So I accidentally... a V12.

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Morning all!

So I've just spent the last 2 years wafting about in this...


A shed at £650 and it's finally succumbed to ruin.

However, I'm not done yet with Jaguars!
Last Friday night I picked up this...






1987 Jaguar XJS V12 HE
It's been in the dry for the last 5 years or so and barely used bar the odd run.
63,000 miles and only a few days older than myself which I quite like in a geeky kind of way.

Anyway. I'm new to V12's. Any advice?

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CharlesdeGaulle said:

pincher said:

Google [bot] said:

My advice is to remove that terrible rear spoiler.

And the leaper. Why do people do that? Presumably removing all the tat means that there are holes to fill and paint, so it becomes a fairly pricey job

I quite like the leaper...

However I agree on the spoiler. However as has been pointed out holes and filling makes it not a simple job to just remove it. So for now, it stays to pay for Petrol!



So far,

2 days in and 200 miles into ownership it burst a Power Steering hose and promptly became almost impossible to drive.
Recovered back to a friendly garage as I was away in Cannes for a week and rather wanted it fixed when I got home.

Bar that she's been behaving rather nicely. Slight tick from the water pump so that will need to be looked at some point, however book time says 4~ hours to replace...

Trip Computer says 25~ mpg on the motorway and somewhere near 12-15 average.
I must confess to being quite heavy footed in my first few 100 miles
It can be a bit surprising turning out of junctions and after a little sprinkling of rain we had on Sunday it's quite lively...
Softly softly is the word from now on in suspect conditions, unless I want to be silly.

I'm told that replacing wheels and tyres with more modern items improves handling and feel no end, but looses some of the waftyness.
Similarly re-bushing the rack should improve things in the handling regard over bumps and so on.

I've got a light tap/clink/clunk when driving over potholes etc which is front suspension top bushes apparently, not hard to sort again.

Original Clarion head unit seems to be a bit fooked. Only rear left speaker works and only if the balance fader is all the way to the back. So I've ordered a new set of infinity reference X speakers for front and back with a small under seat sub to compensate for the lack of 6x9 space and small ish speaker cones.

These I'll hook up to my JVC Headunit that I'm going to move over from the X300 which isn't too bling blink and has a dim green backlighting to keep it in keeping with the rest of the cabin illumination.

From looking round the manual it looks like it's a manual job to fit an aftermarket headunit as I can't find a multi-connector - ISO harness adapter. So I'll get a generic from Halfrauds and adapt that to my needs.

I might also find a ignition switched live and connect that to a USB Power port in the central cubby as the cigarette socket seems to be permanently live and I don't want an accidentally left in car charger draining my battery. Similarly the USB header for the Headunit.

I'm also considering center silencer deletion... but that might have to wait...