rear number plate light housing

[painter]

Well I'm sure there must be a shorter name for the bit I am trying to replace/repair but can't think of one. It's the bolted assembly on the boot housing the number plate light which has come adrift. Apparently attached to the boot with four bolts and accessed from inside after removing the trim etc.. Anybody had any experience of this? Having tried local dealer and told this part is not in stock (and probably won't be for the foreseeable future) I am preparing to do a repair (my first home repair on the car!!). The only concern I have is damage to the trim, so if anybody has experience of this I would appreciate advice as my usual method of repair includes a persuasive club hammer

[Nik]

Hi Painter ,
Depends on your model year , the trim is held on by round headed trim retainers which are a doddle to fit but a bit of a pain to remove without damage , either get a proper trim clip removal tool or (this is Nik's tip of the week ) get a good quality dinner fork and ease the centre of the prongs under the head of the clip and with a gentle rolling action ease the clips out , works every time with care !!! , if you have an earlier model (no JAGUAR motif or "Growler" boot release button on the number plate lamp plinth ) you have a couple of choices
1. Get a secondhand one from Jaguar used parts specialist like EUROJAG Telephone number is 01325 722777
2. Upgrade to the later version which will need just a little fileing of the mounting holes on the bootlid itself and if you want the boot release button to work via the "Growler" you will need a small modification to the wiring loom . The later plinth is available in both painted and chrome finishes and is more than likely available new from jaguar although they may be expensive (again try someone like Eurojag for a used one ) , the later plinth is a worthwhile modification and in the chrome finish adds a bit of bling to an older model , my old friend Grand Tourer wrote an excellent article on this very subject some years ago ,

Hope this is helpful,

Nik

PS Your club hammer is redundant for this job !!!!!!!!!!

[Bassman]

XK Engineering are selling the later one with JAGUAR one in silver complete with boot release button and numberplate lights for £15 inc P&P they only have 90 left

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Jaguar-XK8-Trunk- ... dZViewItem

It's easy enough to spray to your cars colour if you want to


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v69/B ... h07185.jpg

you do need to turn the existing holes in the bootlid for the lights from round to rectangular (easy with a Dremel,) and drill a couple of extra holes

[painter]

Many thanks Nik and Bassman, mine is certainly the older one - no 'Jaguar' or growler, but think the later one is the better option. Looks better and I have a Dremel (somewhere). Are there any issues when removing trim for access etc. (and replacing). I am sure I can smuggle a fork out, will have a look at a chrome finish to compare but think I favour Bassman's blue + growler. Looking forward to this

[painter]

Yep, it's the blue

[painter]

Job done I think. Being mean I thought it may be possible to repair the old unit, so made a trim tool from an old flat spanner (+ dremel, and yes the club hammer did get used to radius it) and simple job releasing the old retaining nuts. The only thing holding the assembly in place was a recent 'rubber glue' attempt by Jag. service and the wiring housings.

The four bonded bolts had snapped off, though I can't imagine these have been broken by vibration or wear/tear as it would need a substantial force to break all four. Resin bond bolts back into housing and re fit. Seems to have dried well and small rubber washers should stop unnecessary tensile stress.

Can't hack the url thing so have posted an imageof the sorry pre repair state on the gallery

[painter]

http://www.jec-xk8-forum.org.uk/xk8bb2/ ... 3-1_tn.jpg
sorry to play about with pics here but the penny has dropped