Just as a thought, on the race cars many people fit standard racing 1.9 inch racing springs on adjustable dampers to the rear, although the conversion may be about £300 you can then have what ever damping you prefer, from far to soft to stupidly hard and anything in between, and you can select race ...

Al, thats a very good idea. Firstly compiling a list of critical parts is brilliant, then when any of us come accros a secret stash at a show or wherever we can grab one, then maybe as a club we will end up with a bank of spares between us? I know i have some unusual 6 litre bits and standard '87 5....

Good point Pop, after about 10 years all rubber hoses start to loose their strength and with power steering hoses you find that they become porous and are permanently covered in a film of oil. Simply replace them using the exisiting hose ends as Pop says, the hose is very cheap but the crimping mach...

Wow! to boil the oil you need a lot of heat, i would have thought that would have been linked to damage in the gearbox, but it sounds like this is not the case if the car still drives? When you say oil is blown out, is this out of the filler tube? When you say it sounds like the oil is boiling, coul...

Volume down but profit up, dont worry its all part of thier plan and both Jaguar and Landrover are recruiting engineers like mad. They have even started a new apprentice program. Tata endorsed Jaguars global plan and look like they want to take it further. One fly in the ointment might be if a low c...

Synthetic oils break down more slowly, so extending oil changes a bit, but no more than 50% on an old engine design. The key factor is to use the correct viscosity, 20/50, 15/40 or at a push 10/40 but definately no less. The viscosity is dictated by engine design, bearing clearances, cam loading etc...

I fancy ding Santa Pod again, mostly because i live near their! Selfish, i know, but with a new baby and the resulting sleep deprivation long journeys are unlikely :( I still have not had time to mend it since last year! Not repaired the gearbox ecu but i can still select gears using two switches an...

Paul is probably quite right, but also I have found calipers sticking after a long period of inactivity, on one occasion this was due to the dust seals (the ones closest to the pad that stop dirt getting in, not the main seals which are the ones that stop fluid leaking out) getting swollen and stick...

I am half way through a conversion, i am using xj40 parts but the best bet is to use the ultra rare xjs parts. The trouble with xj40 parts is they went metric, so the bore diamiter of the pivot pin in the hub is 0.8mm smaller than an xj-s! To solve this i have made spacer tubes in stainless. The han...

Kev, Unfortunately you will allways get a bit of tramlining with very low profile wide tyres, if its enough to make the car feel uncertain then there is some play in the bushes or bearings as mentioned above, but if it does not effect the handeling but merely feels a bit odd then its probably ok. Tr...

Ah, more bran mate, thats the secret. There is a small chance i might actually get out by Castle Coombe, nearly finished building the nursery, built the cot and all the other baby related gubbins that modern life demands. Sprog is due to be born in july, so by october i will need to get out for a qu...

Oddly enough i have done the opposite swap, which drops the front of the car several inches, so I guess that sticking v12 ones on a 3.6 would give a problematic skyward stance. But on the plus side it would be better for off roading! I wrote a little bit about it at : http://www.rhel.co.uk/jag/spron...

Good point, having done the maths though you need to be growing about 3 large new conifers per year to be neutral! 3K miles at 30mpg (?) is 100 gallons or 454 litres, one litre makes approx 3 kg of CO2 which gives 1500kg of CO2 and about 400kg of carbon. Based on photosynthasis (6CO2 + 6H2O → C6H12O...

Having made a new exhaust system for the V12, i seem to have made the bolt on silencer replacement pipes a bit redundant. These are stainless pipes that replace the silencers before the rear axle, giving a slightly gruffer exhaust note and a modest increase in power. Any way, i dont need them now so...

Having a window or sunroof open often causes air to be drawn out of the car and a slight depression occurs in the cab. Not to be cofused with the depression that set in every time you pay for fuel!! If there is a fault with body sealing then exhaust or engine fumes can be drawn in, it might even be ...