1983 Daimler Sovereign 4.2

[Flynn]

Good evening all,

I have a new arrival to report.

First a quick story with pictures to tell you how I arrived here.

I used to own this:

A terribly brown Jaguar XJ6 series 2, 4.2 - It was my first real project car that needed loads of work and it gave me a lot of joy and just as much grief, as I nursed it from total basket case, to reliable daily driver. I decided after repairing or replacing most mechanical components, that I just didn't have the time/skills/enthusiasm or money to pay someone else to sort out the body and interior (both of which were BAD) and so I sold it on.

To fill the gap I then bought this hoping it would be just as comfortable but cheaper to run:

The only trouble was, it was the single worst car I've ever owned. In fairness to it, it was really comfortable and the engine (turbo diesel) was absolutely excellent but it constantly tried to leave me stranded, I had to use it as a toilet to get home once and parts for it are getting difficult to come by. I sold it.

Then I bought this:

Which is a car I have wanted since they were new, when I earned my living from them (I was a Jaguar powertrain technician for a while). It is a truly wonderful car but the wheels ruined the ride (but looked great!) and I just didn't fall in love with it like I had hoped to. I owned it for a few months and sold it for a tiny bit more than I paid for it (rare!)

Then I bought a mk1 Audi TT roadster because I am a real man, it doesn't really have any relevance to this story but it is a decent car and I am using that to ferry myself to work and back at the moment, of course you can enjoy a picture of that one too:


I also have had this for a few years now:

Which is an excellent vehicle and I have literally today, finally got the engine and gearbox back in it, so it will be back on the road soon.

I've lost where I was going with this. Basically, you can see I like tatty old cars. Comfortable, tatty old cars... And Jaguars... And Audi TT roadsters. And Range Rovers. I like cars.

I had been without a Jaguar for a few weeks and had been looking for an X308 XJR but I couldn't find any that weren't absolute dogs for what I wanted to pay so I started casting a wider net and had been considering all sorts of things, I ended up not being able to stop looking at a black Daimler Sovereign 4.2 on eBay, described as excellent interior and bodywork, suspected head gasket failure. I had no way of going to look at it before auction end so chanced it, sent a message to see what the seller was all about, he checked out as a decent chap so I put a bid on and won it!

It was delivered to me this morning and so far I am very pleased with it, the interior may as well be brand new for the most part, needs a few tidy up jobs here and there but it must have had the seats retrimmed and a new headlining fairly recently fitted. Body work is also very good, my old XJ6 had concrete for sills and jacking points so I expected similar here but no, all metal and all looks good, certainly been repaired but it has been done well. Seems to have various electrical niggles (some lights not working, some dodgy switches, stereo does nothing etc.) but I can sort those out later, the main issue is the engine, it doesn't run too bad but sounds a bit tired. I stuck my nose over the open coolant header tank and it stinks of oil and petrol and the oil cap and dipstick have an emulsion on them so it certainly looks like the headgasket has failed, I've only had 5 minutes to poke about it with it today so I'll have a proper look before I do anything drastic - taking the head off one of these engines can be quite an undertaking! Anyway, here it is:




So there you have it, I've got another Jaguar... Well a Daimler I suppose but the difference only extends to badging and some slightly different exterior trim pieces.

Plan for this is probably keep hold of it for a bit, I really do like the way they drive however, I have a good idea how I want to improve on that. I will be repairing and keeping the standard 4.2 engine for now but the Borg Warner 66 gearbox is something I would really like to investigate changing. I wonder if anyone reading this has done a swap on something similar with a ZF 4HP22? I think the early XJ40s had the ZF box and it was still a cable controlled unit so could work in this?

Anyway, I hope you're all well.

Bye.

[qwerty]

I am absolutely no help when it comes to your gearbox replacement question, but I will say that I really love the look of these. They have aged so well. Look forward to updates.

Tom

[andyg16v]

These were about as I got into cars as a kid. But despite dreams of XR2 and RS Turbo ownership these have a very big place in my memory as well.

I hope you can get it back to full health and purring as a big cat should 😎

[Flynn]

Good evening once more,

So time passes and things happen, my MGB is now back together and running well, I am now just waiting for a dry spell (could be some time) before I start putting miles on it and properly bedding in my rebuilt engine (read that as thrashing it about and hoping it doesn't blow up - my patented engine run in procedure). I mention the MGB because it has significance to the Daimler in that I didn't want to start working on the Daimler until I had 'finished for now' the MGB, which I have. You can have a picture of the engine in the MGB because why not:



So on Friday I finished work and have time off booked for the festive season. I had planned to make a start on the Daimler during my time off. I had decided to take the engine out without the assistance of having the car on a lift - for 2 excellent reasons. First is that from my experience of getting a 4.2 engine out of a series XJ with the car on the ramp, my engine crane was at the very tippy top of it's extension in order to clear the bumper and front panel, which was really dodgy and felt like a scene from the first 10 minutes of BBC drama Casualty, when you are trying to guess who is about to get horribly injured. Second is that either mine or my wife's daily driver tend to fall apart around this time of year, so having the ramp free to fix them at short notice could be a wise move.

Anyway, I get myself prepped, get the bonnet off on my own without damaged to vehicle, bonnet or my back (quite the achievement!) and get stuck in. The Lucas fuel injection system makes an already busy engine bay look a proper mess:



Some hours and several cups of tea later and it was all going rather well and I hadn't hit any major problems or made any horrible mess - the torque converter decided to redress the balance and stay with the engine rather than the gearbox and so I emptied somewhere in the region of 3L of ATF on the floor. Brilliant.
Engine came out though with no injuries or property damage so a complete success in my book.



That satisfied my Daimler cravings for one day so I tidied up and decided to come back to it this morning. I took the flexplate off and fitted the engine to my stand. This task always reminds me just how rubbish my engine crane is, I think I am going to have to upgrade or at least see if anyone I know has bought a better one than mine that I can borrow, the problem with mine is a problem I am absolutely (un)familiar with, it just isn't long enough.

With engine on stand, I was able to take a proper look at what I had got myself in to - I probably should have written this next bit at the top but if you've come this far, this is like a prize for you, you've won some context around why the engine is coming out in the first place. I bought this car knowing it wasn't running well. I have had it running for 5 minutes, coolant starts pouring out of the overflow and the hoses go rock hard. Further tests reveal that the coolant header tank stinks of petrol and oil and the engine appears to be full of green coloured oil/water emulsion. From previous experience of these engines (see here for terribly brown thread) they can present something of a challenge when it comes to cylinder head removal and in any case, it was leaking oil from everywhere and it has around 12 miles of fuel and coolant hoses in the engine bay which are all well past their best so wanted to address many other issues all at the same time, all made easier with the engine out.



It has clearly had a lot of work in the not too distant past, new core plugs although one now leaking from a corrosion hole, cylinder head looked quite fresh too but we'll look at that later. Here is the core plug that is going to be an easier job with the engine out:



You can see here it was treated to a genuine oil filter whenever it was last changed, long, long ago.



So after shuffling a few things around in the garage, I started to remove the manifolds so I can do the necessary to get the head off, before too long it was coming apart nicely, certainly been apart before.





I drained the oil, that looked nice - there was 10L of this in the end



A while later and the head pretty much just fell off, not what I expected and a pleasant surprise, I thought I would be fighting with this for some time.



This revealed the problem, the head gasket had failed between cylinder 5 and 6, where these kind of slice cuts in to the cooling jacket are, my series 2 block didn't have these so I presume they were a later update, the one between 5 and 6 had a carbon build up blocking it up pretty well and then cooling system rust and gunge the rest of the way. 



Cleaned up a little so you can see better what they are supposed to look like.



That picture above was with the head studs removed, which is a job that again I was expecting to be a nightmare, these later engines got really long head studs that thread in to the block down by the bottom of the cylinders, so they sit in the cooling jacket, often rusting away and then snapping off when you try to remove them, for visual reference, this is one of the long head studs:



That one is in remarkably good condition and has clearly been replaced fairly recently (within the last 5-10 years I reckon) there was another stud that was threaded into a heli coil that was fitted just under proud of the block face, which as I understand it is a pretty common repair should the original long stud snap off. So this engine has been apart and some other poor man had the joy of the original studs.

