I'd been looking at buying an early Mk1 MX5, I'd done all the research and had various ones in my ebay watch list over a couple of months. Whilst cruising the internet last September looking for one I stumbled across an ad for an XJ40, this led me to ebay 'just to see how much you could get one for' An hour later I'd agreed to buy one, blind, with no research whatsoever and 175 miles away in Birmingham. It was from a car lot, taken in px, ebay pulled the ad an hour after I'd put a bid on at £110 as it had the car lots' signage in the background. I rang them up, agreed £350, paypal'd a £100 deposit and arranged to pick it up on Saturday. It had 98000 miles, Mot until April and tax til the end of October, an XJ irish number plate and was described as being 'tired'. I spent a lot of my spare time during the week leading up to collection lurking on the XJ40 forum reading thread after thread to try and find out more about what I was letting myself in for.
Early Saturday morning my girlfriend drove myself and a mate up to Birmingham. We arrived, had a cursory look over it, handed over the balance, signed the paperwork and hey presto, I became the proud owner of a scruffy 92 Sovereign. My mate jumped in with me and we headed for home, stopping only to put some fuel in and inflate all the tyres to the recommended pressures. The 175 miles home passed remarkably uneventfully, cruise control on at 70.
Here are my first pictures of it, taken at lunchtime when we got back.
As you can see it had one or two cosmetic issues....
Saturday afternoon was spent removing bits, straightening them and refitting them, another friend pops by to marvel at my latest purchase and volunteers to help..
Meanwhile a bit of electrical fault chasing happens, the household breakers seen in this picture were connected to the electric aerial....
By the end of the afternoon all this rubbish is culled....
The following evening after a thorough clean and a touch of ride height adjustment...
Over the next few weeks I just enjoyed driving it...
To work
To the beach
The oil pressure light coming on at tickover even after an oil and filter swap was eventually tracked down to the oil pressure sender unit. So I went and got a Series 3 one from my local factors (£3.62) a resistor from work.
Firstly I needed to make a crow foot spanner
Even with all the inlet bits out of the way it's still quite tucked away!
Turns out the threads are different, so had a nose inside the original one to see how it works
And use the remains to make an adaptor
The resistor was added and makes the gauge read correctly although it required an additional relay to make the oil light work the correct way round, another job off the list.
I started collecting bits and bobs to make it look how I wanted and iron out some more niggles......
A set of XK8 wheels and tyres, bit kerbed but cheap enough and with premium tyres on. 18x9 rears 18x8 fronts
Painted the numberplate recess satin black and removed the corroded badges
Replaced the broken mirrors, fitted a replacement sidelight unit and fitted a standalone remote central locking kit
So I could replace my non functional osr door handle and 'on their last legs' front handles (with rear handles because I like the delocked look)
Replaced the deveneered ski slope and ashtray with one that came out of an X300 at the local breakers for a tenner (oh and some paint arrived, but more on that later)
As I started to prep it to paint it I had a prod about at the suspicious blister at the rear of the drivers side front arch. This turned out to be only paint in the shape of a rust blister with not even rust left behind it!
Over the next week I spent every evening after work in the garage....
And onto the other side
As it has an aftermarket sunroof the drains are plugged, all this was cut out and plated over but I don't seem to have taken any after picture..
The rust on this side went in and across the floorpan but I don't seem to have taken any pictures of that repair
All done with the trusty old C.A.D. (cardboard aided design)
I have a confession to make here, I don't like the fishtank lights. I tried to love them, I really did, I know they're an important part of the design, but I just prefer the twin lights. While I was prepping and painting the car a panel at a time my girlfriend was polishing the chrome, prepping and masking these on the dining table.
I knew from the start that I wanted the paint on the car to be satin finish, the cheapest way of doing this was graffiti paint, it has really high solids content so it covers well, it's alcohol based so it dries quickly and has butane propellant so it sprays consistently in cold conditions. Handy really because although the Sovereign will fit in my garage you can only walk from one side to the other if you have a foot and a half of it hanging out of the door. A week of coming home from work, moving the car out and then back in at half 11, prepping, masking and painting it a panel or two at a time, a set of 20mm bolt on wheel spacers, better condition grille shell, new front discs and pads (to get rid of the pulsating pedal) and a swap of tyre size to regain the rolling diameter of the original factory wheel and tyre combination gets us here:
Bonfire night and the Sovereign does sterling service delivering an entire bonfires worth of wood
And pressed into service as my daily driver, dirty and at work...
It's a big cat painted a stealthy satin colour and what could be more stealthy than a ninja hello kitty?
My ever supportive girlfriend weighs in with 2hrs of weeding the bits out of a sheet of stickers that Mystery Machine lovingly crafted for me, here she is nearly finished..
Last couple..
Ready to apply..
Subtle huh?
More daily driving and dirt (I work out in the sticks and part of my commute is a mile and a half road through the middle of a ball clay quarry, any rain and it's like driving through milk!)
Finally got rid of the last bit of blistered bumper chrome (the front centre section) when, out of the blue, Steve (sleeperviva) offers me a complete front bumper he's had for ages, this has an undamaged outer rubber cover and a straight and non rusty inner steel. Best of all, it's free! Massive thanks Steve
That's better..
Gliptone cleaner and feed kit arrives, car smells amazing!
Christmas eve and on our last minute present delivering mission the Sov dumps a lot of its coolant. Day after boxing day and back into the garage it goes again. Inlet manifold off...
