Project Jaguar Series 3 XJ6
Our project Jaguar XJ6 has been laid up whilst a replacement engine was tracked down and overhauled by a West Yorkshire-based Jaguar specialist. After transporting the Big Cat up to their workshop, we received an update of how the work is progressing.
The replacement engine for our oil burning Big Cat has been stripped down, re-machined and is now being rebuilt.
W e last featured our project XJ6 back in the June issue when it had a new exhaust system fitted. The report ended with the car being laid up at a South Derbyshire garage suffering from a badly smoking engine. As the car couldn’t be driven due to the polluting exhaust, we needed to work out the best and most economical way to sort out the engine and get the car back on the road.
There had been plenty of warning signs prior to this latest development. Our Jaguar had developed a healthy taste for 20W50 oil and this combined with an increasing amount of tell-tale blue smoke puffing out of the exhaust while on the overrun were sure signs of trouble ahead.
Before the Jaguar was laid up, it had been up to West Riding Independent for a replacement head gasket to be fitted. While collecting the car, proprietor Dave Bye expressed his concern about the condition of our Jaguar’s 4.2 litre straight six and reckoned the motor would benefit from a complete overhaul, as in his opinion the engine was on its last legs.
A couple of thousand miles later, the engine started to burn oil almost as fast as it could be poured into the sump, so we asked Dave if he could look into re-building the Jaguar’s poorly engine. Unfortunately, we made our enquiry just after the start of the racing season and as Dave and his team had a full order book of Jaguar engines to rebuild, we just had to be patient and join the queue.
To soften the blow, Dave reckoned he could pull an old 4.2 litre unit out of storage, overhaul it between major jobs and then drop the rebuilt engine into our car. That was the route we eventually went down and the following steps show how the team at West Riding overhauled the engine that will eventually be fitted into our Jaguar XJ6. We’ll come back to how the rebuilt engine was finished off and fitted to the car in a later issue of Classics Monthly, but in the mean time the following step by steps illustrates the progress so far: