Changed my oil and added forte seal conditioner - 240,000 miles now so that's hopefully going to help out.
And had to replace the steering boot - ripped because it got trapped in the steering rack.

 

What did I do to my XJ8 today.....pretty much nothing, it sat under its cover in the garage as usual.

I'm finding that with this Covid thing we are venturing out even less than we used to. Checking the miles on the car I see I have only done 1,170 miles in the last 7 months, that's 167 miles a month, or if this keeps up, just 2,005 miles a year. For short trips to the store etc., we just use one of the "regular" vehicles.

Not that it's a bad thing to do reduced mileage, everyone loves a low mileage vehicle, especially if it is at least used regularly.

.

 

Had a dentist appt. & they're doing the covid protocol, wait in your car & come out to get you,take temp. etc. Well my dentist caught a glimpse of the freshly wiped down BRG marvel & made me an offer after my exam lol. Sorry doc, she's a keeper lol.

 

freshly wiped down BRG marvel & made me an offer after my exam lol. Sorry doc, she's a keeper lol.[/QUOTE]

Charles,
Meant to give you a compliment on the BRG above.
If I ever get another X308 it will be BRG.
( then silver, then mystic blue lol)
( have 1 Anthracite, and 1 Carnival for starters )
not to mention the x350

Which brings me to a question. How many Jaguars
(And Or cars ) are too many. ..?? Lol
I'm already divorced so no issues there . Lmao
Been looking at a couple of last year XJS 6.0 V-12s

Is there a 12 step program for car people ? Is it Jaguar specific?

I sympathize with Carnival.
I also find myself taking the Jags out less and less as all my favorite places, events and shows are cancelled .
There are no destinations right now. Battery tenders getting lots of action.
I just jump in the old truck since it sits out anyway




​​​​

 

Can always go for an early morning cruise!
I'd love to add an xj220, 94-04 Esprit, Ducati 996, C4 ZR-1, Carbon 65 C7 GS and Pagani Zonda Roadster, lol! Ah, Ferrari F50, XJR 15 and A CLK GTR. Ok, I'm done. I think!

 

Covid 19 = In Storage since May 1st.
No point in leaving it out, other car to use, namely wife's car (not Jaguars).

 

Yesterday on flat road my car jerked and awarded me with 'transmission failure' message and red light. "A-drum" I thought and remembered "trans-go" kit that I got almost 3 years ago and never installed. I 'limped' to nearest parking area, turned off engine and had an internal debate whether to repair transmission, get new one , sell car, call towing.... . Eventually I decided to 'limp' car home as I was just two miles away. The car made another noticeable jerk when I put it in rear, but after that I drove home like nothing happened...

What I did to my XJ8 today?.... I installed that Transgo 5HP-24-PR kit , and new filter, and gasket... Tomorrow I just need to fill transmission with new fluid and fingers crossed...

 

By now I filled transmission with oil following this : - couldn't be happier with the results! One tip that helped me a lot - I was using syringe type pump with flexible hose. It helped a lot to insert copper wire into hose so that about an inch is sticking out. I bent that inch so that wire was secured to hose end, and then I could bend hose with wire into a comfortable shape.

 

Had a very productive past couple weekends!
First weekend: Oil change, FR bearing replace (in attempt to diagnose weird vibration), finally added wiring for the FL turn signal repeater that's absent in NAS spec cars. Got a couple proper tools (knipex snapring pliers, bearing puller, better press adapters) for the bearing job that took it from a 6h misery to 1.5h of straightforward work.

Next weekend (2 weekends later but whatever): A very clean, black XJ8 showed up in the local junkyard. Grabbed the hood, front right side sill, grille, both headlight surrounds, sunroof panel to replace the pitted/cracked/chipping ones on my car. Replaced the hood in the parking lot of a 6Tractor Supply Co since the junkyard didn't allow work in the yard lot. The new hood is slightly off color (it was repainted, and seems slightly less blac/more metallic content?), and has some orange peel. Not ideal, but cheap, and a step up from the pitted and peeling hood I had. Haven't put the side sill on yet. Kind of preferred the black grille surround over the chrome, but at least I can give the old one to a paint shop to do while driving the car with the chrome grille surround.


In the meantime, christmas came early, with a VCM (maybe a clone but whatever) and a Toughbook! Going to clone/backup the HDD before installing anything on the laptop, then maybe I can finally do some things with SDD diagnostics!

 

Passenger side rear tire's going flat I discovered this in a pre-hurricane Isaias deluge that left us w/ 4-5 inches of rain in a matter of hours. Not fun having your car dog tracking/waddle in pooled water on a busy freeway @ 75 mph lol. It's a shame too as these Michelins have less than 6,000 miles. I'll inspect it once the weather clears, maybe just a road debris puncture, we shall see.

 

Well 1st inspection, the air's coming from center tread w/ no visible debris/puncture. It's such a fast leak the breach must be substantial, there's a tire shop maybe 3 blocks away being I'm living dangerously w/ no spare Penta I'll have to inflate it & drive briskly to said shop. This is a reminder for me to get a spare Penta for the trunk lol.

Gotta say if the tread's given up the ghost & cracked w/ less than 5,500 miles on it I will be very disappointed w/ Michelin. That said I hope once the wheel's off it's a standard puncture.

 

Wish you the best Charles . Nothing more annoying than leaky tire and rim issues .

 

KC, I'm always cautious about tire repairs, yeah I know they are pretty good these days, and it's not exactly like we are driving around at 130mph speeds (much of the time?) so a repair can be a safe solution, but I always feel so much safer with 4 "virgin" tires.

Not all of us can afford to replace a tire just due to a puncture, and it often puts a "wear conflict" with the other 3 tires, but I'm still not a fan of tire repairs.

Slightly off subject, or at least tangent to it, the other "tire factor" can be the date stamp. Tires are date-stamped with their manufacture date, and according to the experts tire life is approx 6 years to maintain a good safety standard, so this can have an affect on tire-replace-or-tire-repair decisions.
I experienced tire-age consequence once, my wife's Honda CRV has an outboard mounted spare tire under a tire cover on the back access door. One time I figured I should rotate the unused spare tire to lengthen the life of the 4 rolling tires and put the spare tire on one of the four corners. Now the spare tire by this time had been mounted in the spare position for about 9 years and so I was a little concerned of its age limitations, and sure enough a few weeks later, on a freeway trip at 75 mph the tread just separated from the main tire and left me changing a tire on the side of the freeway!







You are driving around with no spare?........that's "dangerous" living! LOL

.

 

All these tires are at 5,300 miles,freshly rotated w/ good manufacture dates when installed 1.5 years ago. I'll see what's going on w/ the tire off @ a shop. Yeah my Penta spare hunt just got new life for sure lol.

 

I remember driving as a young poor boy on tires that were low mileage but 25 or 30 years old without issue .
​​​​​In recent years it seems tires start to disintegrate Crack and dry rot much quicker regardless of miles. A shame for what they cost for good ones .

Just like beer , they never used to have an expiration date.

I just put new shoes on 4 vehicles recently. Ouch!!!