Oil leak cause found...break out the JB Weld!

It seems that my oil leak was caused by a crack in the oil pan right where the drain plug threads in. I'm always cautious about over-tightening drain plugs as I once made this mistake when I was 16, and stripped the threads of the oil pan in my first car. I'm not sure if this crack was present when I did the first oil change on this car, but I can surely say that it didn't leak like a sieve after that service, so I must have damaged it when I did the most recent service, although if using normal hand pressure with a wrench can crack a Jag oil pan, I'd hate to see how easily a rock or other object could put a massive hole in it! Anyhow, I'll be 'wielding the 'Weld' today to see if I can [hopefully] patch her up.

The 64 Calorie Patch

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm not proud. Nor am I cheap. However, in the case of being faced with spending $1000.00 on an exhaust system for a car that cost me $400.00, I had to explore some other alternatives.

The car will be making its second trip to Cleveland tomorrow, so we'll see how well my swill-fest patch holds up, as I've never had any luck with those stupid exhaust patch kits from Auto Zone. Maybe I should sell them my own kit and get rich off of it. It'd be simple; one beer can, two hose clamps and a small tube of exhaust cement. Viola! Not to mention, I could leave the beer can full so it would be even more appealing to the purchaser, and furthermore, a little dose of relaxation before the job begins. And hey, if I wanted to go upmarket, I could always sub in a Guinness can...

Last but not least, the car did receive a new left front caliper yesterday. I had replaced the right front caliper about a month ago due to leaking piston seals. I know it'd have been a lot cheaper to have rebuilt the caliper myself, but I've never been comfortable messing with them, and brakes are one thing I don't scrimp on. After the new caliper, the car had a hard pull to the right, so a new left one was ordered and when it finally arrived, was duly fitted. I gravity bled then power bled the front brakes, but will do a final 'manual' bleed on them today, which should sort everything properly.

I ask you though, dear readers, does the phrase "Champagne taste on a beer budget." apply here?

The Problem With Cheap Cars...

...Is that when something bad and expensive happens to them, they don't look like such great investments. And particularly when that bad thing was the fault of an architect.

We were on our way to a Christmas party the other night in downtown Cincinnati. When we got to the building, I of course observed that parking was tight everywhere (why, I do not know, as this wasn't exactly The Magnificent Mile). Anyhow, I spotted an entrance to what seemed to be a below-ground parking deck, so as I nosed the Jag in, I heard the most awful noise from underneath the car. I stopped dead in my tracks only to find that the garage door at the bottom of this slope was closed and that my car seemed a hell of a lot louder. As I carefully reversed out, trying to do so at an angle to avoid any more exhaust torture, I must have hit it exactly wrong somewhere because all it took was one last "graaaauuunchhhh" and my car now sounded like Andrew Jeffrey's Lister XJ6 race car.

So here is my dilemma, dear friends...

I haven't the heart to take even a $400.00 XJ6 to Midas to have them butcher it to hell and back.

My cost on a new system, with hardware, and fitting it myself will be around $900.00.

** I should note that I haven't yet had a look underneath the car to see how bad the damage actually is. I've parked it for the last few days and will hopefully report on the reality of it later today when I get it up onto the lift.

***However, in the event that the system isn't salvageable, I'm pretty much stuck with buying all new components, as I'm not even going to try to "cut and paste" new with old stuff. But, let's take a quick moment to analyze the finances of it all:

-Car $400.00
-Initial service (all fluids, filters, etc...) $200.00
-Two new front brake calipers $200.00
-Two new rear tires, mounted and balanced $200.00

Total thus far: $1,000.00 (ok, still not bad money for a decent Series III)

-New exhaust $800.00

New total: $1,800.00 (that's probably teetering on the brink of what this car's worth)

* My point is that I just sold a Mercedes 300E on which the owner had spent over $20K in maintenance over the last seven years. And I sold it for $2K because that's, unfortunately, all the market will bear for those old W124 Mercs. Now that I'm getting close to the $2K point in the Jag, I'm wondering if I should cut loose while I still can, or keep plugging along with the old girl..

..I guess I'll still plug along. I love that car.

The Solitary Motorist

Well, the stars have aligned (or perhaps MIS-aligned) themselves. I am without a Mercedes-Benz and have only a 24 year old Jaguar to rely on for daily conveyance. In the event that it goes wrong, I can fall back on....oh wait.....my 1974 Citroen DS. Hmmm, I think I'd better keep the XJ in top fettle!

It's absolutely amazing how well this car runs and drives. I've no idea why the PO stopped driving it, as it's been a perfectly usable automobile, at least for the past 3,200 or so miles. And the kicker is that the more I drive it, the better and better it seems to get. And never have I had so much 'fun' out of driving an old saloon car, which is precisely why I love the Series III XJ; they're modern yet classic, the best of both worlds. They have all the charm of traditional Jag saloons because, well, they are traditional Jag saloons, yet they have climate control, fuel injection, and all the other niceties that these days really are sort of 'must haves' in whatever you find yourself driving every day.

The Jag made her first venture to thoroughbred horse country this past weekend. That's Lexington, Kentucky, to those of you not in the know. Needless to say, she took the 150 or so mile round trip in stride and was comfortable as ever. Oh, and we even got some good action shots of her on the ride home...

Oil leaks....go figure

Well, not much to report on the XJ6 except that on really cold mornings, she is a bit reluctant to fire first time. I've managed to abate that by 'tricking' the cold start system, which I think is defective, by putting the car in Drive and holding the key in the start position for a few seconds, which powers up the fuel pumps and gets the fuel rail pressurized which usually leads to a quick start.

I also did the second oil change (the first one, I did when I bought it so I'd have my baseline). I switched the oil from German Lubro Moly 15W-40 to Castrol GTX 10W-40 and it has proceeded to leak like a sieve from the drain plug seal, which is quite odd, so that will need to be attended to shortly.

Otherwise, the car is still running well, 3K miles later, and barring any sub zero no-start circumstances, I think we're good to go for winter. If it becomes desperate, I'll pop one of those Hitachi gear reduction starters on the car, which should make for easier winter firing.