A V12 sized gamble

[shouldbworking]

I'm shocked to find I'm not the only person foolish enough to have bought one of these at 20.

It'll probably be the join between the manifold and downpipe. Bit of a pig to get at, just like everything else.

Hope you have better luck than I did with mine!

[Paracetamol]

LewG said:

Just got some Gliptone for the seats so thanks for the recommendation Paracetamol, also looks like I'll be dropping the fuel tank as there's a fairly strong petrol smell in the boot, apparently a common problem

No worries. Dampen the seat and then get a nail brush and pour the soap onto the brush and gently massage it into a lather on the seat.- Keep a bucket of clean water and keep cleaning the brush. then get a clean damp cloth and wipe off before seat dries

[greggy50]

That looks remarkably clean OP fair play to you for having the bks

[giblet]

LewG said:

I'll keep quiet on how much I paid for it, but I'll put it this way, it was just a shade above shed levels of money. I think once again it's a case of right place, right time. It's an awful lot of car for the money, just with the potential to go wrong spectacularly. Saying that I do think people knock them for more than they're worth, if they're maintained on the dot with full service history you give yourself a pretty good chance of getting a half decent one. The first owner of mine was a doctor, then during the 90s it was obviously owned by someone who had money to burn, as there's a grand spent here, and a grand spent there quite regularly. I was expecting it to be a right old truck to drive being a 30 year old BL car, but I have never driven anything quite so wafty and refined. It really wouldn't suit a manual gearbox in my opinion, stick it in 'D' and let the mighty 12 do the rest!
Just got some Gliptone for the seats so thanks for the recommendation Paracetamol, also looks like I'll be dropping the fuel tank as there's a fairly strong petrol smell in the boot, apparently a common problem

Congratulations. It's a cracking car to have at any age. I'll have to keep my eye out for a bargain like yours. Saw one for sale at a local specialists a few days ago, it was the 4.0 and £7500 but looked stunning.

[TheBALDpuma]

OP...

At 20 I'm assuming that either you have a great job and therefore plenty of money, or you still live with the parents (absaloutely nothing wrong with that, my twin bro did it till he was 23 and I would have done if I haven't met my OH at uni).

If you're well payed then fair play. If living with parents still I think this is such a great decision and something I wish I had done at the time. I had more dispensible cash working part time before I went to uni than I do now working 55 hour weeks and earning a good salary! SO buying something cheap with a stupid big engine and chance to go massivley wrong would be a risk I could afford to take before I moved out, but isn't one I could take now until I earn a fair larger wedge than I currently do as the conseqences would be too large.

In short. Well played sir!

[Andy665]

Lovely looking thing - look far better now than when they were current

Massive respect for taking on the challenge

[molineux1980]

Awesome, well done !

[ReaderScars]

Perhaps you could do what some of the V12 Aston guys have done - fit Cylinder Deactivation fuel management, so you can run in economy mode on just eight cylinders - maybe even a paltry six - when you're at cruising altitude - then once you see the Hun's on your tail (no doubt it will be German), put the throttle through the gate to invoke the full dozen!

[LewG]

TheBALDpuma said:

OP...

At 20 I'm assuming that either you have a great job and therefore plenty of money, or you still live with the parents

Still at home I'm afraid! I'm serving the second year of my apprenticeship with Liebherr the mobile crane and plant manufacturer at the moment, so it's handy learning about some pretty complex pieces of kit as well!
I don't want to go all philosophical here but sometimes it's worth taking a leap of faith and enjoying things whilst you can. I knew if I didn't do it now, I probably never would be able to own one. After all it's no worse than smoking 20 a day

[LewG]

ReaderScars said:

Perhaps you could do what some of the V12 Aston guys have done - fit Cylinder Deactivation fuel management, so you can run in economy mode on just eight cylinders - maybe even a paltry six - when you're at cruising altitude - then once you see the Hun's on your tail (no doubt it will be German), put the throttle through the gate to invoke the full dozen!

Heard this at work... 'At least his Jag won't be using any fuel because it won't be firing at all!'

A couple of Brownings in the front wings for blowing Audis out of the fast lane could be handy though

[TheBALDpuma]

LewG said:

Still at home I'm afraid! I'm serving the second year of my apprenticeship with Liebherr the mobile crane and plant manufacturer at the moment, so it's handy learning about some pretty complex pieces of kit as well!
I don't want to go all philosophical here but sometimes it's worth taking a leap of faith and enjoying things whilst you can. I knew if I didn't do it now, I probably never would be able to own one. After all it's no worse than smoking 20 a day

Yep - wish I'd been more careless with my money when it didn't matter so much!

