Hi all,
Yesterday I took possession of a rather sad looking 73 XJ12L. It comes with a healthy V12 that is on dedicated LPG with twin vaporizes and gas research throttle bodies. It also has twin LPG tanks and has had the petrol tanks removed along with the carbies and the fillers installed neatly under the filler flaps.

The car comes with a spare set of screens, full set of mint seats, spare bumpers, full door and screen rubber set, almost mint pepper pots and too many other spares to mention. It does need the sills completely replaced and the inner sills patched up but apart from that I got mint bolt on's with it (doors, wings, bonnet, boot ect). So although there is a bit of work it shouldn't be too hard or expensive to end up with a mint and quite rare classic XJ.


The donk with its LPG system


A wee bit crusty, through the inner sill too!


Even in its dilapidated state it looks like its about to leap into action and put the little rice burners to shame


Missing its beautiful V12 grill!

I would be very interested to hear of / see any series 1 xj12l's left with their v12 as i would expect they would be rather rare. Hear in Aus you hardly even see a v12 series 1 let along a long wheel base version. Its a shame I dont have the original carbs but im thrilled with the gas system as it will surely run better and be much more reliable then the old quad carbs. It might get a turbo 700 when its restored as I would like to make it a daily driver, it should be very cheap to run on gas as over here its less then half the price of petrol, but as we all know doesn't go as far either.

Thanks,
Jay

 

She's a rare beast, bloody beautiful. Good on ya for taking it on. Loved Jags all me life and never seen a LWB SI.

 

A lot of body work to do there ! What you have shown is by no means the end of it; you'll find plenty more if you look around.

 

Good find.

That will keep you very occupied for quite some time.

LWB, very rare.

 

Thanks guys, I could not resist buying it when it came up, if for nothing else then the pepperpots for my series 3!

Fraser, you are right, the original bolt on's had plenty of rust in them too but the car came with a full set of absolutely mint guards, doors, bonnet, boot, chromes ect so this rust and some under the boot is all I am left with. Ive had it on the hoist and had a good poke around and was pleasantly surprised. What ever under body coating jaguar used has done an amazing job at preserving the car! all around the screens and filler caps are basically mint, of course with very small rust bubbles under the screen rubbers. Come to think of it where the floor pan meets the firewall in the wheel well is a bit questionable tho.....

The car also has a set of stainless mufflers that are worth more then what I paid for the car if ebay is anything to go by. The more I look the more it pays off!

I wonder if anyone has the production and delivery stats for series 1 cars?

Thanks,
Jay

 

Looks like a top projet you've got there. The LPG set up is a bonus. Good luck with the resto.

 

What is the metal like around the rear radius arms mounting to the body ? This is the start of a U-shaped box section that goes all the way round the back of the wheel arch, and is well known for rotting away at the bottom 4". Also there is a cross member under the radiator, another well known rot point, and also an upright box at the front of the inner wheel arch, yet again a rot point. You need to have the wings off to inspect properly. Back of the rear wheel arches will be rotted out, I'm sure. I am only going on what I have personally seen over the years. I had a Series 3 for 14 years and did a lot of body work.

 

The area around the radius arm was the first bit I inspected up on the hoist and its like the day it left the factory thanks to the undercoating. There is no wool over your eyes on the rear wheel arches tho I must admit. The bolt on panel that runs from the wheel arch under the tank are absolutely rotten to bits, however, the car came with mint ones. I had a quick poke at the rad cross member and it looked solid.

i know where you are talking about the rust on the bottom of the A pillar where it meets the sill as this is the only structural rust in my series 3, its basically rusted half way off! Ill fix this up one day when the mig is warm.

I really did expect much worse, the sills as you see are an issue. I almost didnt buy it because of the rust in the inner sill but at that stage i had basically committed to it and now looking at it, its going to be quite easy to fix with the interior and outer sill out of the way.

I spent an full hour under the car with a screw driver looking for rust but apart from the boot floor I found no more then i knew about and much less then I expected originally being a British delivered car.

Thanks,
Jay

 

Aren't Oz cars less prone to rust due to salt-free roads ?

BTW the radius arm mounting area usually rots from the inside due to condensation gathering at the horizontal face of the end of the box section.

 

S'posed to be - but it depends on where you are me thinks. My XJ came from the blast furnace known to Aussies as Perth :-) and is rust free. My leather was toast though. It was my daily driver until I moved back home and took it with me.
A LWB ser I ? Madness. Definitely a rare one. It must have a very late build date since I believed ( until now) that the LWB cars were introduced in the series II line. Special order perhaps? My car is an early ser II SWB.

 

Australian cars dont suffer anywhere near the rust that american and English cars seem to, however this car was originally an English delivered car.

Im not 100% but I believe the series 1 ran in long and short wheel base for basically all of the production, but with the introduction of the series 2 the short wheel base was dropped in all but the coup. Either way ive never seen another xj12l come up in Australia. apparently there was 750 xj12l's made and something like 2500 xj12 swb so they are both pretty rare compared to the 100,000 series 1 cars made in total

 

As far as I know I thought ALL series I cars were SWB, with the exception of the numbers noted above, which I didn't know. Need to look into that - that's quite interesting. I understood that the SWB and LWB cars were built side by side for one year only - 1974, first of the ser II era. The SWB platform was kept, as you said , only for the coupes beyond 1974.
Must crack open a few books....

By the way - I will definitely be picking your brain on a few electrical sniggles I'm experiencing.