[keithyboy]

I decided I wasn’t going to do this but, to be honest, people don’t ridicule me as much as I’d like so this is your opportunity.

It’s probably a year or so since I gave a proper update on goings in in the Keithyboy household so I need to bring you up to speed.

We shall start with the bad news. The bins, which have always featured heavily, are now completely to ****. Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council, in a bid to discourage the use of bins as workbenches and encourage fly-tipping, have replaced our grey bin with a much smaller one. As a workbench, this is nearly useless as it is a waste receptacle. It is far too low for my knackered back and it is full when it contains a scrumpled up crisp packet. The other bins are still full-sized so we have improvised and adapted.

I digress. On to the cars, starting with the the CRV which continues to rattle along. Readers with long memories may recall some fun and games changing a CV joint, which tuned into changing a driveshaft. The clonking continued so I decided to change the nearside CV joint which I had in stock after buying one for t’other side. This time I decided that I would not be defeated by a CV joint that refused to be separated from the driveshaft. An economy size pack of cutting discs was purchased and the joint was using a not strictly by the book method.

 

[keithyboy]

Unhappy at such violent treatment, the rattling pile of crap decided to throw a major wobbly. It went all weird and felt like all of the drive was going to the rear wheels causing massive drivetrain shunt. This had me and the Honda specialist completely stumped. I removed the propshaft to isolate the problem, the theory being if it still felt like ****, the problem was the front, if it recovered, it was the rear. As it happened, with no centre prop, there was no drive at all (which shouldn't be the case on a CRV). I initially suspected the gearbox but, after further dismantling, I found this:



The (pattern) driveshaft snap ring isn't strong enough to hold it in the box. It worked its way out as fa as it could, ran around like that for a while, then stripped the spline. Thankfully, the spline in the box was unharmed and a 2nd hand shaft had it up and running in no time.

I also changed the sagging rear springs but there are no pictures due to my hands shaking.

 

[keithyboy]

And so to the Jag, which has been surprisingly trouble free. One problem it came with, which affects all modern cars with plastic headlamps, is dull lenses like this:



Polishing them is hard going, even with this:



The answer, according to the interweb, is to wet sand them and buff them so I gave it a go.



After 800, 1000 & 2000 grit, I set to with my £3 ebay polishing pads.



The results, after covering the whole car in compound, still look crap in the pictures. They are much clearer in reality.



After polishing, I sealed them using Autosmart's excellent Topaz sealer polish stuff.

 

[AlfaDrivingFan]

Woo Hooo ! He's back !

You can see the difference with the lights KB :thumbs: How long did that take you?

 

[keithyboy]

Woo Hooo ! He's back !

You can see the difference with the lights KB :thumbs: How long did that take you?

Probably an hour or so. If this pic works, you can see the difference better. This was after a post MoT wash last weekend.

IMG_20170205_102342185_HDR by keith hilton, on Flickr

 

[Starkers]

RIP the bins

The lights definitely look clearer, KB.

 

[David WB]

Awesome!

 

[219802]

The lamppost at the end of your drive looks inviting

 

[keithyboy]

The lamppost at the end of your drive looks inviting

It took a bite out of a Mondeo many moons ago.

 

[bazza]

I'm slightly disappointed that this thread isn't about a DIY based theme park being set up.

 

[keithyboy]

I'm slightly disappointed that this thread isn't about a DIY based theme park being set up.

It is! Are you not seeing the same things as the rest of us?

 

[115686]

You still have plenty of bins. Why don't you put a scaff board between two of them? Or an old door?

I've never got to the point where I've broken out the stihl saw on CVs, they've always yielded in the end to a good clattering. Maybe if you had a proper workbench, you'd be able to hit things harder?

Jag looks good - nice colour, and the lights are much improved.

 

[keithyboy]

You still have plenty of bins. Why don't you put a scaff board between two of them? Or an old door?

I've never got to the point where I've broken out the stihl saw on CVs, they've always yielded in the end to a good clattering. Maybe if you had a proper workbench, you'd be able to hit things harder?

Jag looks good - nice colour, and the lights are much improved.

It's a first for me too. The only other time I have had real trouble was on my Saab where half of the circlip was missing.

I actually bought a puller for CV joints but they still didn't yield. The bins are a long-running feature in my tinkering threads but I do also have a bench with a vice in which the joints were given some pain with a lump hammer to no avail. Even when the splined part was the only part left and I could knock the driveshaft out directly, it still took some shifting.

 

[73GTVJim]

I fear the excitement and mental agility required to cope with two vehicles being maintained in the same thread my expose my feeble intellect but I'll try and keep up.


....why were you working on the street lights again?