On the face of it then this engine should repair ok, the cylinder head looks really good, like recently rebuilt really good, this is a good picture to show general condition:
 


The cylinders aren't so great. They are at least consistent but they have some scoring and corrosion which I am still pondering how to deal with. Not sure how well it will come out in a picture but we'll give it a try:



And that is pretty much where I got up to today. There are loads of jobs to do on the car so I am in no particular rush with the engine. I'll get the sump off and take a look at the bearings and the oil pump. I also will read up as much as I can on the work involved to change the gearbox to a XJ40/XJS ZF 4 speed, that would be a great upgrade I think. I'd like to get the car back on the road for April time but we'll see how that goes, notice I didn't commit to a year haha.

Hope all are well and having as good a festive break as one can given the circumstances.

[kevins]

that came appart easily, if there is no step in the bore those marks don't look too deep and may well hone out if so with new set of ring it will go again.

The zf 4hp22 is a great auto box, I have one in my range rover, I believe all the Jaguar applications were with the AJ6 engine and not the XK, I don't know how the bolt pattern varies.

Another option would be to fit a complete AJ6 engine and box.

[grizz]

Way out of my frame of reference or ability, but I like the car, and of course you getting in there and knowing your stuff, makes me smile.

I do love it when people know stuff.

[qwerty]

Wow that's some good work pulling the engine out! At least the problem has been confirmed.

Tom

[andyg16v]

If it never works again then you have a piece of art car to sit and look at. Put the bonnet back on and just admire the shape 😎

[Flynn]

Good evening once more.

I have been quite busy with this recently, an hour after work here, one morning of a weekend there. I think we left it with the engine partially stripped, the cylinder head looked great, the rest of the engine not so hot. I was also getting fired up to convert the old BW 3 speed auto a later XJ40 4 speed ZF gearbox. So where are we now?..

Well we'll cover the engine first but to cut to the chase, I've bought another Jag, which I think is called mission creep but I'm having fun with it so I don't see that as a problem right now.

Yes, engine - fully stripped it down to component parts and it all looks really quite good, this engine has definitely had a full rebuild at least once before, the pistons are +.020, the big end and main bearings both +.010. The condition of the cylinders was worse than that previous picture makes out and so, I took the block and the crank to the machine shop who had a look over and are confident that it will all go again no problem, the cylinders are going the next size up, the crank is being measured, crack tested, it is having the sludge plugs removed (1/2" allen key grub screws that often hide a pile of oil sludge behind them but are not easy to remove - I rounded 2 off and gave up haha) and then I'm having the crank scroll ground off so that I can fit a fancy new style rear main oil seal in the hope that it doesn't leak. All of this work should hopefully leave with me a nice base for a reliable engine once rebuilt. I am looking forward to the engine build and should have the block and crank back in a few weeks.

Stripped engine bits (with the lovely emulsion leaking out of the oil ways in the crank - yuck):



I then turned my attention back to the car, initially to start fixing the various electrical issues I know about but I couldn't help noticing a little patch of rot by the anti-roll bar and forward-most front subframe mount:



With the engine out, the front subframe isn't a big job to remove so that came out to allow for much better access and a proper poke at the rusty bit:



A bit of poking revealed that the front section of chassis leg was essentially made of rust. You can see more rot on the inner wheel arch panel in this next picture, since then I've continued slicing at it and have now got it back to good metal and so I will start on the repair tomorrow - double skinned but nice flat sections with easy folds thankfully, I suspect the other side will be more or less identical in condition so will have to fix that too. I found you can buy an inner wing repair panel which includes the part that has rusted out on mine but, at £1300 per side and a lot of unnecessary work, decided against that:



So then with the subframe out, I decided it would be something of a missed opportunity to just give it a quick wire wheel and a dust over with the cheapest satin black I could find, so I have now stripped it down to the component parts - some ball joints and bushes were ok but a lot were well beyond their best and new ones are very reasonably priced so, it will have a refreshed front suspension when it all goes back together. Both the steering rack and the PAS pump leak so I will navigate my way through the many seal and repair kits available to the correct items and then have a crack at refreshing those too - the front end should be like a new one when I'm done!



