Jag wrenching. It’s something that I have been focused on for the past six years of my life since I bought my first British Racing Green XK8 for ~$200 bucks. It’s also something that y’all have been asking for in the Comments on a few pieces I’ve written here for a hot min now. I had intended for that XK8 to be used for a series of fun wrenching articles, but time and life had other plans for me, and it’s been mostly languishing in my driveway for the past 6 years. Although I will say that it is running, driving, currently registered, and insured, which is always a huge win in The Great Land of Autopia.
It turns out buying and owning Jags is a bit of an addiction, so in that time period since the first, I have purchased five more! I know, I have a problem. I was able to chronicle my first X-Type here, followed by another X-Type that I have yet to write about. The other three include an XK8 and two XKs that I shared in our last Team Roundup here.
Well, this past weekend I finally got the chance to do some (unexpected) Jag wrenching! Namely on the $1,800 2007 XK hardtop. It had been sitting for so long that one of the tires went flat.
Flat Tire Repair Should Just Take A Couple Hours On A Saturday Morning, Right?
Removing the wheel, I was surprised to see that a previous owner had done some really nice-looking welding on what appeared to be two cracks on the wheel. I’m guessing that was a far more economical course of action than purchasing a replacement wheel from Jaguar. Purchasing pretty much anything from Jaguar is almost prohibitively expensive, and should be the absolute last option is what I’ve learned from owning these cars.
These cars also fit the bill as pretty Euro cars that sucker Buy-Here-Pay-Here “3rd Owner” shoppers in for a beautiful luxury ride that they can afford the monthly payment on, but not afford any unexpected repairs or costs.
Well, once the wheel was off, I noticed that the upper ball joint was not only completely missing its rubber boot, but that it was probably in the worst condition out of any ball joint I’ve ever seen. And I spend all of my weekends in junk yards, son! Well, it looks like I’m going to be spending this weekend doing upper ball joints, quite unexpectedly.
Jaguar, in their engineering wisdom, decided to make these upper ball joints socket out of aluminum, but use a steel ball – guess which material is going to win over time? My attempt to remove the upper ball joint was just in time, as soon as I placed pressure on the joint and a wrench on the nut, it separated (without removing the nut)!
Getting the 2 remaining bolts that held the arm into the body was an entirely different story, though.
You must watch the above video to get the full idea, but Jaguar mounts the control arms with bolts that go through the strut towers with nuts that are on the outside of each strut tower. That means on the right side of the car, you have to remove not just the overflow tank and strut tower brace, but also both windshield wipers and the wiper cowl in order to access the rear bolt!
That’s pretty ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as the left side of the car, where you have to remove the fuse box, fuse box mount bracket, and the PCM in order to get to the rear mount bolt!
Not the best design. Cars that are hard to fix with expensive parts live short lives, and it is unfortunate that beautiful cars such as these have consistently fallen into that trap decade after decade. Those beautiful cats fall far short when compared to the 178K-mile $220 Dodge Stratus coupe that I have daily driven for the past 11 years after easily replacing the head gasket in 2015; it’s a breeze to work on with cheap, available parts everywhere. It’s living a long life; the big cats usually don’t.
The left side ball joint was also so bad that I couldn’t get the stud to stop spinning in the socket, since the socket was so worn out. I had to pull out the big guns and create some sparks.
Once all of the above was complete, I had spent pretty much the entirety of my Saturday on removing to ball joints that I didn’t even know were dangerously bad. And this was on a car that has spent the past year stationary in my driveway. What else could be wrong that is either :
1) dangerous
2) expensive
3) very time-consuming
4) going to require some serious effort
The above list made me reflect and think deeply on my priorities and on the fact that there were 13 other cars in my fleet with Known Unknowns.
Wait, We Do This Every Weekend, All Summer?
Replacement parts should arrive sometime this week, and hopefully I’ll be able to get them in and get the car back together by next week. This job is only halfway done. Honestly, I have way too many cars (again) and need to get rid of a few. Working full-time and non-stop wrenching on the weekends is a full plate. An over-full one. Not much time left for family, relationships, or for writing these articles for y’all. David said something similar when he was non-stop wrenching on his then-massive fleet in Michigan years ago.
If anyone out there wants a low-mileage SL500, a Jag or two, a C320, Trans Am, LeBaron or a Stealth, hit up your fellow Autopian SWG and we’ll make some magic happen.
Buying cheap, broken luxury cars that you dreamed of in college becomes something of a reality in your 40s. But that reality also requires time, space and money, continuously. It’s important to keep things in perspective and not let your passions start skewing your better financial and life decisions. I love cars. I really love my cars. It’s important to do so in a responsible way.
A few of you have repeatedly asked for more Jag content, so big thanks to all of you (especially our beloved Members) for paying attention/caring, for being here, for supporting the site and for reading this. Knowing these ~20+yr old shitbox cars that I always have a ton to fix upon, I’m sure I’ll have more Jag wrenching content very soon. Until next time, my friends.
