Lazlo Woodbine

I think so. It can't be that complicated, can it? Yes you're visible. Where in Devon are you to? I don't know how many members are down this way but I suggest we leave organising something for couple of days so more people can see this thread and chip in. Then we can find out where everyone who's interested is and settle on a location. After that we could talk dates. Or a mini meeting would be cool. What do you think Shaun, Terry and Paul? I sort of know a chap round town with an S-type and a mate if mine's Dad (who I've never met) has one so I could try and rope them in.

I'm in Launceston. There's a good café at Kitt Hill. It's pretty much an equal distance from Sean, Terry and me. An Olympic breakfast (I think it's called that because once every four years is enough) and then a cruise/hoon across the moor to Moretonhampstead for some of the best pork pie in existence sounds like fun to me. Yes I think with my stomach.

My first thought is an inner cv joint. These shouldn't be too difficult to test yourself if you can see them from above. The usual way I do it is put the car in a lowish gear with the handbrake off and, with a hand on the joint to feels for clunks, rock the car back and forth to take up the slack in the drive-train and come up against compression both ways. If it's really worn you may be able to feel it just by turning the drive shaft by hand. It would also be worth checking the engine mounts. I don't know how susceptible X-types are to them failing but front wheel drive cars will tend to lift the engine on acceleration. Pulling away with the bonnet up so you can see the how much the engine moves is a good first test.

I'll start off by saying I don't know the XF-S but generally speaking, unless you know for sure that the air box is a restriction, you'd be better off looking at getting more boost.

I still call them fan belts. I think it's worth checking all round it for damage. I had a car where the belt split inwards from the edge a few mm and left a thin strip of belt flapping about which made a racket.

I believe Russ bought after-market arm complete with bushes for a good price, so yes speak to him. Just changing the lower rear arms is actually quite simple. There's no alignment involved as all the points are fixed and it's only five bolts a side. If the few tools required are available then it's definitely doable by someone competent, or any garage for (I should hope) just a couple of hours labour. Some may understandably not be happy about using customer-supplied parts so it's better to speak to them first. It would also be worth checking for wear in the upper arms, ARB bushes and drop links before hand as it's annoying/expensive to have to take it apart again afterwards.

Good stuff! I hope it's kind to you. They do look good in black. Now that paints a picture..

The press was great for some parts but when it comes to the thin outer shells of the bushes cutting them is far easier. To get a purchase on them with the press would require very precisely sized mandrels which would have taken too long to make to be worthwhile. I bought the bushes from https://www.spring-loaded.co.uk/ as they're local to me. There are lots of people who supply them but Spring Loaded were no more expensive than any of them. There was some lead time from Powerflex as apparently they're not a common part which I can believe as I doubt many people want to make there S-types stiffer. Part numbers were PFF27-601BLK and PFF27-602BLK. That's front and rear bushes for the lower front arms on an X200. There is also a slightly softer compound option, they're purple in colour. Personally I wouldn't fit poly on the inner and rear outer registers on lower arms of the S-type. Their standard bushes are known as "pillow ball bushes" and the way they work is like a ball-joint. So unless they're worn out there is zero radial play but the central tube of the bush is free to move in and out of alignment with the outer shell. This misalignment is necessary for the lower rear arms of the S-type to move through their arcs properly. This is because the mounting points on the chassis do not all align with each other by design for complicated geometry reasons. Polyurethane bushes could have either of the original bushes abilities but not both as making them soft enough to replicate the misalignment would allow radial play and hard enough for no radial play would make the arms bind as they moved through their arcs. That all seems very confusing written down doesn't it? The third bush of the lower arms is the front one and that is a great big bonded metal and rubber jobby. Now that one I would consider polyurethane for but I knew I couldn't afford them when I did my lower rear arms so didn't really look too far into it. The upper arms both front and rear would be good candidates for polyurethane. But do note that they have integral ball-joints so fitting new bushes to old arms may not be worthwhile. The bushes can of course be re-used in another arm though. I fitted Polybush front ARB bushes 6 months ago and am happy with them. I shall also fit poly to the rear ARB at some point as they're looking pretty rough, that's a hell of a job apparently..

Having fitted the arms and done a complete alignment adjustment the car it is now driving beautifully. Cornering is more stable and predictable with none of the wandering or bump steer like tendencies from before. The ride is a little coarser but it really is only on the sorts of slow country lanes where is doesn't matter much anyway. I would say that on the open road at decent speeds the ride is overall far better as the car feels far better planted on the road and doesn't wallow as much. I would even say that there is some feeling through the steering wheel, something the S-type seems to usually do a good job of preventing.. Not only is there more feel for what's going on with the tyres and road surface but the slight knock or judder that I would sometimes get through the wheel when changing direction on rougher roads is gone. Overall I'm very happy with them. None of the improvements I feel could really be judged scientifically as it's all just sensation but it feels better and that's good enough for me.