Nice feature of the Jaguar front suspension is that by using some nuts and some threaded bar, you can use the lower spring seat to decompress and remove the spring, I need to make a really long 9/16 socket though because by hand this took me about 30 minutes each side!:



So I now have a stripped subframe and a box of suspension bits, I have investigated the cost of having them blasted and powder coated, a local place wants somewhere around £350, which I thought wasn't bad until I spoke to a friend who said a place closer to him (but miles and miles away from me) did a very similar job for £200 so now I am not so sure. What is a reasonable price to pay to have this lot cleaned up and powder coated?:





Moving on - I had a desire in the back of my mind to have a better gearbox on this car. The BorgWarner 3 speed is plenty reliable but for modern day 70mph cruising, it just doesn't have enough gears and so these cars seem happiest around 50-60mph. doesn't sound like much but I quite fancy using this car for a driving holiday (if brexit and/or covid ever allow such things to happen again) and trying to do 300 miles in a day at 55mph compared to 70mph makes a difference. A fairly well known conversion is to fit a ZF 4HP22 from a later XJ40 style XJ6 or similar aged XJS, problem being the XJ40 and XJS used a different engine to the series XJs and so it isn't a straight swap, I want to do the job properly so making one new bellhousing out of two bellhousings is both not ideal, and beyond my skills and tooling at home. I found GW Autos produce a kit which looks really nice, a cast alloy bell housing is included that looks like the original and everything else has been thought of, prices start at £3900 which is an awful lot of money to spend, to put that gearbox behind a very lovely, but very old engine. So then I started thinking about cutting my losses on the original engine and gearbox, selling them and buying the cheapest Jaguar S Type R that I could find, still a 4.2 petrol, but a supercharged V8 and with a ZF 6 speed no less, which I could then transplant in to my series 3. I searched the usual online outlets and found quite a few potential candidates but then blew cold on the whole idea for various reasons. I did however keep coming back to an eBay classified advert for a 1999 X308 XJR. It seemed cheap for a low mileage, low owner car so was clearly hiding problems so I thought better of it and just kept checking in, assuming it would be sold in fairly short order.

Some days later and In a moment of weakness I messaged the seller, who sent more pictures over. Seemed like a good car for the price being asked. More days passed and the advert still stays live. I finally crack on Friday and ring the seller up - 5 minutes later I had agreed a price and bought it, an hour after that and I had a transporter booked via Shiply to get it back to my house. And so it arrived this afternoon:



I've wanted a V8 XJR for ages and I intended to pick one up later this year but this one came up at the right price, with a black leather interior and no sunroof and so I went for it.

So how is it? Well looking at the MOT history, I expected to find corrosion to the front of the sills - sure enough it is there and will need welding before the next MOT, it smells a bit funny inside, the central locking doesn't work, the headlining has fully dropped and it just has the feel of a good car that has been neglected for some time - the previous owner confirming that this car was always a 3rd car so last in the queue come spend time. The tyres are a good example of this and are just plain dangerous (also expected), I'll drop a picture in of the newest one on the car, 2007 vintage, a correct spec Pirelli with stacks of tread but looks to have sat out in the sun forever. Surely an MOT fail but maybe the cords weren't showing 7 months ago...



The other 3 tyres are all from 2005 and in similar condition. Generally speaking I am super happy with it and I know it will make for a lovely car once I have spent a little money and a lot of time on it. What is disappointing is that the car clearly has a pretty major gearbox problem, I'll diagnose it and fix it in the fullness of time but the chap selling made no mention of this, in fact stating that the car 'Drives gorgeously and effortlessly as she should and silky smooth and she purrs'... 3000rpm to creep away from stationery doesn't seem gorgeous or effortless to me but it is all subjective I suppose haha. I expected problems and would still have bought it with the gearbox issue, just makes me wonder what else it is hiding now. Such are the risks of buying a cheap Jag blind!

