Police, Camera, Action!
Last time, I mentioned that I had removed the heater valve for the troublesome vacuum-operated heater controls in order to ensure that there was a supply of hot air to the XJ6’s cabin. There was method to my madness; shortly before doing so, I knew I would be taking it away to the Brooklands 999 show on May Day weekend to launch the book that I’ve worked on with Ant Anstead – The Story of the British Police Car.
Of course, the weekend dawned boiling hot, the one sort of weather I wasn’t prepared for. It cruised comfortably down to Brooklands at motorway speeds in effortless Jag fashion, but I arrived feeling like a lightlycooked lobster. Only the backseatmounted Halford’s 12v fridge, which gave me a lifeline of cool drinks, saved the day. I’ve now bought a new vacuum unit but have yet to fit it because the correct bore of pipe is out of stock.
Packing up at Brooklands produced the ultimate nightmare for someone with even mild OCD – my socket set ended up all over the grass after fixing the seatbelt; on driving into Brooklands, the seatbelt mounting on the passenger’s B-post fell into my passenger’s lap! In fixing them I realised that someone had put the washer in the wrong way around so the belt anchor was just floating around, and not spinning around its collar. Scary, and not something you think of when you buy a car, but both fixings on one side were like this so it was probably done by the same mechanic, or maybe even built like that. No doubt about it – it’s worth checking the seatbelt mountings when you buy an old car.
Apart from cooking its occupants, the seatbelts not properly securing them, and a fuse failure, which led to the dashboard lights going out (quite alarming at 70mph on the M25 at 11pm, as you envisage something more serious is happening), the Jag was perfect all weekend, so much so that I’ve almost started using it as an everyday car, at least on dry days. It does love a petrol station, but I love driving it so I’m prepared to accept that – I’m not commuting daily, just using it for visiting and shopping, etc.