INSIDER KNOWLEDGE
Jack Palfrey has owned his 1996 XK8 convertible for six years. He works for Jaguar Land Rover, so he surely knew what he was letting himself in for when he bought it. We find out what he’s had to do to keep it on the road.
Jaguar Land Rover Service Programme Engineer Jack Palfrey’s boss was involved in the development of the XK8, so it could surely be argued that Jack is well-placed to run one of these cars. They’re far from perfect, with talk of plastic timing chain tensioners for the 4.0-litre V8 engine being susceptible to fracturing and failing (upgradeable with later steel tensioners), not to mention lots of scare stories over the early engines having Nikasil liners that resulted in engine failure. And then there’s the corrosion that seems to be a typical inheritance with almost any steel-bodied Jaguar from the 1990s or before. Sills, wheelarches, rear quarters and chassis legs – none appear to escape the dreaded tinworm.
However, if looked after, the XK8 is a fantastic and remarkably cheap highperformance sports car. Back in 2014, Jack bought his for a mere £4500 – nowadays they are a little more expensive, but not much more. As we look around his XK8, Jack points out the damage to the underside of the bonnet’s soundproofing, which he suspects is where the plastic inlet manifold (an alloy- effect coating proved too expensive during preproduction costings) has fouled it. He also comments on the line of the wings and bonnet, which are lower than the later XK8 X150 model because those had to comply with safety regulations that necessitated a greater gap between the top of the engine and the underside of the bonnet.
Some aspects of this XK8 have baffled Jack and his boss. For example, Jack initially thought the wheels were a dealer option, but his boss cannot recall this, nor ever seeing these wheels fitted. A little more digging around reveals they are possibly a set of BBS alloys, as fitted to BMWs. The PCD (pitch circle diameter) on the BMW and XK8 is the same, so they can be swapped over and, as Jack has done, Jaguar decals can be added to the centre caps.
Before owning this XK8, Jack had already cut his teeth on DIY maintenance and modifications. 'My parents bought me a Mk1 Golf Cabriolet to work on in my teens to keep me out of trouble,' he explains. 'I learnt
a lot on that, especially when I ended up breaking it for spares as it had a lot of body rot.'
Having learnt to drive in a Mk3 Vauxhall Cavalier, he’s owned several Mk3 Astras, an Audi A6 and A4 Avant Quattro and another VW Golf Cabriolet, some of which he has resprayed and customised. 'I've tinkered with cars all my life,' he says. 'I got friendly with a custom painter in Somerset just down the road from where I lived, so any spare time I had I helped him out, and we ended up painting a lot of my vehicles. I helped out on some custom bodywork too, which I also used on my A6.'
Jack’s bodywork skills came in useful when he attended Bridgwater College and completed their foundation degree in Motorsport Technology, followed by the final year top-up at Oxford Brookes University. 'From this I joined Jaguar Land Rover as a Service Process Validation Engineer,' he says, 'which involved working on full CAD renderings of vehicles in the development stages and carrying out service and repair work with virtual models of hand tools and digital manikins to assess exactly how a vehicle can be serviced and repaired, checking access to all fixings and raising issues.
'I’m now a Service Programme Engineer assigned to a number of vehicle programmes, and I’m the first port of call for anything service-related during the five-year development of those programmes. It’s my job to ensure vehicles are as easy and quick to service and repair as possible, liaising with programme and engineer teams at component and complete vehicle level. It’s a varied job depending on where the vehicle is at on the development timeline, and what particular component we have a problem with – anything from air filters to gloveboxes.'
Back in 2014, Jack realised that the price of XK8s had slumped, so he thought about buying one and looked at a few. 'There was a nice 2000MY that was a little out of my budget and not quite to the spec I wanted, but in hindsight maybe I should have bought it – it had 20in wheels which I'm not keen on, no winter pack and a few window gremlins, but other than that was in great condition and had loads of history,' he says. 'I also saw a completely rotten one full of filler at a socalled specialist. It'd had a lot of work done, but was overall very poor and the rear arch inner was pretty much nonexistent.'
The car that seemed to be more suitable was the convertible seen here. At the time, it had a little over 122,000 miles on the clock, and had a few extras such as a winter pack that included heated seats, heated and folding door mirrors, a heated windscreen and headlight washers.
'I got some history from the previous owner and a fully stamped service book – the important bit,' he says. 'I also got someone in JLR to have a look at the warranty history for me, of which I have a copy. Interestingly it had some gearbox issues early in its life, and at 500 miles it had a new gearbox fitted due to an intermittent problem. Then two years later some more
gearbox complaints resulted in re-adjustment of the cable and a filter and oil change.'