So that is where we are at today, the Daimler is coming along nicely but will be having the standard engine and gearbox back in it for now. A new arrival joins the fleet and is sure to throw a few problems as we get it ready for the road again.

Hope everyone is well.

Bye for now.

[kevins]

Like the new xjr, have you checked the trans fluid level? Many autos behave like that when low on fluid.

[Flynn]

Jan 17, 2021 14:28:29 GMT kevins said:

Like the new xjr, have you checked the trans fluid level? Many autos behave like that when low on fluid.

Thanks kevins - I am hoping it is just low on fluid but I never get that lucky!

It actually could be low on fluid as the last service work of any kind was in 2015, the chap I bought it from was not mechanically minded and so if the gearbox had even a small leak, it would have gone unchecked and could well have gone low enough to effect operation by now.

Not a lot is going to happen with the XJR until I get the Daimler back together, I charged the XJR battery overnight and the car seems happier for that, the car had a load of fault codes that all had the hallmarks of a low battery and sure enough, it was sat at 10.5V. I have had some good results with my Ctek smart charger where it has managed to get loads more life out of what appeared to be almost dead batteries so I hope it has been successful here too.

At some point in the next few weeks I will get it up on the ramp, I'll get a proper look at everything and give it the first service it has had since 2015! I shall report back!

[Marc]

Really loving this thread already! Old Jags are some of my favourite things in the world! Looking forward to more updates!

[Phil2600s]

I had an XJR V8 that had this fault. The gearbox is a Mercedes unit, and is sealed. On some cars there is no dipstick tube at all, some have it but it has a security plug in the top.

I dropped the gearbox sump, swapped the filter, cleaned it all out and refilled with the special fluid that they need and it was spot on. It went from revving high to move away and jerky changes to silky smooth.

I'd definitely suggest that first, even though the correct oil is expensive as it transformed my car. You can even buy the dipstick if you need it.

[kevins]

They claim these sealed for life units are to keep contamination out but I can't help thinking a part of it is to drum up work for their dealers, rather than tip a litre of fluid in  it goes something like: trans fluid a bit low, procedure says we'll have to fix that small leak first sir, all in that'l cost you 3 grand.

[Flynn]

marc - That XJR of yours looks nice, do you still have it? Still going strong?

Phil2600s - Hopefully this is all it is, I'm preparing for the worst but hoping for the best - often a good way to approach repairs on older cars!

kevins - I wonder where the 'sealed for life' claim came from? Surely ZF/Gearbox Manufacturers wouldn't have been that brave, it must have been a vehicle manufacturer claim, something to do with making vehicles cheaper for fleet operators maybe and seeing as 'life' isn't a defined period of time, it didn't tie them to any warranty claims? I don't know.

I'm going to spend an hour or two on the Daimler this evening, see if I can get the rust repairs progressed and finally order the parts I need to stop the steering rack and pump leaking.

[kevins]

Jan 20, 2021 10:30:35 GMT Flynn said:

marc - That XJR of yours looks nice, do you still have it? Still going strong?

Phil2600s - Hopefully this is all it is, I'm preparing for the worst but hoping for the best - often a good way to approach repairs on older cars!

kevins - I wonder where the 'sealed for life' claim came from? Surely ZF/Gearbox Manufacturers wouldn't have been that brave, it must have been a vehicle manufacturer claim, something to do with making vehicles cheaper for fleet operators maybe and seeing as 'life' isn't a defined period of time, it didn't tie them to any warranty claims? I don't know.

I'm going to spend an hour or two on the Daimler this evening, see if I can get the rust repairs progressed and finally order the parts I need to stop the steering rack and pump leaking.

The sealed for life is because manufacturers didn't trust customers to put the right fluid in and not get dirt etc on the dipstick or when topping up, from my experience the service instruction is something like if there are any leaks fix them then re-fil with a specified quantity of oil, some also have a service filter and oil change interval specified. This is all fine on you 80 grand car when it is new and most owners are very unlikely to even open the bonnet but for a 15 year old car with a small weep most of us will just want to top it up and live with the leak. 

