1975 Jaguar XJ-S

[richw82]

Hi all,


I've been away quite a while, thought now would be a good time to come back, especially given I have a new toy.

Unsurprisingly it is another Jaguar - but this one is a bit different. I promised myself if I had another old Jag (previously I;ve had S1 and S3 XJ6's, both documented on here) it would be a US import as I'm sick and tired of rust repairs. Just before christamsI wasin a position to buy one, so started looking in the usual places (ebay/classifieds)and this turned up -









A fairly early 1975 XJ-S V12. Left hand drive, spent all its life in the USA, and whiel tehre was some rust - as it wasn't always a California car - its only surface stuff. The sills, floors, radius arms, radiator support, rear quarters; they're all still original metal. I paid a deposit immediately, sorted the balance after new year and went to pick up the car from IK Classics in Holmfirth shortly before my birthday in January.

So, collection day arrived.

The car was sat in the middle of a row of very tasty classic (Mk 1 Escorts, Jag XJ12C, Dodge Charger...) and I liked it more in real life than I had in the photos. It turned out to be an extremely early production line car, being LHD chassic number 613 - making it the 16th oldest know export model, and 31st oldest XJ-S anywhere.

It arrived in New York in October 1975, being dispatched to its owner on December 24th...so will have been one hell of a christmas present for someone that year.

By the end of its days in the US it had been owned by someone in the military - getting a "Department of Defense" vehicle sticker for Castle Air Force Base, and still retained its year 2000 California licence plates. That was the last time it was on the road, it ending up in storage in Washington shortly before making the Atlantic crossing again in 2022.











Loading up was pretty straightforward. The car rolled and braked, but was a non-runner. Winching it on was the order of the day. Once strapped down, it was head south for the Derbyshire border and home.

So...

I've swapped rust for a long simce sleeping old V12, and also need to do a bit of a major garden makeover to get it indoors to protect it.

But thats where all the good adventures begin, isn't it?


Rich

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Brave man! Any pics of the engine bay/plumber's nightmare?

[richw82]

Thanks!

Here you go - its got the complete pre-He export nightmare. Exhaust gas recirculation, air injection, vapor recovery system and catalytic converters...

[Woofwoof]

Wow, you've real balls of steel (rather than my marbles)! Hat's off to you. Hope all goes as planned.

[kevins]

I had one for years, while there is 3x everything you would get on a 4cyl, none of it is that complicated, just need to be methodical.

[richw82]

Yup! I've had a few V12's, the hardest bit is figuring out what all the nonsense laid on top of it is and does, and as you say - remembering there's multiples of everything. I always treat it as two sixes joined at the hip.

[legend]

would it be worth stripping most of that off and running it on a modern ecu?

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Harry Metcalfe had this done, and the results were pretty impressive:


"It's a bit higgledy-piggledy, isn't it?"

[richw82]

You could, but Harry doesn't seem to much like playing with his cars - for instance I watched him failing to secure a loose wiper arm on that XJC, instead relying on Rainex. With the injection he got fed up of a misfire, and instead threw £10k at it -I don't have that money to play with!

I also have a decent knocledge of OPUS and Bosch D-jet injection, so I'm okay with making it work as it should - more of which you'll find below.


Anyhoo - on with things.

Faced with a non runner, the first thing I wanted to do was get some life into systems and see if it would turn over. A suitable battery was found, the engine checked to see if it would turn by hand (it did. Woo!) oil drained and refilled.. then turn the key.



No dash lights, gauges, or any kind of life inside the car, but the engine turned over in that familiar lazy fashion that only the V12 can do.

So working from the front I checked through the ignition system (all seemed good), injection trigger board, injectors click away, but there's no fuel. The fuel pump was comletely dead, the swirl pot and filter blocked and the tank had a residue of stale fuel in the bottom.

Filters and pump were easily acquired off ebay, but flushing the tank and other components made me very unpopular with my wife and neighbours due to the smell!! Eventually I was ready to try again.

A cough, a pop or two, then it settled down into a reasonable idle, with a slight misfire... I'd now got myself a running car.

It didn't last long. After that first start it became proressively harder to start,eventually giving up altogether. The OPUS ignition system had failed; I was pretty lucky in getting anything at all out of it before some transistor or capacitor in the amplifier unit committed electrical suicide.

So, we'll fit the later system off a V12 HE. It uses a Hall effect sensor instead of ferrite rods, a nice little General Motors module wrapped in a Lucas box, and rarely has ever let me down in 6 or 12 cylinder form.

This then creates a couple of issues for a pre HE car. It still needs the injection trigger board (missing from the HE, as it takes a signal for the injectors from the ignition module), and the vacuum advance mechanism is different.