Further gearbox trouble arose after Jack took over ownership of the car. All XK8s of this age are equipped with a five-speed ZF automatic gearbox. During a trip to Bournemouth with his wife in the summer of 2016, Jack noticed a pool of liquid underneath the front of the car, but after checking all the essential underbonnet fluids, he couldn’t find the source of the leak. On the return journey home, the fluid loss turned into a problem when he floored the throttle pedal.
'I got to about 3000rpm in second gear and it jumped, the revs went up, then it reengaged second,' he explains. 'It was transmission fluid that had been leaking, so I got her up to speed, nursing in higher gears and fortunately it was a clear drive home. I was hoping that there was enough fluid to keep her going without causing damage. I know the system holds ten litres, although three is taken in the torque converter.'
A mile or so from home, the XK8 went into safe mode and the gearbox remained in fourth gear, but Jack managed to make it back. The next day, he topped up the gearbox, cleaned any transmission oil that had leaked out and went for a short test drive before peering underneath. ' With an inspection torch I could see fluid escaping from the rubber section of pipe to the cooler in the radiator,' he explains. 'It seems the OEM crimps on the hydraulic pipes may have failed.'
Fixing the problem wasn’t a simple case of fitting new crimps. Instead he had to remove the bonnet, the radiator fan shroud and power steering pump. Despite this, Jack is proud to say that his XK8 has never broken down and needed rescuing, but he has been forward thinking and has replaced the alternator, power steering pump, oil cooler pipes, thermostat housing and coolant header tank when they started to show signs of trouble.
'I do all my own servicing and repairs where time and facilities allow,' he explains. 'I’ve checked the timing tensioners when I changed the camshaft cover seals – they have been changed and are certainly not the original ones. I’ve had particular trouble with the PAS pump in that it failed, but that's not unusual for a 20- odd-year- old car with 130,000 miles. I fitted a recon unit, however within the warranty period of the pump that one also failed. I got a replacement free of charge, but then around a year or so later that one also failed. With no warranty to lean on this time, I was a little disappointed to say the least, but then managed to get a good used OEM one for £50 from a specialist Jaguar garage near Stratford-uponAvon, PRP Vehicle Services of Snitterfield. Phil is the owner and has been my go-to chap for the past few years for jobs that are beyond my abilities and that I simply don't have the time to do anymore with two young children. He was refitting a lowmileage engine from one of his reputable suppliers to another customer’s car and he did not need any ancillaries. So at the moment that one is holding fine, proof that sometimes reconditioned components are not as good as OEM.'
One repair took Jack several months to complete because he needed to source the secondhand parts. When he bought his XK8, the chrome finish on the headlight bezels and the reflectors was peeling off, which is a common problem. He managed to fix the defect at first with some chrome- effect spray paint. He also thought about painting the bezels black, which was featured on the 2004-2006 XK8 X100, but he liked the idea of sticking with originality.
So he kept looking for a set of secondhand headlight units, which needed to include
cut- outs for the washers that are part of the winter options pack. Having found a nearside headlight unit in good condition, he kept looking for an offside unit. 'It had been well over a year and I still hadn’t sourced one when a pair popped up on eBay,' he recalls. 'The pictures were unclear of their condition, but at just £40 they were very cheap and so I took a punt and bought both. A few days later they arrived, and I was pleasantly surprised with the condition. They were a little dirty, but they were complete and in good condition.'
Unfortunately, the replacement headlight units didn’t have the washers that Jack needed, but he eventually plucked up the courage to dismantle one of them and his old offside headlight unit to see if he could make one good one from two. 'I set about trying to prise the lens from the bezel on the new unit,' he explains. 'I had a quick check on my power wash lamp and found that with minimal effort the seal was giving way.' But while the lens on his old headlight unit could be removed, the lens on the replacement unit refused to come off. 'I tried heating the lens with a heat gun and in the oven on low heat, but nothing helped soften the sealant,' says Jack. 'In the end I took the
drastic decision to break the lens and remove it in pieces.' Armed with his old lens (which included the cut- out for the washers) plus a dismantled replacement headlight unit with a good reflector and bezel, he started to assemble the two together. 'I used black RTV [room temperature vulcanising] to reseal the lens to the bezel. This seemed to work well, and also act as a good sealant to prevent water ingress.'
The RTV fully dried after a few days, then Jack looked at the lighting part of the unit, hoping he could use the back of it. Both units were different, so he resorted to stripping them and assembling one unit with as many parts from the replacement unit as possible, and it worked.