[Marc]

Jan 20, 2021 10:30:35 GMT Flynn said:

marc - That XJR of yours looks nice, do you still have it? Still going strong?

Thank you! She's a nice old girl, still going strong. I'm collecting parts at the moment for a major service and refresh. Every now and then I think about selling her, but the reality is I'll be buried with her.

[Flynn]

Good day,

I didn't realise that the clocks had gone forwards until about 11:30 this morning, I still feel out of sorts now.

I have been making progress with both Jaguar and Daimler. Firstly the XJR:

Well the gearbox issue was indeed hardly any gearbox oil, I drained the gearbox sump and got just shy of 1L which isn't right. There was evidence of a leak from the 'mechatronics' connector so I replaced that along with a new oil filter and filled the gearbox up to the right level and the car now drives fine! I have taken it for a test drive a total of 2 miles, which is about the limit on the tyres that are currently fitted! New tyres (Bridgestones no less!) are being fitted this coming Thursday and then I'll be pressing the XJR in to daily service - what could possibly go wrong?!

I have done a fair bit of work but never intended to make a thread on that car so didn't take many pictures, it was mainly patching up some rust on the leading edge of the floors and sill panels, replacing the headlining, slobbering a liberal dose of Dinitrol 4941 underneath and tidying up a few little neglected bits and pieces (broken door check strap, new number plates etc.) enjoy the few photos I have taken of it:

Headlining when I got the car, had totally dropped so when I sat in the car I wore it like a big hat:



And the new one that I fitted, good as new!



The latest picture I have of it, with a fresh new number plate and a replacement lower grille trim piece, looks pretty tidy from 20ft away now:



Well this brings us to the Daimler. The engine block is back from the machine shop and I am halfway through rebuilding it now, the front subframe has been shot blasted, revealing some significant corrosion which has now been repaired and it should be powder coated a long with a few other bits, hopefully ready to collect this coming week. The chassis rails are repaired now and I am getting together a long list of fiddly little jobs that I need to get finished before dropping the engine back in, mainly tidying up previous bodge work on some wiring and giving the engine bay a good scrub, it is currently under the horrible gritty dust you get after a big grindy grindy, weldy weldy job on a car.

The block just after I collected it from the machine shop:



This is a picture where I left things this evening, crank and pistons back in, oil pump with comically long oil pick up pipe attached:



And here it is from the top, shiny new pistons looking good:



I've got some time off work this week so I should have the engine all back together, then it is just waiting on the front subframe to be ready and then I can rebuild that and soon enough have a complete car again, I am really looking forward to driving this one, I am hoping it drives like my old series 2 but with a slightly better screwed together interior.

The chassis rail rust repairs look like this, won't win any prizes but certainly won't fall off!





In other news and nothing really to do with the Jaguars, I am shoehorning some MGB content in here to show you my latest project on that, only small but offered me a great opportunity to get to grips with Fusion 360 CAD software and getting the best from my 3D printer. I have a non-standard alloy radiator on the MGB, it has a plastic fan that needs to sit on the front of it - The bottom of the fan is held via nuts and bolts to the panel the oil cooler sits on, so it was half secured but I wanted to make some top brackets for it.

First off, a make a template of what would fit using some brake pipe off cut:



Then trace that to take some half accurate measurements off:



Then fire up Fusion 360 and after at least 5 cups of tea and a lot of googling, arrive here:



Then it was proof of concept time with the 3d printer!



Yeah, pleased with that, made a few little tweaks to my design and then swapped to a black filament for that factory look:



I'll admit I could have just folded up some thin metal sheet to do the same thing in half the time, but where is the challenge in that!?

Anyway, I am sure this opens up further opportunity for my various project vehicles, I just don't know what yet!

I think that is about it, I hope everyone is well.

Night.

[Alpina99]

Some nice work here on some very nice cars,
You certainly have your work cut out,
I think the fabrication work is first class,
Looking forward to seeing future updates,
Nigel

[eurogranada]

Bookmarked! I like Jag stories!