in all her glory.........at last

[JaguarMike]

'Ello BB,

Very, very nice. Look forward to seeing the car end of April at Gaydon. Fantastic job. I know how pleased you must feel ... and also relieved.

If only it was a hatch-back too! Actually, that almost became a plan over Christmas as I saw a bargain £1000 burgundy V12 Coupe with lovely cream/red pipped interior, TWR kit. It didn't sell first time (on my favorite shop; eBay), so made some sums and asked some questions of Paul at Hyper for hatch no.2 but decided, funds and selling price would mean it wouldn't be really viable (and the misses weren't happy to lose me in the garage for months on end again either!). Car did sell at that price on second asking and I was tempted by another up in Scotland too (I think I saw on the forum). Shame, because it could have been better than mine! ..... Maybe one day.

On the re-bound, I've now equipped my car with 18" Penta's after seeing 2 cars in a month looking absolutely right on them. You wait and see!

Look forward to seeing you all soon.

[Brakebuster]

18" Pentas , V-nice

mine are 18" Flute , from an XK8 , and needed a 20mm hub-centric adaptor for the front hubs , rears fitted perfectly , and are a slightly deeper dish as well ,

I have 18" Vredestein Giugiaro Ultrac 255/35 tyres on the rears , and 225/40 on the front

which ones did you use ?


BB

[JaguarMike]

Hi BB,

they came with the non-directional Pirelli 245/45's.

I checked out info. with two other owners (one V12 in the IOM, the other a Conv. for sale at PureLotus on Petrolheads) who'd fitted them, one saying 10mm spacers front and rear, the other 3mm.

'Cos I work at Jaguar, I checked out the technical data of the wheels, wheel nuts to establish clearances etc. As they are almost the same size wheel as the 8 x 16" Otto Fuchs Lattice wheels (same 33mm offset too), I knew the minimum spacers would work. Even the same wheel-nuts were used - result! Penta wheels are 1.5mm wider, tyres 20mm (so that's 10mm each side!), so knew it might be a tight fit (remember them?). But with the suspension free and on full lock there was 2mm clearance to the upper wishbone and ever so slight contact with the ABS sensor, but with wheels on the ground, no such issues. Simples!

As per original I recall on XJR, they are a little noisier and do tram-line a bit, but steering feels sharper and they look so damned good and OE. Came from the enthusiastic owner of the only XJS is and off-white / almost Canary Yellow 4.0L Conv. in Slough, (1 of 9 cars Jaguar did in this colour) who has 4 x XJS amongst his 20 or so cars (I took a couple of photo's too).

Just waiting for decent weather now to get the car out and about.

[JaguarMike]

Hi BB,

I saw this and thought someone had beat you to building your car:-
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-18-total-on ... 257cd9b7b7

Have often thought about modifying one myself to represent my car, but what's the point when you have the real thing?

Regards,