So here's the fun... you make a hybrid distributor.

Take one slightly annoyed pre HE V12.



Remove all the tat off the top of the engine, to expose the old distributor.





Pull the top section off, leaving the lower (mechanical advance section behind. Now is a good time to make sure that this actually works, as its an item which almost always seizes and causes many V12's to run badly.





Next, get to breaker, get a V12 HE distributor (not the Marelli one) and dismember it. Old top section on the right, new one on the left. Swap the vacuum capsules over.



Refiiting, as they say... it all goes together how you would expect, as the casting is a slightly modified version of the older one. By leaving the bottom section in you haven't disturbed your static timing eitehr, so all we need is a trigger board for the injectors.

Luckily, the holes for mounting it were retained and used for a flash shield, so use that as a free and slighty odd looking frisbee, and fit the trigger board. Space it according to the manual, remember to fit the rotor arm that has the magnet to operate it, and then button everything up.



Fit the ignition module as per the manual.. and then start the car.




Total cost around £90, against £600 or so for a "reOPUS" kit. Despite the usual "it won't work/doesn't work." from some enthusiast club expert types, it has before and still does..

[Woofwoof]

Excellent and very impressive.

[kevins]

I remember when I first got mine (very early HE), the performace was nothing special, freeing up the seized advance felt like it released another 100hp.

[ovimor]

There's a bloke up the road from me got a couple 'in his front garden' 😲

Doing it Rite, M8 👍


OVIMOR

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Jun 20, 2024 20:28:15 GMT richw82 said:

It arrived in New York in October 1975, being dispatched to its owner on December 24th...so will have been one hell of a christmas present for someone that year.

It would be interesting to trace who the original buyer/owner and purchase price was - must have been someone pretty well-to-do at the time...

[richw82]

I'd love to know who, but unfortunately the records don't survive. To get one so soon after launch it must have been a preferred customer?

All I can find is that it was imported through British Leyland/Leyland Cars in New Jersey, and the purchase price was $19,200.

[Waxoyling Lyrical]

Interesting. Wasn't a certain Donald Trump or John Lennon (who moved to NY in 1971), I suppose?

[Alpina99]

Beautiful car and excellent work so far,
Love the XJS, always thought it was a very underrated car,
Can I ask though, will the new control module be susceptible to the weather in its position ??
Bookmarked,
Nigel

[richw82]

Thank you! I think it still is underrated even now; once sorted they make a brilliant car for what you pay.



The iginition module will be exposed to the weather but one small tweak ( I mentioned in the Youtube video there's a few little bits to do) will be to seal up the joints and plugs with a decent silicone sealer to keep any moisture out. In terms of location; its ideal to keep the temperature low as can be.

The OPUS module started off in the vee of the engine - which is where I've put the dud one to maintain the original look under the bonnet, but there was a recall that placed it out front where I've fitted the Lucas AB14, and thats where mine was when I started this conversion.

If I have any trouble with it, I'll relocate it up onto the intake manifold as per the HE cars.

[richw82]

So, some more of the journey.

Getting fed up of it sat on the drive looking a faded glory, I thought I;d get the buffer out and see what teh paint was like and if it would hold out for a while longer. I know I'll have to sort it at some point, but for now I'd be happy with a working car in clean condition that tells its transatlantic adventures, rather than a pristine restoration.

Rather happily it came up pretty well.

I also managed to find some replacement pinstripe, having to order it from the USA to get it in imperial sizes asopposed to metric. Its not the original Jaguar one, or in the correct position, but I rather liked it and once again, its part of the car's back story.


Starting to get cleaner -




Pinstripe added -




Playing with the electrics brought some more systems back to life, including headlights and marker lights.




Last but not least I managed to find the correct early heater intake/wiper motor assembly; as it should be bare alloy with a central washer jet assembly instead of colour coded as with later XJS. And the sun started to come out, making me really happy when I took a step back to admire my efforts!

[Davey]

Looks great, I would be leaving the paint as is! Great history and still looks smart.

[richw82]

Well, as part of the garden overhaul (to build a new garage) I had to get the XJ-S off the driveway and onto the road. Given its miserable efforts on Drive it Day - when the ignition decided to curse word itself - this would be a big moment in that its the first time in a few decades its driven under its own power, and the first time in the UK since it left these shores in the autumn of 1975.

And drive it did. Its a bit hesitant on take off, but I know it has at least one stuck injector, and it creaks and groans from a few familiar places such as the gearbox mount. But it drives, steers, stops.. a huge step forward.

At this rate I might just dare to take it to France for Le Mans next year, instead of the X300!