New Alarm

Well, what can I say after 1 and half weeks of trying to install my new alarm we finally found all the correct wires in the Jag.

The Alarm is a two way alarm that will let me know when it goes off....

It turned out that Jaguar loved working with relays and ground connections, which is great but the alarm wanted to supply +12vdc to the different devices i.e. Indicators and Side lights.

To wire in the new alarm I needed to first remove the old Clifford one that I had no remotes for! This was fun, cutting out the old system and having to make sure, that after every wire I cut, the car still started!

Actually, it was quite handy, the car already had an alarm fitted, so most of the hard work had already been done! However, I had to modify the alarm by using relays to convert the +12vdc to Grounds. Lucky for me Chris owns Motor World with his Brother Terry, so we nicked one out of an old car.... :).... Well I hope it was....LOL

Haynes Manual and Alarm manual.... happy happy, joy joy.

I will have to do the same again tomorrow for the side lights.

The alarm will also start the car on the press of a button on the remote. It took some time but me and Chris found the correct wire from the alternator that lets the alarm know the engine is running.

• +12V constant supply: Ignition Relay (Yellow) Large Brown wire


• Acc first key position: I used to wire to the stereo


• Ignition 2nd key position: Large white wire from the Ignition Relay (Yellow)


• Start Wire: White and Pink wire from the Starter Relay (After Kill relay see below)


• Kill Relay: I put this before the Start Wire on the White and Pink wire from the starter relay.


• Indicator connector: These are ground connections. I used a relay connected to the same ground as the alarm. This alarm as two indicator outputs but I only used one which connects to both sides


• Boot release: Lucky for me I have a boot open switch in the glove box. I connected the ground connection to this.


• Door open trigger: There is a puddle lamp relay which turns the lights on when any door is open. This again is a ground connection and this works really well.


• Alternator on: There is a brown wire that comes from the alternator that goes to a module by the air intake. I spliced into this, works a treat

There are some more wires to fit and will update once I have found them

Its very freaky watching the car start with no one in it, you press the start button on the remote. The car beeps to let you know it’s about to start. Fuel pump kicks in and then the 4.0L engine turns over.

The key fob then vibrates and a little exhaust icon appears on the remote, very cool.

You can stop the engine with the remote or once you have put the key in the barrel and turned it to key position two (Ignition) you can then stop the car normally by taking the key out.

Another cool feature of the alarm is the car unlocks and locks as you walk towards and away from the car. You can also put the car in “Find Me” mode and the key fob tells you how far you are away from the car.

I will video this and post it.

More to do tomorrow!

A Mess of wires

All will be explained soon :)

Tyre Pressure

Found this in the manual!

NOTE: For maximum comfort, where speeds are not in excess of 160 km/h (100MPH) the pressures on front tyres may be reduced by 0.56 kgf/cm2 (8LBf/in2, 0,55 bar) and rear tyres by 0,42 kgfc/cm2 (6lbf/in2, 0,41 bar).

I drive with no comfort, just in case a traffic officer takes a look I never break the speed limit (joke).

Sound system upgrade

The time came to upgrade the standard stereo that came with the Jag. Yes I have been driving around with the original tape deck system and yes it had an 80's tape and YES I liked it!

I replaced the speakers with Alpines and a fitted a Kenwood head unit and no Rash it doesn't boil water! but it will toast bread lol.

Due to the age of the stereo the front and rear speakers shared the same ground and where running at 6ohm... errrr how old is that!? (18 years my son).
I decided to rewire all the speakers and wired the rear door speakers with the speakers in the footwell. Not the greatest set up but the old system was a 6 channel Jobie!!

I created a cable that could be unplugged if I ever needed to take the door cards off, and I went out and purchased the correct connectors.

The door cards where a fun job, it took over an hour for each door and you had to completely strip the door down. I changed the speakers and made sure I fixed them in place.

Speaker cable (20 Metres) 20 quid
Connectors 10 quid

Stereo from Car Audio Security and Speakers from Halfords Total spent around £340.00

I also wanted to put a sub and amp in the boot to give the car a bit of bass. I also wired the amp power lead, remote and phono leads. This was great fun, as you have to take out the rear seat and find a way of getting around the fuel tank (Jesus 86 litre tank is massive!). I found a redundent lead whaich had been used by the old alarm system, so tied one end to the new lead and pulled it through....

I do still need to fix the speakers below the rear seat as they are still a little lose... I think MDF will come to the rescue!

I think there may still be some settings that need to be changed on the AMP and will leave this to "The Ramus" to play with!!

Me and Ramus where running very late for Dinner at Rash's, so the sports button was pressed! :)

Animal behaviours.....

As expected a true wild animal ..


A jaguar likes to ensure we know that this is its spot...It marks its territory, its domain.. So predators and family know where its been, where it is or where it will be....Please find attached an example of this.

ALL FIXED

Today I re-aligned the wiper arm and the homing position sensor and it's now working correctly.

I am now praying for some rain, to try it out!

Lord give me strength!

Got one!

Today I picked up the Wiper Motor from Howard's Car Spares. It was the tidy sum of 20 pounds.

Also need to get some tools to remove the old one as I don't have a big enough spanner! (No comments people).

I enlisted in the help of Ramus yet again and we worked on the wiper till it got dark. It turned out the motor was not faulty but the unit had jammed as the water release hole was clogged up. I cleaned it out, greased the unit and put it back on the Jag.

We were so close but yet again I forgot to mark where the wiper was positioned, so when the wiper started to move it tried to park itself in the engine bay. Going to leave it until tomorrow...... ARHHHHH!!!

Drove home praying it would not rain!

Ouch!

Got a quote today from British Jag Parts

The cost of a new wiper motor is, hold on.... £297.69 + The dreaded VAT

Don't think I will be paying that, Will call the trusty people at Howard's Car Spares to see if they have any second hand ones.

Wiper Problems

Bugger! Bugger

As I left for work today the wiper stopped working, the fuse has blown and it will no longer move.

It might be a faulty motor as the arm moves very slightly and the motor gets very hot. (As Ramus found out!)

Don't want to risk driving the Jag at the moment as the UK is not known for its dry summer days.

I don't think it will be a difficult job to fix, famous last words.......

Brakes Sorted

Yet again, when you know what you are doing it is easy!

40 minutes later the front discs and pads are changed and the Jag now stops nicely.

Thanks Chris and Joe....

P.S. The old ones were really warn and should have been replaced ages ago!!