Jaguar XJ6 S1
1972 JAGUAR XJ6 SERIES 1 4.2 SWB
My XJ6 is easily the best and most original car I’ve ever owned, so I took the unusual step of actually putting it into proper storage for the winter – I’m usually the sort of chap who sprays a car with Waxoyl, uses it all winter and hopes for the best – but the XJ has never been welded, having lived in Tenerife all its life.
It did come out in the snow once over winter, but no salt went anywhere near it because it was only driven a gentle 100m on virgin snow in front of the cameras for fellow CCW contrib, Jon Bentley’s, The Gadget Show.
Its first job on coming out of storage (after having received a sumpful of fresh Millers 20/50 classic oil), was as a prop on a Channel 4 classic car series
I’m currently working on, but since then I’ve been working through a list of jobs.
The first was to get the heater to work, because although the blower works, no hot air was coming out of the vents and the car would not demist on even a slightly damp day.
The Series 1’s vacuumoperated heater controls are probably its biggest design fault (cables are so much easier to fathom), but after failing to get anywhere with tracing why the vacuum system was stubbornly dormant, I panicked and removed the heater valve completely so that I had a free flow of warm water into the dashboard radiator and good demisting. The second job prior to taking the car away for the weekend was tackling the rough running and misfire that had appeared just before it went away for the winter. I tried all the usual things – checking the timing, looking for loose leads, etc. – then I had a bit of luck… it turned out that I had an oil leak from the cambox gasket, which wouldn’t normally be good luck, but the oil dripping into the plug holes made me realise that two were bubbling. A quick tighten with a plug spanner torque wrench was all it took to solve the rough running – after spending three hours looking and fiddling with other things, of course…
I will now have to fit a new cambox gasket, but the next important job is sorting the gearbox and engine mountings, which have gone soft and are moving around more than is desirable. Wish me luck...