Hose repaired, starter removed, dismantled, cleaned put back together, heater matrix replaced to stop coolant leaking into the passenger footwell, audio cabling run through the car, head unit wired up properly, amp and sub fitted, boot floor cleaned and treated, boot trim fitted properly, little bit more ride height removed from the front, front wheel bearings greased and adjusted up, driveshaft ujs greased, diff oil checked. A lot of bits and pieces done and good use made of the time off work, the girlfriend even changed her own rear wheel bearing on her EG6 Civic.
To summarise, my first 4 months of XJ40 ownership have been great, I love driving it and it always makes me smile when I walk away from it and look back.
Early Saturday morning my girlfriend drove myself and a mate up to Birmingham. We arrived, had a cursory look over it, handed over the balance, signed the paperwork and hey presto, I became the proud owner of a scruffy 92 Sovereign. My mate jumped in with me and we headed for home, stopping only to put some fuel in and inflate all the tyres to the recommended pressures. The 175 miles home passed remarkably uneventfully, cruise control on at 70.
Here are my first pictures of it, taken at lunchtime when we got back.
As you can see it had one or two cosmetic issues....
Saturday afternoon was spent removing bits, straightening them and refitting them, another friend pops by to marvel at my latest purchase and volunteers to help..
Meanwhile a bit of electrical fault chasing happens, the household breakers seen in this picture were connected to the electric aerial....
By the end of the afternoon all this rubbish is culled....
The following evening after a thorough clean and a touch of ride height adjustment...
Over the next few weeks I just enjoyed driving it...
To work
To the beach
The oil pressure light coming on at tickover even after an oil and filter swap was eventually tracked down to the oil pressure sender unit. So I went and got a Series 3 one from my local factors (£3.62) a resistor from work.
Firstly I needed to make a crow foot spanner
Even with all the inlet bits out of the way it's still quite tucked away!
Turns out the threads are different, so had a nose inside the original one to see how it works
And use the remains to make an adaptor
The resistor was added and makes the gauge read correctly although it required an additional relay to make the oil light work the correct way round, another job off the list.
I started collecting bits and bobs to make it look how I wanted and iron out some more niggles......
A set of XK8 wheels and tyres, bit kerbed but cheap enough and with premium tyres on. 18x9 rears 18x8 fronts
Painted the numberplate recess satin black and removed the corroded badges
Replaced the broken mirrors, fitted a replacement sidelight unit and fitted a standalone remote central locking kit
So I could replace my non functional osr door handle and 'on their last legs' front handles (with rear handles because I like the delocked look)
Replaced the deveneered ski slope and ashtray with one that came out of an X300 at the local breakers for a tenner (oh and some paint arrived, but more on that later)
As I started to prep it to paint it I had a prod about at the suspicious blister at the rear of the drivers side front arch. This turned out to be only paint in the shape of a rust blister with not even rust left behind it!
Over the next week I spent every evening after work in the garage....
And onto the other side
As it has an aftermarket sunroof the drains are plugged, all this was cut out and plated over but I don't seem to have taken any after picture..
The rust on this side went in and across the floorpan but I don't seem to have taken any pictures of that repair
All done with the trusty old C.A.D. (cardboard aided design)
I have a confession to make here, I don't like the fishtank lights. I tried to love them, I really did, I know they're an important part of the design, but I just prefer the twin lights. While I was prepping and painting the car a panel at a time my girlfriend was polishing the chrome, prepping and masking these on the dining table.
I knew from the start that I wanted the paint on the car to be satin finish, the cheapest way of doing this was graffiti paint, it has really high solids content so it covers well, it's alcohol based so it dries quickly and has butane propellant so it sprays consistently in cold conditions. Handy really because although the Sovereign will fit in my garage you can only walk from one side to the other if you have a foot and a half of it hanging out of the door. A week of coming home from work, moving the car out and then back in at half 11, prepping, masking and painting it a panel or two at a time, a set of 20mm bolt on wheel spacers, better condition grille shell, new front discs and pads (to get rid of the pulsating pedal) and a swap of tyre size to regain the rolling diameter of the original factory wheel and tyre combination gets us here:
Bonfire night and the Sovereign does sterling service delivering an entire bonfires worth of wood
And pressed into service as my daily driver, dirty and at work...
It's a big cat painted a stealthy satin colour and what could be more stealthy than a ninja hello kitty?
My ever supportive girlfriend weighs in with 2hrs of weeding the bits out of a sheet of stickers that Mystery Machine lovingly crafted for me, here she is nearly finished..
Last couple..
Ready to apply..
Subtle huh?
More daily driving and dirt (I work out in the sticks and part of my commute is a mile and a half road through the middle of a ball clay quarry, any rain and it's like driving through milk!)
Finally got rid of the last bit of blistered bumper chrome (the front centre section) when, out of the blue, Steve (sleeperviva) offers me a complete front bumper he's had for ages, this has an undamaged outer rubber cover and a straight and non rusty inner steel. Best of all, it's free! Massive thanks Steve
That's better..
Gliptone cleaner and feed kit arrives, car smells amazing!
Christmas eve and on our last minute present delivering mission the Sov dumps a lot of its coolant. Day after boxing day and back into the garage it goes again. Inlet manifold off...
Hose repaired, starter removed, dismantled, cleaned put back together, heater matrix replaced to stop coolant leaking into the passenger footwell, audio cabling run through the car, head unit wired up properly, amp and sub fitted, boot floor cleaned and treated, boot trim fitted properly, little bit more ride height removed from the front, front wheel bearings greased and adjusted up, driveshaft ujs greased, diff oil checked. A lot of bits and pieces done and good use made of the time off work, the girlfriend even changed her own rear wheel bearing on her EG6 Civic.
To summarise, my first 4 months of XJ40 ownership have been great, I love driving it and it always makes me smile when I walk away from it and look back.
Be nice to see it in daylight one day....prob after I end up buying another! lol
