If this doesn't quit..........
 

someone is liable to be charged!

Ok, so the car came in at $8k, leaving $2k for repairs and upgrades. First on the list will be a night out to a great restaurant to thank the wife (and show off the car)! Next will be to replace the tail light lens (easy). The car already has new Michelin tires, brakes and rebuilt front end. A/C is working great. Might need to replace the top due to some wear spots and the driver's side seat has some wear on the outside bolster that will require some leather work. That should leave a bit left over for "unknowns". "I love it when a plan comes together! " Hannibal Smith, the A Team.

Fun thread!

Father in law also had a V12 XJS and a 350 transplant xj6 years ago. The XJS was an experience.

Fetched it home!
 

My wife and I took the road trip up to Huntsville, AL. to pick up the XJS. Left S. Georgia on Wednesday morning and got home about 3:00 pm on Thursday. It is about 375 miles from my house to Huntsville but we made it in about 7 hours in the diesel Excursion. Met with the PO, did all the paperwork, bill of sale, title, etc. Went over the car and got some basic instruction on what worked what, switches ,etc. We left Huntsville about 5:00pm and headed back down the road to Birmingham where we spent the night. Got up early on Thursday so we could beat some of the traffic getting thru Birmingham and headed on home. The Jag ran great, didn't even think about overheating even on hills that caused my ears to pop twice going up and twice coming back down! We finally got back to Albany, GA. about 1:00 and stopped at an Olive Garden for a nice sit down lunch. After lunch, I headed on home and my wife decided to do some shopping while she was in the "big city". Fuel mileage for the trip was about 25+ mpg. When I got home, I parked the car on the paved part of the driveway to see if there would be any leaks. None found! The a/c even seems to work well! So, when we went out for supper last night, the (car's) top came down, the boot put on and off we went for the first official drive as a convertible. When we got home, I put it in the shop to cool down and will make a complete check of vital fluids this morning. The car came with only one key so I will have to make a trip to Atlanta to get a spare made. Will probably do that next week. Oh, yes, as near as I can tell, all of the electrics work! Amazing!

Too late I know, as you've already bought the XJS, but I was going to suggest a Rage kitcar. They can be driven sideways almost all the time.

Fluids...........
 

Spent a bit of time under the hood of the Jag this morning checking all of the fluids. Everything was up to specs except the power steering which needed probably 3-4 ounces to come up to level. Will get around to an oil change in a day or two. The existing oil only has about 1000 miles on it but has been in the engine for nearly a year. Also need to check the coolant for acidity to see if it needs to be flushed and refilled. So far, no leaks! Got the title processed this morning and got a Georgia license plate for it. Had to pay a one time advalorem tax of about $350 but from now on the tag fee will only be $20 per year! I found and ordered what appears to be a very comprehensive shop manual for the car. It is almost 700 pages of info so it should cover most of what I will need to know. I made up a short list of about 15 items that will need to be done. A lot of the items are cosmetic but a few will require wrenches. I found a Jag dealer that has some key blanks so I will be paying him a visit sometime soon. More to come!

Saturday.........
 

Spent some time on Saturday putting some wax on the car. It must have been quite a while since it was waxed as the paint really soaked it up! I wound up putting about 4-5 coats on the hood and trunk lid (worst part) and one or two coats on the vertical surfaces. There are still a couple of spots on the hood and trunk that will require some power polishing but all in all it looks pretty good. I did find one brake light bulb that is out so that will get replaced ASAP. There is a neat warning light on the dash that lights up when the brake pedal is pushed if a bulb is out. Otherwise, I probably would not have noticed. I also discovered that the engine is equipped with the factory block heater! Hopefully I won't ever need to use it! I started to clean up/polish the headlight covers but discovered that they can be removed for cleaning inside as well. Will wait on that job until the shop manual arrives to see the proper method for removing the headlights. Don't want to break anything! The car is starting to look pretty good with the top down and the boot in place. Hope the good weather holds, would like to just keep the top down for a while!

Making progress.......
 

Went up to Atlanta yesterday and got a couple of spare ignition/door keys made. The blanks are NLA so I was lucky to find a couple at a dealer. I was also able to get a new security/door lock fob and get it programmed to the car. The one that came with the car apparently is dead but still makes a nice ring accessory for the key. Next step is to change the oil and filter and see about a new convertible top. The car ran well, used the a/c a bit and appear to have gotten about 25 mpg on the trip. On the other hand, traffic was a b***h, especially on I85 and GA400 (going up) and on I285 East coming home! At least the car didn't overheat in all of that "bumper to bumper" stuff!

Jag works............
 

Finally got a chance to see what was wrong with the handbrake. Turns out it was just jammed. Got it to release and now it seems to work well. Interesting design, the handle pulls up to lock the parking brakes and then lowers back down to be out of the way! Next, I took a look at the rear brakes to adjust the parking brake shoes only to discover that the rear rotors were quite worn and that the parking brake shoes were in not so great shape also. Fortunately, my car is one of the later ones with the rear brakes moved to the normal outboard position. This makes them much easier to work on! Got parts ordered and will continue when they arrive. The front brakes, on the other hand, are basically new. New rotors, new pads , etc. I took the Porsche out for a drive and to go order the parts. There is sooooo much difference in the performance levels between the two cars!

You have an English "fly-off" handbrake. It was used on most old English sports cars like MGs Bentleys & Astons around WW2. Apart from being out-of-the-way convenient it is an indicator of your Jags sporting heritage.

One of these just showed up in town, sitting on a trailer with a For Sale sign on it. Haggerty says average price is $5500. This one is black and looks almost as nice as the one in this photo, so $10k+ is likely. I'm not sure I can control myself, so I'm avoiding driving down that street for a while.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1402074590.jpg

Love love love the Catalina with the 8 bolt wheels!

Been there.......
 

A friend of mine had one of these in about 1969 or so. His was black with the red and grey interior and had a '64 GTO Tri Power engine! The 8 lug wheels meant that it also had the good brakes which was a lifesaver a couple of times! Great car, low, wide and a good cruiser! You know that you really need to go take a good look at this car!

Rear brakes...........
 

Finally got all of the correct parts for the XJS rear brake job. Pulled the passenger side apart and found that the brake rotor was worn to the minimum thickness and that the parking brake shoes were almost gone (how does one wear out a parking brake?). Anyway, got all the small parts cleaned up, reassembled the parking brake bits and installed the new rotor. Checked the handbrake for movement at the parking brake shoes (it did) and adjusted the shoes a few clicks. Now, when the hand brake is pulled up 3-4 clicks the right rear wheel parking brake works properly. Moved over to the driver's side and took it apart. When the rotor came off I discovered that one of the parking brake lining had come off the brake shoe! After lunch I will reassemble the driver's side, adjust and check for wheel lockup (and recheck the passenger side....just in case), clean the inside of the rear wheels put the wheels back on and the job will be done! It will be nice to have a functional parking brake and new brakes on the rear of the car!

I put considerable wear on the parking brake band on my '47 Dodge a few years ago. It is so slow and has so much torque I didn't notice the brake was partially on. Apparently the brake warning light had stopped working and I didn't know the brake was on until the aroma emitter went off.

One of those...

http://www.erikaslist.com/pictures/bimmerRedo1.jpg

Fun to drive like you wouldn't believe, currently going up in value. Although they are like 911SCs used to be 10y ago, they'll cost you 20K in the end, pay now or later. But 10K will get you a nice drivable car and tons of smiles. Easy to work on too...

I like the idea of flying lessons too, but that's even costlier long term ;-)