 

[bazza]

....why were you working on the street lights again?

Stealing leccy for his cannabis farm.

 

[keithyboy]

In addition to the cloudy headlamps, there is another Jaag issue, namely the bonnet catch. Instead of looking like this:

[/url]IMG_20170205_102423891_HDR by keith hilton, on Flickr[/IMG]

It looks like this:

[/url]IMG_20170205_102429791_HDR by keith hilton, on Flickr[/IMG]

Not catchy at all I'm sure you'll agree. Dousing with plusgas didn't work so, whilst Mrs K was out with the dog, I took the opportunity to borrow the washing up bowl from the kitchen and her toothbrush from the bathroom and give it a good clean.

[/url]IMG_20170205_103116896 by keith hilton, on Flickr[/IMG]

Its abilities in the catching department are now greatly improved. Maybe it could replace Bravo at City.

[/url]IMG_20170205_104159129_HDR by keith hilton, on Flickr[/IMG]

I did consider degreasing the whole of the underside of the bonnet but decided to just close it instead.

 

[milowokie]

Your bonnet opens the wrong way, and the Big Cat has glass lights with ye olde fashioned halogen lamps inside them. Cheap and easy to replace.

A stark contrast to, the invisible at night, window switch lights which require the removal of the door cards before you can even consider getting at them.

 

[keithyboy]

If it was an XJ then the bonnet opening would be wrong. The smaller, more nimble, Jaguars always had bonnets that hinged at the back.

As for glass headlamps - I wish. It would save a lot of ****ing about keeping them looking reasonable.

 

[milowokie]

The Aero's got a bit milky, plastic with those posh self-levelling Xenon HID things ("£125 per 'bulb' Sir", said Pentagon in Chadderton). Polished in a similar fashion, sans drill, to yours. No issue with the 156, even after I heated them open and sprayed the silver bit satin black for the GTA look (on a spare set, kept the originals original).

 

[keithyboy]

After 14 months, we have had our first failure to proceed. I have done about 300 miles over the weekend taking the mileage past the 159k mark. It appears this milestone may have been too much as, when I tried to start the ****ing thing up last night to go for vital supplies of milk and bog roll, it was having none of it. The dashboard lit up as it always does but it wasn’t turning over. The lights were all bright and weren’t dimming when the key was turned. A glance at the shifter showed it was in park, as expected because you can’t get the key out if it isn’t. A slightly longer look at the shifter showed that whilst it was in park, reverse was flashing. It continue to flash regardless of the position of the lever. At this point I can’t start the car or get the key out of the ignition.

The penny then dropped. Before I embarked on the folly that is owning a 14yo car that does 24mpg, has as much interior space as a Mini, and has nowhere to put the dog, I did my due diligence because of concerns about owning a car with a complex sealed-for-life 6-speed auto box. The ZF box in question has 3 issues in the S-Type. The first is “The Lurch”. This is an issue where the car has a pronounced jerk at low speeds. This is a software problem which most indies can fix with a laptop. The other two are refusals to shift gear. One occurs if you park on an incline and don’t use the handbrake and gearshift incorrectly causing the linkage to jam. The other is the shifter cable working loose at the gearbox end. This results in the car being stuck in either reverse or park, regardless of what you do.

A quick google showed the location of the bracket which comes loose. Some stupid American on YouTube claimed the troublesome bracket was on the driver’s side when his video clearly showed the opposite but I quickly figured that out. Unfortunately, especially as this happened last night as it was going dark, fixing it requires the car to be up in the air. Once underneath I could see the bracket flapping about. One bolt had gone and the other was very loose. The bolts are M6 (8mm head 6mm shank) rather than the more industrial fixings I prefer to see. There was nothing obviously suitable in my nuts and bolts box so, as a temporary measure, I nipped up the single remaining bolt.

Back in the car, the gearbox was now in park, even though the lever wouldn’t go into park, as a result of me moving the linkage underneath but the lever still wasn’t having any effect. I could now start the car but still couldn’t get the key out or put it in drive. I got Mrs K to move the shifter whilst I was underneath and saw zero movement at the gearbox end of the cable. Off with the cover over the shifter mechanism and I can see that the lever is no longer attached to the cable. The lever end of the cable has a nylon doodah on it and the lever has a sticky out metal bit that slots into this (sorry if the language is too technical). In moving the shifter about with the cable loose, I had skilfully managed to disengage the two. A bit of fiddling with a screwdriver got the pair reunited and we were back in business.

I was able to go and buy bog roll (and milk), have a wash, and be sat down with a can of refreshing can of tramp juice in time for Line of Duty at 9pm. New bolts will be purchased later today and loctited into position for a permanent fix.