Am I nuts? Daily a beautiful classic on a challenge budget?

Some updates!

I drove the car a couple times now for various errands and stuff. And am loving it. I did recently get it plated (though it's the il extended antique so not "year round"), so it's been fun to drive around. I have not yet fixed the fuel tank routing issues, so it's running on just the one tank which is ok but I do need to get that fixed. 

Hoping to let the wife take it to work one day this week too.

For the fun stuff - parts! I found "everyday xj" a guy who parts out old jags (specifically xj's) and he had some of the parts I needed and a few I wanted too. Arrived Friday, like $118 total including shipping:

That's a factory battery hold down, two factory battery hold down screws (more on that later), a new taillight lens, fusebox cover, and an original radio and car side harnesses. I wanted the radio because I want my interior to look like a jag, not the back of a 1990s best buy. The radio is from an 85, so it lacks the security features (code and removable faceplate) that came around in 86 and 87. But it looks way more original and supposedly still works. Sweet!

Taillight lens was a quick swap - in the pic I was trying to hold the old one at an angle so the cracks were visible.

Of course, now that I had the factory battery tie down, I found that I had the wrong battery in the car too (guaranteed someone bought the wrong battery, found the tiedown didn't fit, and just left the tiedown on the bench - grrr). The battery I'm the car is group 34 and the car takes group 24 or something like that.

So the battery is too tall for the hold down. Normally it wouldn't be much of an issue, but this holder depends on specific threaded collar screws, and if the battery is too tall they aren't long enough, stock on the right:

And of course the thread pitch is 1/4 fine (28 tpi), so my local ace doesn't have a threaded collar in stock. I had to grab some aluminum spacers and thread them myself. I also grabbed the next longer bolts as well just in case I need more distance. I think I'll use thread locker to fix the collars to my bolts and then functionally it will work the same as stock. When this battery dies, I'll the the right one.

Did a quick shine and drove it!

I apologize for the awful pic (and no one would know but this is at Apollo park so that is actually a pun!)

Some thoughts on XJ6 fuel tank selection, this is fresh in my mind. I just replaced all 3 solenoid valves in my neighbor's car. While I was there I wondered why bother when both tanks feed to just one main pump? Being able to select tanks/pumps made a lot of sense on the carburetted cars because if one of the notorious SU pumps quit you could switch to another and get (part way) home. When injection happened they needed to add three more failure prone parts to retain tank selection. It would be very easy to replace the feed valve with a T and do the same with the return pipes, eliminating all 3 valves, and making one gauge sender redundant as well. Why not???

That's an interesting idea. And the tanks would stay level because the T connects them, so even if the return all went to one tank theoretically you wouldn't overfill that side.

That's in Homewood right? Boy you're just down Halsted street. I'll let you know when my rolling pile of parts is streetable!

In reply to Robbie :

I would still run double returns, or tie them directly into the inter-tank T. I am a little paranoid about the return filling one tank faster than the level can equalize when the tanks are near full. I have seen a car with a return valve problem push fuel out the top of the right tank

In reply to Georges1991 :

That's correct!

In reply to TurnerX19 :

That's exactly the problem I have now. If I select the right tank, I think the fuel return switches but the supply does not. So the right tank overfills and leaks right onto the ground.

In reply to Robbie :

If it overfills when trying to run the right tank the selector valve (just behind the spare tire) is not selecting. Check for power at the valve first. No power is left tank, power on is right tank.The car I was working on last week had been sitting, and all 3 valves were jammed. Return valves are also side specific. Left normally open. right normally closed.

In reply to TurnerX19 :

Have you resolved your fuel tank issue yet?  

In reply to frenchyd :

That is Robbie's issue, not mine. I only fix other peoples Jaguars

Haha! No issue is fixed yet. Been busy driving the car but I did just put it up for winter. Might be able to dig in to the issue soon.

Since Christmas was beautiful here we took the jag to family Christmas at my BILs.

Good opportunity to get dusted off and put some rotations in the tires!

Successful Christmas!

That really is a beautiful car!

In reply to Robbie :

Well done!   I've never had the courage to do anything except race a Jaguar.  I hear all the horror stories about lack of reliability, fussy nickle and dime issues with HVAC, lights, etc. and foolishly believe them. 
As reliable a race car as they are I should have known the truth about them as a driver has to be different than the stories some people tell. 

Yes it is a beautiful car. You have every right to be proud of it.  

Looks great! Definitely enjoying this weather!

Cant wait to see this car around 

Pulled the jag out of winter hibernation today. (Ok, hit the starter and closed the hood and backed out - it really was that easy).

But before we put it away for the winter it had sprung a coolant leak. Yes, it is still leaking:

So I hopped on Rock Auto and ordered some spring refreshening stuff. 