88mph into the future.
- I Took On A Bad GM Design In A Hail-Mary Attempt To Fix My Friends Broken Suburban But It Was Too Little Too Late
- Sparking Joy And Plugs: How To Repurpose A 31-Year-Old Junk Buick
- What I Learned Restoring A $600 Dodge Ram With A Burned Up Transmission And Ruined Interior
- How I Bought A Broken Version Of My Dream Car For $300, Then Nursed It Back To Glory And Let It Free
- Proof That A $700 Car Saved From The Junkyard Can Make Someone As Happy As A New Lambo Can
- How I Saved My Buddys’ SUV After It Died At The Most Embarrassing Possible Time
- Rescuing A 75-Year-Old Car From An Older Car Enthusiast Reminded Me How Important Every Minute We Get Doing This Truly Is
- How I Rescued A Long-Neglected Citroen 2CV Covered With Bullet Holes
- Kumho Flew Me To The Mojave To See If Their New ‘R/T’ Tires Are As Good As They Claim
- How Learning Saxophone in 1990 Led Me To Rescue A Dead Xterra From A Bouncer’s Driveway
Ugh, the fleet is at max capacity (two in town plus one at FIL’s company in the ‘burbs), or I’d be asking some pointed questions about that XK coupe …
Agreed that it really is such a beautiful design. I dig your style and taste in important matters such as these, Geoff.
Getting it apart is always more than halfway. Putting it back together should be easy.
Unless the new parts don’t fit right, which can also be pretty common!
The replacements arrived yesterday and should be going back in this weekend – thanks Blackhammer!
Those XKs are really nice cars and I hope you can keep those suckers running SWG. Looking forward to the updates.
Thank you, ’67 Olds! More updates should arrive early next week after I finish the job this weekend.
Another great post. I’m not sure when you have time to sleep, but keep up with that and your relationships.
Why do you think Jaguar makes it difficult to work on? Poor design, mechanic hours, just English?
Also, every time I see a grinder I have to reminis the time I played with Joe Walsh on stage with my grinder!
Keep on grinding.
I think Jaguar focuses on the first owner of their cars, the one that takes them to the dealership for factory-supported parts and service. Not the needs of the 2nd-4th owners, who usually are the ones dealing with the most-involved, complex, expensive repairs.
Yes, more hours of labor per job costs them in regards to warranty repairs, but that doesn’t seem to affect their serviceability designs from the factory. It’s not ideal for those like me that love these cars, but don’t love fixing them (and really don’t love parts costs – junkyards are the only financially feasible way to get them).
Just being on stage with Joe Walsh is a huge item on its own, but with a grinder?!
Though I was a backstage security supervisor for 12 yeats, I actually won a radio station contest to play with him using a non musical instrument in Houston 1993.
Thanks for Everything.
Yay! More SWG content! This is what I like to see. You are one of my favourite Autopian writers.
Man, that XK coupe is a gorgeous car.
Very kind of you to say and thank you sincerely, Thomas! Agreed on the XK; more content next week if the stars align.
I really miss driving my 2001 XK8. What I *do not* miss was how something broke every third time I drove it. Man were they gorgeous though, at least before the face lift
All it took for SWG to get his jag story greenlit was a second jag.
Son, are you alright? Not a single “wicked” in the whole article,
Yikes! That ball joint. That would’ve been bad.
Anyway, you have far more knowledge, skill and patience than I do when it comes to working on these things. I occasionally help a friend who rescues old pickup trucks, but my assistance is usually limited to holding something out of the way or handing him whatever tool he requests. And that’s about all I should be entrusted with.
A wicked oversight on my part! I blame being completely exhausted from all this wrenching. I’ll be sure to throw a few in there on the next one; shooting for next week. Going to try and spin some serious wrench tomorrow.
Thanks as always for the kind words and for the Membership, my friend!
always happy to read an SWG article regardless of the make or model of the vehicle(s). Jaguar’s design engineering has made no progress since the inboard rear brake rotors of the 60s.
Whomst among us, right?
That hardtop is such a great looking car, I mean all the Jags are great, but I am a sucker for coupe. Also I am pumped that you got a welder, you wrote recently about wanting to learn, so props for dipping your toe! In college a friend bought one and we went dumpster diving in an industrial park for scrap steel to practice on, watch out for galvanized metal, and have fun. Is it a 110 or 220v machine?
A cheap 110V unit from Lowe’s, but with starting from scratch, I wasn’t trying to get anything super nice. Galvanized will make you sick from the fumes, right?
Agreed on the XK coupe being such a gorgeous design. It really is striking – especially in person.
Thanks, as always, for reading and for the comment, Porch-ah!