A common problem associated with the XK8 concerns corrosion of the chassis legs, close to where the front subframe is mounted, along with wear of the subframe’s V-shaped mounting bushes, not to mention worn upper wishbone suspension bushes. The corrosion can usually be seen from within the front wheelarches, but the solution is to remove the subframe to repair it.
Jack has taken a precautionary approach with this potential issue, explaining: 'The front subframe and suspension have been swapped with a rebuilt and reconditioned unit I was building up in my garage with new balljoints, V-mounts, engine mounts and suspension bushes. The donor frame was from a later XK8, so it came with the larger discs and single-pot calipers – a handy bonus and an almost invisible upgrade. The subframe was swapped because the fulcrum bolt on one of the upper wishbone arms had seized and worn an egg-shaped hole in the alloy frame – a common issue. In addition, the body needed welding in the common corrosion point on the front longitudinals.'
Some jobs have been a little more creative. For instance, Jack designed the exhaust tailpipes and decided to remove the mid and rear silencers. 'I had access to some very sketchy CAD data, so in my spare time I modelled up some pipes in CAD and overlaid them to see how they would fit. After some adjustments, I got the pipe angles and lengths right, then set about finding a supplier for the tailpipes. Some searching eventually led me to a custom exhaust fabricator, JP Exhausts
of Macclesfield, who fabricated the rear pipes I designed, while ProFlow exhausts fabricated the finishers with correct size flanges to bolt onto the pipes.'
Jack also wanted to redesign and replace the pipework that’s routed over the rear driveshafts, but realised it was a complex set of over-axle curves. Fortunately, specialist Adamesh had already done this, so he ordered a pair from them. 'The note from the exhaust now that the mid and rear silencers have been removed is immense,' he exclaims. 'Every now and again, the throttle has to be planted and it never fails to put a smile on my face, but under moderate load or low revs it burbles nicely and is not obtrusive at all while still having a distinct V8 cross plane crank sound.'
The XK8’s interior has been renovated and customised a little. For example, Jack has recoloured the cream leather seats and upholstery. Using glue and plastic welding, he retrimmed the burgundy suede door cards using material from a fabric supplier. The hood has been revived with a £40 Renovo cleaning, dye and proofing kit. 'This does take time, not so much in the actual undertaking but the time for drying between stages,' he explains. 'I’d say it’s doable over a weekend if you’re not using the car.' He’s also renewed the hydraulic fluid in the hood’s system, but discovered the hood wasn’t locking into place (the latch is also hydraulically operated) as the system needed bleeding.
Jack’s skills for car painting and customising have returned to use. He’s resprayed the bumpers, sills and the offside door and wing. 'I have a small garage I use for painting,' he says. 'It's six feet wide so I can't get the car in, but use it as a workshop, and I have a couple of paint guns and an air compressor which is a basic setup. I'm not a professional, but I can get a good finish.'
Having driven, owned and modified numerous cars, Jack feels the XK8 is more than a match for his Audis, Volkswagens and Vauxhalls. 'I’ve always loved the X100, whether in XK8 or XKR trim, and always dreamt of owning one,' he says. 'Now that I do, it is every bit as rewarding as I thought it would be. I get admiring looks from all sorts of people. It’s not as much fun to drive as something like an MX-5 in terms of dynamics, but it’s a great GT cruiser. It’s by far the best handling car I’ve owned and the best in terms of performance and making you feel special.'
Recently, Jack has experimented with different sets of wheels, having sourced a set of 9x18in factory alloys (flute design) with spacers for the rear to maintain the correct track difference front-to-rear. 'Next on the list is the rear subframe overhaul, and while I’m at it fitting an X300 XJR clutched LSD, which needs a few donor parts for the rear frame and a custom propshaft made up from an XKR as the XJR diff has an offset pinion.' This is one of the advantages of owning a Jaguar – parts from other models are often interchangeable. Consequently, this has got Jack thinking even further.
'One thing working for JLR has enabled me to do is thrash out how I could fit a manual gearbox to the car using the six-speed gearbox from an S-Type 2.7D,' he explains. 'The box mates right up to the bellhousing and fits the later gearbox mounts and propshaft too. But the bellhousing is much wider and wipes out the catalysts, so some expensive custom race ones would need to be fabricated. There’s also the issue of custom flywheels and clutches and how to fool the engine into thinking that the auto unit is still fitted. It all gets very expensive, but is always in the back of my mind.'
It’s reassuring to see that a car which was once far too expensive for the majority of car enthusiasts is not only affordable, but capable of being serviced, fixed and modified at home. Perhaps this is the key to its future survival, and maybe the recognition it needs as a classic car?
Thanks to The Manor Country House Hotel (www. themanorweston.com) near Bicester for the use of their grounds for photography.