So I fitted some Powerflex Black Series polyurethane bushes to the lower front arms of my S-type the other week. Mine is the early type suspension so 2002.5 onwards cars will be different but I should think the same differences in ride/handling would apply. It all started with a noisy wheel bearing.. I already had a spare upright which I took the bearing and ball-joint out of back in June as covered by another thread. So I refurbished that ready to go on but I knew the big bushes at the front of the lower arms were poor and couldn't bring myself to fit new void bushes in their place. I have used poly bushes on various cars in the past and although I don't agree that they are better or even equal to rubber in all situations they should in theory be just fine in this application. Here are the arms. Ignore the one nearest as it's upside down. The one further away is as it would sit on the car, as you can see the little bush sits level with the wheel hub. The big one sits some way in front, about level with the tyre. Apparently these big bushes "never fail". I beg to differ. The rubber was even more degraded than shows in the picture. They still took some effort to remove though. The central rubber part pushed out with the hydraulic press quite easily but the aluminium outer shells had to be cut out. Cutting these shells out is really just slotting them so that they can be shrunk in diameter so they let go of the register. It requires accurate cutting but isn't difficult. As you can see in the two pictures above I've made two cuts and removed the bit between them. This can be necessary when the shell is thicker to give room for it to contract. It's best to make each cut a little at a time so that one isn't too much deeper than the other, this helps avoid pinching the saw blade. This is what the big bush was made of. The small bush was awkward. It's a two part bush but the central tube is flared at either end which doesn't make sense to me. I burned and cut the flange off one end so I could push the tube and hopefully the other half of the bush out, it worked. After cleaning up the registers I was ready to put the new bushes in. The big ones actually have the central hole off centre and it's important to get them properly aligned. To do this I marked the register and the smallest part of the bush with a Sharpie so I could keep it lined up as they went in.rim Pushing the new bushes in was uneventful. Just make sure you have all of the old one out. On the small bush I didn't, there was an aluminium shell still in the arm that looked for all the world like part of the arm.

Thank you. It does seem to have worked out well. However the one lens I put a small crack in has developed a few more in random places. So I would say, don't try to remove the lens when cutting it off, just cut away until it falls off itself. I haven't really looked at doing another set yet. The originals off my car are still languishing in the shed so I should really get round to it soon. The wood blades look promising for sure, though I can't help thinking that the plastic's a bit brittle for them to work. I'll have a look as soon as I get a chance and let you all know what method I try.

Is it the variators that are noisy? If it is then in my experience it's often an oil circulation problem as it's usually oil pressure that actuates them. Dirty oil, oil that's too thin or low pressure for any number of reasons, including things as simple as a blocked actuator pressure valve, can cause variators to rattle or lock in one position etc. Of course they could be faulty, but if both (or all four? I don't know the XK8 engine) started rattling at the same time then I would look for another cause.

On the underside of the dash next to the steering column on early cars. You don't need to take off any covers but it is tricky to find without getting down there with a torch. I don't know about later cars. I have a generic reader and like virtually all of them it won't read the ABS system. I don't know what else they can't communicate with.

Suspension work is awkward if you do it yourself and can be very expensive if you don't. They do seem to wear bushes out fairly quickly as well. My car's done 114k and I've replaced most of mine and the ones I haven't aren't the originals. Apart from maybe the rear ARB bushes, I'm not looking forward to them.. The cars changed significantly in 2002. New front suspension, new dashboard, electric handbrake, can-bus to name a few. You can easily tell the later cars as they have the badge built into the grille surround. There was then another major revision in 2005 when the very different rear end was introduced. Personally I'm glad I have the early model as I do all maintenance and repairs myself, not only easier to work on but also cheaper. I'm told the 2002.5 on cars handle significantly better and were better built but at the age of S-types now each car has to judged on its own merits.

No loss of fluid also points to master cylinder. Although generally yes, that gives uneven braking. I believe this is due to a split braking system (which your car undoubtedly has) having two pistons and two outlets and so effectively two master cylinders in one. So fluid leaking past the seal of one piston but not the other means that you'd still have braking on one circuit (usually one front and the diagonally opposite rear caliper/slave cylinder). I have put new seals in a master cylinder before but then found that the bore is worn and letting fluid past the seals regardless of how good they are. For me this has only been on a single circuit system so it led to a consistent loss of braking all round, not uneven. However if a twin circuit master cylinder's bore was worn all the way along it could in theory cause the symptoms you describe as fluid could get past both pistons. I would say it was worth taking the cylinder off and checking the bore from front to back for any increase in diameter which would indicate wear.

I dream of having a second shed. My one and only is 6x4' and has to contend with all my tools, a bench with a vice, chainsaws, car and bike spares etc. It resembles a really deep cupboard most of the time.

There is a Swansea! That show should have never had a laugh track.

It has to be said, that is a terrible photo shop effort.

I have two sheds in the morning, I have two sheds at night, I have two sheds in the afternoon, it makes me feel all right, I have two sheds in times of peace and two in times of war, etc.. Welcome. I won't be any help with XF specific things but do bear in mind that underneath it's basically a late model S-type so much of the information on mechanical parts on here will be relevant.

They're a nightmare those things. If you can get onto the screws with some pliers, grips etc. then they should snap pretty easily. If it helps the bumper is surprisingly easy to take off. A screw in each wheel arch about in line with the reflectors and one between the main and dip lamps either side.

Have you had it scanned at all yet? I know I was suggesting the coil testing/swapping but if you're not confident that they're good then scanning the car may be the way forward at this point. I've got a cheap scanner that doesn't do Jag specific stuff like ABS etc. but it does engine codes. You know what, if you PM me your address I'll post it to you. .

Well thank you, but I'm not so sure I do. I just like to play about and have a bit of fun with these sort of things. I took the back off the seat again to readjust the lumbar. It hadn't slipped, I just wanted to see if I could make it better. I'm still really pleased with the results of such a quick and easy job.

Yes, my Golf is one of the first electronically controlled VW diesels and is 20 years old, but it still seems alien to me.