Yes, galvanized steel gives off toxic fumes when it burns. I have only really used 110v too, and that was plenty for my purposes. When we first got the welder I lived with three friends and between scrap steel and all-thread we tried our hand at a few sculptures for practice, it was pretty fun!
One of the BEST things I ever did was take a professional-level intro to welding class at a local shop, which covered all of the processes. I then bought a 140 MIG welder from Eastwood and have been using it as much as possible since then. With some bonus money I got their entry-level TIG unit, and intend to do a bunch of sheet metal work before I start constructing an aluminum roof rack for the Travelall.
Welding: so effective they named it after the famous glue.
The Jags are gorgeous. Just like people, if it’s going to be a pain in the ass it better be good looking.
I’m very lucky that my wife is an impulsive shopper.
Another SWG adventure in automotive insanity. I’m obscurely glad I don’t have the money for a driveway full of projects, since it leaves time for mountain biking, kayaking and skiing in years that have snow. I’ve still spent a month of weekends replacing 5.4 Triton cylinder heads and know more about Fiat 500s and Buick LeSabres than I ever wanted to. I also have a hankering to use the 40 year old A1 VW tools and manuals again.
Great to see the Jag content! I went to get my 2000 XK8 out of basement storage a couple of weeks ago and the battery was dead, despite being on a maintainer all winter. That proved to be just the beginning of a week of old-car wonder.
Following that, a parasitic drain on our ’07 Acura RDX made it necessary to drive at least twice a day or have to break out the jumper pack. Then I figured out the transmission in the 2014 Spark is going to need a rebuild if I want to keep that car around. Finally, the head gasket let go on my wife’s ’95 Escort. Of course it decided to do that at about 5:50 in the morning as she was leaving for work. Even more unfortunately, it killed the engine, she sort-of panicked, came into the house to grab the key fob for our 2012 Volt, and went outside to see she didn’t put the Escort back in park and it coasted straight down the street into the back of my ’99 F-250. No damage to the pickup, but the Escort’s front bumper is crunched.
Yeah, time to thin the herd. Luckily I found the drain on the Acura – it was a hands free phone-connection thing. NBD, and it’s now my daughter’s crap-day car for when she isn’t driving her Corvette. My wife now gets the Volt and I’m driving either the ’66 Biscayne, the F-250, my ’94 Fleetwood, the aforementioned XK8, or my ’82 XJ6 with the Chevy 350 in it. I think the Spark and Escort are going bye-bye. Along with an ’87 XJ6 and an ’84 Grand Marquis parked out behind the shed that I was going to use parts off of for another project I’ve long since forgotten about.
Going two fleet-cars down within a week had me shopping again, but still making payments on a new roof for the house has me thinking maybe it’s just time to take it easy for a bit. Or maybe actually start on that ’10 GTI project I’ve got stored over at a rental property.
Keep the Jaaaaag content coming! I always enjoy seeing what potential pitfalls await my own rides.
I remember back when I was in my early 20’s, my mom’s employer had an original X5 and a XK that they asked if I could detail over a weekend. The X5 was treated like a trash can and the XK had a dead battery. Well, being a convertible, the windows drop down a slight bit so you can get in when the top is up. Guess what doesn’t happen when there is no juice in said battery? And you need to be able to get inside the car to pop the hood to add said juices back into said battery. That was a fun experience trying to get into the car just to clean it.
Honda/Acura battery draws from the hands-free system is very common. Best to just disable them.
Done and done – YouTube was quite helpful on that one. I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence when someone was drawing the exact same milliamps as I was on an RDX.
After owning my ’92 F350 longbed dually crewcab for almost 10 years, and not driving it much at all, I decided I needed to check and fill the tires. Supposed to be 58psi to find the fronts at 24 psi. Filled them up and decided to check the rears. Uh oh. Whoever installed the valve stems managed to position them so that the only way to fill the tires, let alone check the pressure, is to remove the wheels. Sheesh, now I have to buy extensions, and hope that they will work, remove the wheels, install extensions, and put it all back together, just to air up.
It’s scenarios like these that make you start wondering if the pocket of cash that you’d get from selling the truck would bring more happiness than continuing on with the truck in the driveway.
This is an important aspect of car ownership that I think is important to touch upon in enthusiast communities such as ours. There’s always a focus on obtaining and buying shiny/fun/new cars, but less-so on when it’s best to sell them.
Thanks for reading, for the comment and for the Membership, Knowonelse.
It is better to distribute limited resources widely rather than finish a project.
In the case of this particular truck, the intent was to go camping in it. Medical issues intervened, so that never happened. However the rise in severe fire risk here in the flammable foothills of California, has turned the truck/camper into our Go-Vehicle. Our Go-bags plus food and water are in the camper parked in a position to be able to just jump in and Go. Eventually it will be replaced with a Sprinter-scale camper (thus my incessant whining about a hybrid version), that while containing our Go-gear, can be a proper camper. Right now, I just need to keep it running and ready.