+1 on cleaning all connections and grounds. The majority of the much-ballyhooed 'Lucas, Prince of Darkness' horrors can be solved this way.

It'll take some time and patience, as there are so many, but there's decent chance you'll find the problem AND pre-emptively solve future problems with other systems.

One tip: the main connection to the distributor is underneath that mass of wires and hoses, sitting down at the bottom of the 'Vee'. That's one you don't wanna miss!

Get the car back from the shop. With no tangible symptom present they'll just be spinning their wheels and you'll be paying.

Cheers
DD

 

Shop went through, cleaned all the grounds, checked everything obvious but because the problem "self corrected" by the time we got to the shop and the only thing to measure as less than was the ignition amp so we replaced it. The car starts much faster and, maybe it's the placebo effect, but the car seems to be running better, somehow. The shop only charged me for 1 hour.

 

Even if the shop did nothing else but clean all of the earth grounds, I would say that they did you a lot of good for that one hour service charge. No vehicle is going to run right with loose or tarnished earth grounds.

 

Thanks Grant. I had not heard of an inertia switch before your post. My 1996 turned over w/o starting and it turned out that the inertia switch had been triggered, likely by my messing around with the interior in that area. Thanks again.

 

I purchased a 1988 XJS 3.6 auto last week.
I did a first 5km test drive . Everything looks OK.
I turned off the engine normaly with the key. When I want to start it, cranks but won't start...
I checked - it has a spark. When the car cooled down, it started immediately. Is this CRANKSHAFT POSITION SENSOR fault ?
Today the story repeated itself... When is hot, won't start... What's wrong?

 

zarnca,

This thread related to a V12 XJS. I'd suggest you start a new thread on the problem with your 3.6. Briefly, there's a number of problems you could have incl, blocked fuel filter to fuel pressure at the rail, vacuum in fuel tank etc etc.

Maybe start a new thread and describe fully the symptoms, eg Does the car continue to run fine until it's turned off? Have you checked for fuel flow when it's cranking but not starting? When was the fuel filter last changed? How much fuel in the tank? etc

Cheers

Paul