Idk, I might give up and just sell the car at a loss. Fuck this thing. This is the dumbest thing ever I have the carb rebuild kits sitting here but I can’t even get the damn things off.
Belay that, sailor!!
Where do you live? Someone here may be close enough to help.
Ok, I’ll be that a** that says it. In the spirit of trying to help reduce the stress in your life, if you don’t have the patience to pull the carbs off, then perhaps selling it may be a good option as it’s amongst the most straightforward and relatively easy jobs on an e-type. There are others that are truly difficult and patience testing…
Some time ago I needed to remove a set of triple carbs from a Series 1. The car was in a tight space and not moveable. After a couple of hours of frustrating work we only had a few nuts off. Instead of giving up we simple pulled the head with manifolds attached. This took less than an hour. Fortunately the head was not stuck on the studs and two of us were able to lift the assembly off the block.
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UPDATE! I have successfully detached the intake manifold. Sort of. It’s loose, but it’s not letting me take it off the car yet.
There’s a small wire attached to the bottom of the carbs, this is looking straight down, with the carb/intake tipped down so you can see under them.
How the F are you ever supposed to reattach this once I remove it? This is what blows my mind about this car so far, there’s no room to swing wrenches or get your hands, and for a large vehicle with a fairly simple engine, it’s just… maddening.
Once the manifold is off, you will be able to remove carbs, and replace them once the mani is back on
I note the XJ never had tri carbs, so some small mods are necessary to fit them
This is where you get the chance to correct the PO shortcuts, especially with fasteners.
Some of us use Allen key socket caps for tight situations
That wire is the choke cable. It’s connected to the 3 carbs by a linkage. The linkage will stay on the carbs if you disconnect the cable.
Ok, thanks. I guess I’m just unclear how, once I disconnect this, I’ll ever be able to connect it again. Whatever. Unbolting it all, starting the carb rebuild tonight.
The cable is held in two places, by a tiny pinch nut that secures the sheath and and even tinier cable trunnion that secures the cable. You don’t need to swing a wrench to get it off and probably shouldn’t. It’s a job for a mini 1/4" socket driver and two fingers.
Bear in mind, a lot of your issues are stemming from the fact that someone who wasn’t satisfied, removed the two stock carbs and fitted these. I suspect that increased the headaches considerably. It makes me wonder whether in your case, loosening the engine mounts and boosting the engine up a couple inches might assist you in getting your hands in easier. When you finally get it off, I’d be looking into other air cleaner options. Some kind of individual pancake style filters might be less onerous.
Do you have multiple 1/2" wrench options? I lost count of mine but it’s over a dozen. I have them in different lengths, ratcheting, open, closed, offset, 15, 30, 45, 60, and 80 degree heads, S style, C style, Z style, socket style, twisted, crowfoot and articulated. At least half of them get enlisted for intake manifold removal and mine is an E-type, not an XJ so it has a lot more wiggle room.
You should probably remove the overflow pipes as they’ll get in the way as you try to extract the manifold. Don’t over torque the fuel bowl cover nuts as they love to strip out.
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That choke cable is in the same place as my series two, no issue at all
Not sure why you are having problems?
Done it many times too
I have the intake and carbs off, finally.
Man, I just have to say, this job has really killed most of the enthusiasm I had for this car. I was so excited and have rebuild kits, gaskets, cerakote, all sorts of bits, super pumped to bring it back to life, but yeah. It’s finally off, so after a few days of not thinking about it, I’m back at it. The choke cable was easy enough to undo, I just don’t understand how you’re supposed to install it again, since the fasteners wouldnt’ be visible and face the block, so you’d be working blind.
90% of the operations on my car must be done Left Handed and by Braile
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To make matters even more annoying, a lot of the small SU fasteners are in fact BA size, not Metric or Imperial, and they are hard to get at
The best air intake (imo) is the MKX/420G which may or may not fit,
I am pretty sure at least one lister has an XJ with MKX triple carb setup
Its still very tricky working on them, you get used to it
Someone once described working on certain equipment (not an E type) as similar to working on a turtle. One only has a few holes to reach in to do the work. And why would you expect to always see what you are working on? 
Tom
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Joe Curto sells a replacement part for that trunion that uses an allen head to clamp the cable. That may help.
Update on my intake removal hell:
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You probably could have removed all 3 carb bells, and yanked out the pistons, and achieved enough room to swing a wrench to remove the filter base (BTW don’t mix up bells and pistons. They’re married). I’m just thinking of ways to make install slightly easier. On an E-type it’s definitely easier to remove the entire manifold but that has a space frame you can reach through. That takes just 60 minutes.
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Alternatively you might consider what I said above about loosening the engine mounts and craning or jacking up the engine with a big 2x8 under the oil pan. I’d bet the engine was installed with the carbs on.
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Be very careful with the valve install to minimize as much as possible the light ring around them when they are closed. Slap it a couple times to centralize them, then add the screws. Before splitting the screws, ensure it opens and closes with no drag whatsoever.
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Make sure you understand the needle depth. The needle groove is just barely covered by the piston. Tighten the crap out of the setting screw . I used loctite also. I know someone that had a needle set screw get sucked into his engine and it destroyed it.
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I don’t recognize that filter housing from any jag I’ve seen. Definitely not an e-type, maybe a saloon car. I would definitely consider 3 pancake filters. I know CJ sells them, maybe others too.
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If you polish the bells on a wheel, don’t let them overheat or they can warp
open the garage door and throw the air cleaner as far away as you can.
Also, I don’t thing anyone on here disparaged your IQ as suggested in the video
Yeah, sorry, just… frustrated with it supposedly being easy to remove the back plate. Nobody outright called me an idiot and yall have been wonderful. 
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Welcome to the life of a professional Jag Mechanic. I’m a master mechanic and have been working on Jags since 1974. On the Filter housing you can get to the nuts with a wrench, you might have to modify it to fit. I believe you can access the bolts from inside the housing. After the housing is off, you can get to the Carb bolts from underneath, I use a short 1/2 inch wrench with a 90 degree offset. (Snapon tools) Often times you need to create space for your hands by removing hoses, cables etc. then it’s all up to your fingers and dexterity. You will be working by feel as it’s virtually impossible to see the nuts on the Carbs.