Jaguar XJS Racing Project Jeffery part VII

After the fiasco that was Snetterton, a few things to be done in here, and it’s major surgery.

Some of it is simple. The braking issue does indeed turn out to be the brake lines, the original flexi hose has quit on the driver’s side, and if I understand the explanation correctly, the failure of the inner layer is allowing the hose to close itself off with the application of the pedal.

A new set of steel braided lines cures the braking. Simple as that.

The engine is not so easy. We knew that there was a risk that merely re-ringing the bottom end would fail, and it did. Some of the faults are easy, the oil coming up the dipstick is explained by the discovery that the dipstick was broken, and that does explain the oil leak. The small drain holes in the floorpan allowed the leaking oil into the cabin, hence the oil in the cockpit after the race. Again, pretty simple, not a concern.

What is a concern, however, is that the engine’s woes are quite clearly not merely a broken dipstick.

So out it climbs, all by itself, and Bear tears it apart. Completely. Head off, because there is a chance that the valve stem seals got fried in the car’s first ever overheat a year ago – regular listeners will recall that the professional delivery driver overheated the car in traffic about a mile after he got in it – and the Bear is going to swap them.

But with the head off, a peek into the heavy bit allows a look at the bores. They aren’t round. That would explain a lot. It has run enough, and stood enough, that there are clearly areas that are a different colour to the rest of it. Anyone who has ever sanded anything down and discovered a dent will know the phenomenon, this car has helpfully found the low spots for us. This engine is not coming back from this, it’s dead.

There are mutterings, but we have no choice, it wants a bottom end. Fortunately, it’s not too expensive, because a lot of the new stuff in this engine can swap over, really we’re only swapping the block. Some things have to change, you can’t re-use every bearing, for example, but it’s not as dear as starting from scratch. Just as well, as we’re funding this ourselves, the Jeffery clan won’t authorise us to do this so we’re just doing it anyway and we’ll seek forgiveness later. Forgiveness being easier to obtain than permission.

Another block honed, and another Bear rebuild, including yet another set of rings and the Bear’s patience tested with 24 valve stem seals to swap, and three days later the engine is ready to plug back in the car.

I’m not allowed to touch engines, which is fair enough. Man’s got to know his limitations, and anything beyond a head gasket swap and I get sent to the naughty corner, so the quest for less weight is once again mine.

There is one place I have found a lump of it, and I want it. The sunroof. That giant cassette and its housing, mechanism and cables, is still up there. Removing all the bolts requires taking out a couple of elements to the roll cage because they are in the way, but once removed it comes loose, but it won’t come out, the cage is in the way.

Removing the entire roll cage might sound extreme, but we don’t do half measures. You have to remove the fire extinguisher to remove the cage, so this is one of the classic Kutuka jobs where we get in much further than we planned, like the first time I set about the handbrake pads on a roadgoing XJS and began by removing the driver’s seat.

With time, that giant cassette comes out, trailing drain hoses like spider legs, and the scales say it was worth 18kg. Dismantling it allows removal of the single body-colour panel that has to go back in the roof, and with some alloy brackets made six metal fingers press the panel back in. Cage refitted, extinguisher back in, job done. Black spray paint covers the white bits that now festoon the interior.

The job did leave me with one baffling question. This car used to be white. It was repainted in this blue. How the hell did the inside of the sunroof panel get painted blue? Nobody, and I mean nobody, would normally do that. It’s covered by interior trim, and it requires substantial disassembly to get to it, so which patient soul took the time to get in there and do that? It must be £200 of labour, to paint a part you cannot possibly ever see unless a decade later someone converts this to a racing car. Amazing.

Time for the engine again, and with it all back together after a number of long days for the Bear, back into its hole. It is actually much faster this time, and in the space of just a few hours the whole thing is ready to go again.

The process Bear goes through to pre-oil everything possible is fascinating, but there is still always that moment when you go for the starter button that you wonder which bits might be metal on metal for those first few seconds, and wonder what you might have left off altogether. The lack of any bits left over is helpful, but you do wonder…

Healthy brum noises come from the car. For only moments, because we are not running this car more than we can possibly help. It goes, that’ll do. Pushed out of the garage, she is restarted only long enough to load her onto the trailer, then whisked away to London to our tame rolling road. Not the muppets who got hold of this car last time she had a fresh engine up her. That bunch of idiots gave the car more than 60 power runs that day, and achieved nothing except to fit bigger injectors that threw gallons of excess fuel at a problem that wasn’t there. Never again thanks, this time we’re taking the car ourselves, and it’s going somewhere we trust.

Off to Novatech, www.nt-r.com and the home of Bernie Bowden, an individual trusted by the McGivern clan, one of those handy contacts we’ve made over the years. This car will be run in on his rollers under strict control, by people who know their onions.

Slough echoes to the reverberant thunder of a Jag going through its rebirth. Loud at the best of times, the occasional forays to full power are enough to shake the rack of bulbs off the wall. Oops.

But it’s done. The rolling road’s baffling computer, assessed with keen eyes by those who know, says it’s good. And the numbers are healthy, they start with a "3" for the first time. To say this is a car still on standard throttle and intake, with an exhaust manifold that appears to be less than optimal, we’re impressed.

Pack it up, pile it off to Brands. We’re still not telling the customer what we’ve been up to though. Let it race first. If the smoke has stopped that'll do for us for now.

Brands dawned wet again. We watched Matt sweep out of Clearways drafting Gail Hill’s XJ40, a car we know to have substantial power and a decent setup, in pursuit of that elusive saloon pole position. The small boy’s father literally fell over. He missed pole by a fraction, but it is getting awfully close at the front now, and to say where this car started before we got our paws on it a year since…we’re calling it progress.

Brands did however tell us in no uncertain terms that the power now exceeds the chassis’ ability to deal with it. The hooligan pilot is sideways everywhere, but in a car with the roll control of a yacht, coupled with a teenage enthusiasm for oversteer, and a lump of power under your right foot, what do we expect really. It is time to be turned loose on the handling. The news that the small child has blown the anti-roll bar budget on a new camera left us almost speechless. Priorities….

But then this isn't the first time we have been left baffled by the spending. The revelation that the boy's boots cost more than his bash hat left us bewildered and confused. We race in £350 helmets and £10 trainers, this boy would rather look stylish and have his brains come out. Not our place to comment. But we do.

Brands established that the smoke appeared to have subsided and the oil consumption ceased. We know the car is now putting out the power that its parts suggest it should. Further improvements might come from a better exhaust manifold, and indeed at this stage it hasn't yet had the planned big throttle, turned out not to need it.

What it now needs are only two things.

1. A chassis that can take it.

2. A driver that can tame it.

Development of both are next on the list.