I still take the attitude of "Life's not permenant, so don't take it so seriously". When I bought my current car and used this as a retort to "It does how many mpg!?" from the Mrs it did not go down too well

[LewG]

Haha that is superb! You are dead right. When my dad bought the personnel carrier it was just about the time my mum was waiting for a new kitchen. She went absolutely bloody orbital... and that was only telling her half the asking price

[Rocksteadyeddie]

LewG said:

Haha that is superb! You are dead right. When my dad bought the personnel carrier it was just about the time my mum was waiting for a new kitchen. She went absolutely bloody orbital... and that was only telling her half the asking price

[FWDRacer]

XJS shape is getting classier with time. This 'looks' like a great example.

More Pics required - and fair play to you

[Trtj]

Awesome car. We acquired a '6 last year. All it needed was a headlining and some drying out, engine has been pretty bomb proof. It won't win any beauty contests but it looks at its best with the 'just driven out of the woods' look.

[Biker's Nemesis]

LewG said:

TheBALDpuma said:

OP...

At 20 I'm assuming that either you have a great job and therefore plenty of money, or you still live with the parents

Still at home I'm afraid! I'm serving the second year of my apprenticeship with Liebherr the mobile crane and plant manufacturer at the moment, so it's handy learning about some pretty complex pieces of kit as well!
I don't want to go all philosophical here but sometimes it's worth taking a leap of faith and enjoying things whilst you can. I knew if I didn't do it now, I probably never would be able to own one. After all it's no worse than smoking 20 a day

You know there's still hope for this country when youngsters have an attitude like yours.

Great choice of car too.

[shouldbworking]

ReaderScars said:

Perhaps you could do what some of the V12 Aston guys have done - fit Cylinder Deactivation fuel management, so you can run in economy mode on just eight cylinders - maybe even a paltry six - when you're at cruising altitude - then once you see the Hun's on your tail (no doubt it will be German), put the throttle through the gate to invoke the full dozen!

Just trying to remember, I think its the earlier ignition type (ie the one the op has) that practically has this by accident. Rather than having a 12 cylinder ignition system like a sensible person, they fitted two 6 cylinder ones. Being a product of lucas it wasn't uncommon for one of them to fail, leaving the car to run on 6 - although it didn't cut off the fuel so if an owner wasn't paying attention the first they would know of it would be when the cat got hot enough to ignite everything in sight, or when the other cars notified them of the glowing red exhaust pipe...

[dbdb]

Trtj said:

... It won't win any beauty contests but it looks at its best with the 'just driven out of the woods' look.

Know it well!

[LewG]

Thanks for the kind words chaps, that's a nice car, like you say they look quite good with that look! Not so long ago Shed showed a relatively rough F reg V12 for sale, insanely cheap if I remember rightly. Funnily enough it was only a couple of miles up the road from me, I toyed with the idea of buying but even I know that under a grand for a V12 is not likely to be a good move! Either way even covered in crap it looked great.

http://www.pistonheads.com/doc.asp?c=162&i=258...
Found the link!

I'll update the thread later with a few pictures, I have been working on getting the exhaust manifold off over the last couple of nights

[LewG]

One of the main annoyances with the car so far has been a nasty 'ticking' sound, particularly from cold and under load. I was fairly sure it was an exhaust tick as opposed to a tappet, and was definitely coming from the rear right hand side of the engine.


Firstly I removed the air cleaner and then the heat shield, the rear bolt required a lot of soaking in GT85, 3/4 bar and piece of scaffold tube to get it undone! Amazingly it didn't shear off. It's in a real arse of a place, right below the throttle linkage for the right hand bank.

I then removed the lower heat shield for the power steering rack, and off with the downpipe. This has perforated where it joins the intermediate pipe so if anyone has ideas where I might get a new one at a reasonable price that would be appreciated.
Having left the manifold nuts soaking overnight surprisingly all of them came undone a piece of cake. Thankfully it turned out to be a loose rear-most nut, allowing the gasket to blow. For now I have cleaned all the stuck on gasket off the manifold, rubbed it down and gave it a coat of heat proof black. One of the faces isn't great but it will be fine to go back on again.



My gaskets have been sent in the post today, so I am waiting on that and a few other bits. Hopefully this time next week we should be up and running again.