Aunt Sonja's Cookies to the Rescue!

I hang my head in shame, I had to do some more cobbling of the XJ's exhaust. About a month ago I heard a rather scary noise eminating from the left rear corner of the Jag upon acceleration. A quick inspection revealed the rearmost silencer hanging down, sheared off from the over-axle pipe and looking rather sorry for itself. A pre-planned trip to Sandusky the following day meant I had to act quickly, and quickly meant swilling down two chilly Budweisers at 11am in order to effect a repair patch. A half an hour later had the exhaust buttoned up and the Jag ready for another whirlwind trip to northern Ohio and back.

Fast forward to this past week. A cursory check of the patchwork showed that things weren't looking promising for St. Louis' finest any longer, so a careful drive ensued to the workshop for.....wait....more cobbling, but only this time, my patch had to last. My first thought was a trip over to Lowe's to see if I could find any sheet steel thin enough to be rolled into a tube and clamped between the pipe and silencer, however in my rummaging through junk in the workshop, I spotted none other than one of Aunt Sonja's famous tins of her lovely homemade chocolate chip cookies sitting on my pinball machine. And even better, the tin's contents had been consumed leaving me with my patch of choice! And how befitting at that, as the tin she used was none other than from the ever-so-elegant Pepperidge Farm.

Some handy work with the tin snips and fifteen minutes later the exhaust was back in action. I'm not quite so shameful about this one, as Pepperidge Farm Pirouette cookies only wind up in the most elegant of households...and on the most elegant of automobiles ;)

The Jag's First Rally....Success and Comfort!

This past weekend, the Indiana British Car Union held their annual London to Brighton Run over 145 miles of rural back roads. Always a fun event, I last participated in it back in 2005 where we clinched third place out of about 25 entries in my 1967 MGB-GT. This year, since the MG is still laid up with a failed clutch release bearing and the carburettors from my E-Type are apart on the workbench, the trusty XJ6 was called into duty for the rally. We set off bright and early on an absolute scorcher of a day, all fluids brimmed and the air con keeping us nice and cool. After an hour-and-a-half ride out to the starting point of London Road near Indianapolis, we set off on the rally at 10AM sharp and rolled in to the Hilltop Restaurant five hours later, still feeling great and with a mostly completed questionnaire of clues which we had to find answers to along the route. This year, the field was about the same, 25 cars, mostly of the MG or Triumph variant with one Sunbeam and one TVR for flavor. I must admit that although most of the roads would have been more fun to negotiate in a sports car, the outside ambient temperatures and humidity reminded me that we were fairly lucky to have been graced with 40 degree chilled air from the XJs fascia vents all day. Scores tallied had us tied for fourth place with another team who won by virtue of having brought an older car than we, so we were duly awarded a fifth place plaque. Not bad by any account, and not to mention the fact that Krista is a newbie at this sort of thing. And kudos to her, she held up remarkably well for being cocooned in my mobile ice box for several hours. But do note she's wearing a sweatshirt in the photo ;)

Oh, and the Jag? As always, she performed without complaint. And we just so happened to roll 130,000 miles on the way home.

Failure.....Sorted! And a tune-up to boot!

With the Jaguar off the road, I was forced to quickly explore options regarding radiators. My initial thought was to have the original unit re-cored, however after speaking to several folks about it, I changed my mind and opted for a modern aluminum replacement. Granted, the modern rads aren't as stout as the old bronze/brass units, however aluminum is far more efficient in dissipating heat, not to mention is far more cost-effective, so with that, a replacement unit was sourced from a local vendor for a mere $178.00 and was duly fitted along with a new auxiliary fan switch and of course the obligatory coolant flush, still keeping with Peak's 'Global' mixture. After the new rad found its way in, I had to wait for assistance on refitting the bonnet so since I had an hour to kill, I opted to fit the new distributor cap, rotor and ignition lead set I purchased from the good people at British Parts Northwest. The cap is a genuine Lucas unit, the rotor a heavy duty blue epoxy unit from True Spark Ignition (who fabricate ignition parts for Brit cars exclusively) and the wire set is a true Limey-made Intermotor set. Not that I'd had trouble with any of the aforementioned components, but I figured with the bonnet removed, there was no better time to swap everything what with the extra working clearance afforded me at the time. Afterward, the bonnet was refitted and the cooling system bled and we were back on the road and running a rock-solid 90 degrees Celsius on the dial. Now to just figure out why the aircon isn't as cold as it was before I fiddled around with all of the hoses/condenser during the radiator R&R.....