4 new belts (really, there's 4 v-belts), 3 new main coolant hoses, one crossover pipe, a thermostat, a fuel filter, an oil filter, and a thermostat gasket. Less than $60, total came to just under $85 with shipping.

I'll have to buy some standard hoses to replace some of the expansion tank lines just for good measure but I should be able to just buy a roll of 10 ft or something. Also will need coolant and oil but I bet refresh costs should be well under $200.

I hope to get a good pic tomorrow for the Jacksonville remote cars and coffee event!

Also posted this photo in the social distance car show thread, but I want to keep it here as well to keep it all together. Note how parking on the grass neatly hides any coolant drips...

Well, I went to battle with the hoses and belts today. I didn't think I was going to battle either. Replace accessory belts and some radiator hoses, how bad could it be right? Like a couple hours max, taking my time, no issue.

Wrong. 

Ho - le - crop.

Started out not too bad, but it is a puzzle. Move this to access that, etc. The fan and shroud come off pretty easily, but instead of two bolts at the top of the shroud and the bottom captured to the radiator in slots, this bad boy is bolted at all four corners, some with odd angle brackets, and at the top the nuts aren't even captured, so you have to double wrench to get them off.

I did put a small hose down the coolant tube and siphon out the remaining coolant. Thought I was pretty smart at this point since I normally spill coolant everywhere.

Replacing hoses turned into finding some leaky transmission cooler soft lines, turned into removing the tranission cooler and cleaning it (instead of being integrated to the radiator there is a large tube that is in the lower rad hose and trans fluid runs through it around the coolant), turned into cleaning up and touching up some surface rust, turned into adding some black paint, turned into me slicing the crap out of my thumb when trying to push a hose back in with a hand covered in trans fluid and slipping and catching the edge of the hose clamp.

But the old hoses were definitely perished. Look how much they were bulging. The might be original to the car.

Also, I'm very glad Im doing this job all together. It is very fiddly work and you basically have to remove all this stuff to access the other, so at least I had that going for me. I forgot to order heater hoses, but since I love draining coolant so much I will probably go ahead and get some on order and wait before refilling the coolant.

Ps. There are 4 v belts on this beast instead of one serpentine belt. Instead of one spring tensioner pulley, each accessory is on a pivot mount with a long threaded rod used to tension. Since you can't put any ratcheting anything on these stupid things, I did a lot of open end wrench work today in tight spaces. Whew.

Edit, old v new hoses.

I've got to do this with my XJ-S soon, all 14 hoses...

Depending on how much work you want to do, and your fabrication skills, it may be possible to replace the 4 V belts with one modern ribbed belt. May go along with replacing the belt driven fan with an electric one, that's one belt gone right there I think. Probably not worth doing right now, after you just replaced everything, but maybe worth having in the back of your mind.

I've always like Series XJs, good to see this one getting the attention it deserves! 

In reply to garethashenden :

The ps belt runs the water pump and fan (it's the only belt on 3 pulleys), but then the fan water pump also drives the air pump.

TurnerX19 said:

Some thoughts on XJ6 fuel tank selection, this is fresh in my mind. I just replaced all 3 solenoid valves in my neighbor's car. While I was there I wondered why bother when both tanks feed to just one main pump? Being able to select tanks/pumps made a lot of sense on the carburetted cars because if one of the notorious SU pumps quit you could switch to another and get (part way) home. When injection happened they needed to add three more failure prone parts to retain tank selection. It would be very easy to replace the feed valve with a T and do the same with the return pipes, eliminating all 3 valves, and making one gauge sender redundant as well. Why not???

Not relative to your case but you mentioned failure prone SU pumps.  What no one seems to tell people is that SU's can be extremely reliable, as long as you do the required maintenance.   
I'm going on the 5th decade with my SU fuel pump in my MGTD.  Just  Clean the points on the fuel pump every other oil change. 
All  you have to do is take about a 3 inch long  1 inch wide piece of 1000  grit  emery paper and fold it in half. Then remove the black plastic cap on top ( it's got a knurled nut so it's easy to remove). Underneath is a set of points. Open them up and slide the emery paper through all 3 inches of it. Put the cap back on. Slide the wire back over the post and tighten the knurled nut. 
  Do that every other oil change. Once a year put a drop of engine oil on the pivot point of the springs that activate the points) 

52 years since I learned that trick. On the double ender fuel pumps the V12's and Roll Royce use  both ends have set of points. 
after market fuel pumps put out too much pressure  most are 2-2&1/2 psi. SU carbs act up over 1&1/2 psi. 

Well, enter scope creep. While I was under the hood and had things apart, I figured it was a good time to do fuel lines, vacuum lines, cap, rotor, wires, and air filter as well as all the heater hoses. I grabbed a new rad cap and a couple vavle cover gaskets for good measure too.

So another $150 off to Rock Auto.