Purrrdy XJS

[Carole Simpson-Hadley]

Seems a while since Purrrdy, our 92MY XJS Phase One Facelift 4.0 litre, was first introduced to the JOC Forum, having come to us from the auction sale at the Practical Classics Restoration Show at the NEC in early April.    At last, hoorah, we have pretty much got to where we want to be with her, just in time for the Jaguar Breakfast Club XJ50 "do" at JLR Classic.

We have learnt a lot about the XJS over the past 5 months, not least the fun to be had sourcing parts......such as lower front panel from Florida, for example, not to mention understanding the idiosyncrasies of Jaguar part number supercession, and how small items changed over different VIN ranges........pass the headache pills!

We decided not to go down the XJS Reborn road of nut and bolt resto; firstly, she didn't need it, and secondly, the wallet didn't need it either.   We confined ourselves to those jobs that needed doing, a great deal of elbow grease and time with the Autoglym products etc., with originality being the order of the day.    The only variation from the latter was fitting of a quad headlight conversion, partly because one of our reflectors was a little dull, and partly because the original "insect eye" units are not known for great illumination.

So it was that one rear quarter bumper was removed for rechroming (great fun removing the rubber finisher and rebonding it afterwards); replacement of lower front panel behind the bumper....this panel is invariably in fair degrading to rubbish condition on any XJS; new windscreen due to milkiness on one corner (fortunately, we found an ex-Jaguar rectification fellow who had "removed and replaced more XJS windscreens during the production years than enough"........handy when you consider that the aluminium brightwork is no longer available and doesn't take kindly to anything other than very careful treatment); new shock absorber top bushes and mounts.....usual XJS problem; and a myriad of small but time consuming items which included making sense of the Jaguar wiring diagrams (repeat thanks to joe.dot.com for coming up with the link to some accurate diagrams).

Purrrdy lives in the garage but, for the moment, without her own Carcoon whilst Myfannwy (our X150 XK) who does live in a Carcoon says "yah boo sucks , I'm very cosy, thankyou".

Acknowledgements are due to SNG Barratt for patience whilst we sourced our parts, Worcester Classic Cars who carried out the items which we couldn't manage, leaving us with time to tackle the many jobs which we did accomplish, KWE XJS Reborn for some helpful advice, and the good 'ole British weather which actually stayed dry each time we had a "work day", meaning Purrdy hasn't got wet with us yet.

Any interchange of XJS views more than welcome........happy growling!

 

[Guest]

Looking good Carole. Errrrm, the Jag that is, no need for YoH concern.