Bugger

Been working silly hours over the last 3 weeks and not had chance to take a look at the beast.



Bottom of the picture shows the problem... Bugger clould have been nasty on the Motor Way

Near death...

Well, I have never been so scared. As I joined the motor way the car decided to lane swap. It felt like I had no control of the car. I pulled into the hard shoulder and checked the car over but could not find a problem.

So I set off to make sure it was not me. It was like driving a snake, I had no control of the car. I pulled over again but this time I called the RAC to see if they could help.

1 hour later they turned up. The RAC chap looked over the car and could not find the problem. He felt that the car was not safe to drive.

Due to the size of the Jag he was unable to toe me home. I was told I would have to wait for a recovery truck... Joy

While waiting a flat bed truck decided to dump its load over the Motor Way, I had to call the police as all 3 lane where covered in rubbish. The HA and police looked at me if it was my rubbish.

As you can see the Police and HA closed the Motor Way as I sat there and watched.

Another hour later and the recovery truck turned up and we set off home. It was a sorry site to see the old car being dropped of home.

Brakes and Service

Today I decided to change the rear brake pads. The car has warned me for the last 2 month that the Pads needed changing... I was surprised that the car has a rear brake sensor.



I enlisted the services of Chris to give me a hand as I was unable to change the front ones on the car. Luckily Chris owns Motor World Car Body Shop and they have all the tools and equipment needed to do the job.


This is also a good time to service the car... It has been over a year now and the Jag was starting moan to me!



When changing the air filter, (which is only a year old), it looks the same age as the car (19).




Below is the black sludge that came out. We replaced this with nice new clear oil... Sorry car




Chris then set to work changing the rear pads. They where that low they have damaged one of the rear sensors! The sensors need replacing, but to get rid of the warning light in the car I have crossed the streams :)

While the rear wheels where off, I was able to inspect the rust that is starting to come through the side seals. This is not an easy fix and will require them to be replaced.

Costs:

Pads: £23.00 (SESPAD656)

Service parts: £61.00 (Air/Oil Filter, Plugs and Oil 9 litres of the stuff)

Fixes

Today I wanted to take a look at making a proper stand for the DVD player as the weight of the unit caused the plastic below the glove box to give way.


I wanted to mock up a design to make sure that I was happy with the layout. I checked the shed today and found some old wood. One bit was the perfect size for the front board and I didn't need to cut it to size. I measured up some bits of wood to support the DVD.



I removed the carpet and cut it to the correct size. I had to cut the hole out for the DVD player. I am going to leave this for a week to make sure it stays up and I will then build a proper stand next weekend out of MDF.



It was about time I cut away the headliner, It was pea'ing me off every time I got in the car I could feel it on the top of my head. Also it should give me more of an incentive to get it fixed!

Music Time

Today I purchased a Freecom Tough Drive 120GB mobile USB hard drive. Its USB powered and guess what... It works with the car stereo.




I have been trying a number of different USB devices with my Kenwood head unit to see if they would work, like the Nokia N95. You select the phone to Mass storage and the head unit reads it as if it was a USB stick.




I have also wired up the audio/visual lead to the screen in the car so you can use the phone as normal but view it on a large screen.


The question now is how many music files the head unit can see, I am in the process of copying 47GB's worth of music to the drive to see if it will ok but as I am not running windows it should be fine. Navigating will be a problem, and there will be a lot of track skipping.


Not bad for 54 quid...


On another note, due to the weight of the DVD player the bit of plastic that sits under the glove box gave way this week. Need to figure out a way of re-fitting the DVD player and make it look pucker!

Oil, What Oil

Checked the car oil today and it was a little low. In fact it wasn't even registering on the dip stick.

Couple of litres from Westleigh Motor Factors and its registering again. I know where the problem is, I did not replace the sump nut washer when I did the last service and its leaking slowly from there.

Oops!

Quick fix

After washing the car I decided to take a look at why the interior lights were not working. The car was reporting that a fuse had blown but every time I changed it, it kept on blowing.

Also there was no "Always Live" power to the car so the seat did not work when the ignition was off.

I remember that I had some problems fitting the passenger sunvisor, so I took a look at this first... And guess what, I found the problem. The positive wire had split and was connected to the Shell of the car. Is was shorting the car out.



I removed the sun visor and needed to fix that before I refit it.

I also had ordered a new bit of chrome for the front windscreen as it flew off a couple of months ago. It was only 3 quid from Jag which I thought was good!.

Back to Project Sovereign

It turned out to be a bolt that had snapped so the clip that held the centre pipe to the manifold had come away.



18 years of wear and tear.


At first it looked like I would need a new clip but with some Burrows magic and a hammer I got it out.

Then it came to fitting it. I replaced the broken bolt with a shiny new one and enlisted the services of the Ramus' to tighten the clip as I pushed the exhaust back together.

Now its sounds very quite.

Project Spitfire!

Well, it rained today and anyone that lived through WW2 would have thought that it had started again. Spitfires flying above... But no it was me in the JAG!


On the way to work I noticed a burble noise coming from the Jag. When I go to Ramus' I quickly checked but could not see where the problem was.


I drove very slowly to Motor World and asked Chris to take a look. He took one look at it and confirmed it was defiantly the exhaust, however, he couldn't fix it until this evening.


So we drove very slowly to work. It made it to the gates in the car park and then bang, the car shock, the noise was deafening. It sounded like an old Spitfire getting ready to take off!


When looking closer, it looks like the pipe has come off the manifold. So should be easy to fix.


The sound is awesome but unfortunately not drivable...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDGWLUmbB_Q

Visual entertainment. Day 3

Today I wanted to put the dashboard back together and give the car a good clean.

As the weather was touch and go I washed and poshed the car first.

I had the battery on charge all day yesterday and most of today. When I connected the battery the dashboard reported that a fuse had blown. On inspection it turned out the be the interior lights. When I changed the fuse it blew that one and the other 3 I tried. (Going to leave this until tomorrow)

Also for some reason the +12vdc "always live" from the battery to the stereo was not working. I checked it all the way back to the fuse box. When I checked the voltage at the fuse box it had +12vdc but some where there is a break in the wire.

I decided to run a new lead from the battery and this time fitted an in-line fuse. I started to put the settings back into the stereo but it was getting dark so gave up until tomorrow.