I’ve been out of action for a while, and away from the forum but finally got my 1988 XJ-S, 5.3 L, Lucas CEI back on the road.
Gary…
Edmonton, AB
JAGRR88
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Looks grand- what wheels may I ask?
They look like X300 XJR wheels, most likely 18” from the mid-90’s.
Cheers!
Ah, went for the euro styled headlights, interesting. There is something about the quad headlights that really appeal to me, though. Regardless of my own personal feelings, the car looks good, a real head turner.
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Thank you , they are 17” from a 1995 XJR saloon car if my memory serves me right.
I believe all the Canadian spec cars came with the Euro style headlights but weren’t legal in the US in 1988.
Apologies to everyone, if my responses aren’t that great. I must admit I’m still used to the old JL forum haven’t quite got into the new forum yet to figure out how everything works.
I can tell you I have sore body parts today with living in the trunk (boot) of the car all weekend cleaning out the sump gas tank and changing that filter. I swear I pulled out half a cup of rust particles and some sludge.
I would highly recommend doing it if you haven’t yet but it is a pita!
It is a polarising thing. Some people in the EU want quad lights because they are cool and different. Some people in the US want EU headlamps because they are different and cool.
I swapped my EU lights for quads, partly because I liked them, but mostly because they are so very much cheaper than Euro style headlights in the UK. At one point they were completely unobtainable for my facelift car, and I had to fudge the glass lens from a pre-facelift model onto the reflector bowl for one of my headlamps.
Interesting, I guess I was falsely under the impression that the Euros and the quads were easily interchangeable.
Although, on the back burner, I was toying with the idea of swapping out the Euros on my car for quads.
To be honest, mine probably need some sort of refurbishing, they don’t exactly light up the world if you know what I mean. In fact compared to today’s LED lights (which some I find too bright) on modern cars the Euro’s look downright ineffective.
I know exactly what you mean. When I first picked up my 94 from California it was early in December. To avoid the really bad weather I drove the southern states I40 eastbound and not a lot of street lights at night. The facelift cars (at least mine) didn’t come with fog lights, and yeah, the headlights were nothing to write home about.
Are there better bulbs to use in the Euro headlights?
Depends on what you mean by “Euro” headlights. Besides the four round headlight scheme, the XJ-S has been fitted with at least four different schemes of oblong headlights. The earliest were a glass lens Cibie with a separately adjustable reflector for the main beam. Those used two H1 bulbs, and you can buy high-wattage versions of those. Later came a different glass lens Cibie, no separate adjustable reflector, used a single H4 bulb, and you can get high-wattage versions of those, too. Then with the facelift the Europeans and ROW got an E-code Carello that also uses an H4 bulb. Finally, with the facelift the US got a DOT Carello that uses a 9005 bulb or some such. Wouldn’t matter if you could get a higher-wattage bulb, the DOT Carello is garbage, the only way to get decent light out of such a car is to replace those headlights with something better. The E-code Carello is a good choice if you want to maintain the look, the four rounds are a good choice if you appreciate that appearance.
BTW, the four rounds also suck if you leave the US DOT-approved sealed beams in place. To get some actual illumination, they need to be replaced with E-code units using H1 or H4 bulbs.
I’m just a little bit confused on the terminology. Are you saying that E-code Carello is the whole assembly or are they just the bulb replacements?
Oh no, it is very simple to switch from US quad to Euro. All the mounting points are the same inside the wing. The quad set up is not LHD/RHD handed, that’s down to in the individual lamp units. Only issue for me was the electrical connections for a pre/post facelift wiring loom.
It was the pre/post facelift issue that was the problem for me when I cracked a lens. The pre-facelift reflector bowl is metal with a traditional mirrored surface. The facelift version is plastic, with the crappy metalised finish that degrades with time and heat. The pre-facelift units were cheap and plentiful but are not interchangeable. When I cracked the glass on one of my headlamps, I had no choice but to bodge on a pre-facelift lens. If you looked closely, you could see the angle of the lens in the wing mounting wasn’t quite right. But it worked OK and passed MOT testing.
The Carello is the entire oblong headlight assembly. It’s entirely plastic, including the lens. The E-code version and the DOT version look similar externally, but they function differently within, with the E-code providing much better lighting. Might be difficult to find E-code Carellos within the US, though.
Hey just as a dumb question, would there be a way to drill out the back of them and retrofit some sort of LED light version. LED’s rely a lot less on the old yellowed reflector we count on and have a lot more forward throwing light?
My two cents?
You can get simple plugin LED replacements for tungsten bulbs which should work fine if you can sort out the heatsink requirements. That would extend the life of a unit with a working reflector. But I think you are talking about the LED units that already come with a focused lens. That would solve the problem of a worn out reflector, but the already pre-focused output pattern would be modified again by the front lens. Not sure if that would give a usable, or even legal, headlamp.
ive never seen those wheels, kinda remind me of the xj220
Yes like I say, I believe they were off a 95 XJR Sedan, which an elderly couple from Victoria BC sold me 10 years ago for $500 CDN. (Including shipping). I wasn’t sure I was even going to use them but I knew I wanted to switch out the Starfish wheels.
What I did like was they are still an original Jaguar wheel , not too flashy and the offsets work perfectly. I might not have gone so low profile on the tires if I were to do it again.
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