You may or may not know that this car used to be my grandmothers. Ironically, today would be her birthday. This morning the car started fine and backed out of the garage like normal. Then when I put it in drive and pushed the peddle, it died. It did this once more when I got home today but instead, it almost died and returned to normal. My first thought was the fuel pump might be going bad. What does everyone else think?
Additionally, my cars overheating has only gotten worse. The car had only been running for 5 minutes and it reached 110 degrees C by the thermostat housings. I will be replacing the thermostats TONIGHT. But I would really appreciate getting people opinions on where to go from there.
Dunno why you’re replacing thermostats. You should remove the radiator, clean the fins, and put it back in.
The thermostats havent been replaced for 15+ years plus I think they might not be opening up all the way seeing as how fast the engine warms up. What is the best method for cleaning the fins? I’ve heard horror stories of using pressure washers
you will probably have to do what I’ve been doing with my 1988 for the last two years…slowly inspect and restore everything. I started with fuel system, then ignition system, then cooling system. Then brakes, and now I’m on suspension.
Trying to piecemeal a car this old, you’ll be chasing your tail.
I do a little interior work here and there, just to keep myself happy while driving! 
Like I said, take the radiator out, clean the fins, put it back in. If you wanna do a really good job, take the radiator to a rad shop and have it “boiled” which means dipped in some sort of caustic bath to remove all the corrosion inside and out.
Kind of thinking of doing what Gregmatic said, but I would think the order of priority would be #1 cooling system (due to all the overheating issues and potential serious and permanent damage overheating could cause 
) #2 ignition system (to avoid fires, esp. on Marelli cars) and THEN #3, fuel system (to head off any fuel leaks and therefore also potential fires) 
Everything else can come later (unless you have a brake system about to go out! 
)
And see the article about making sure you use the correct thermostats. Apparently the easiest to obtain and cheapest available locally (i.e. at O’Reilly’s) IMHO is the listed one manuf. by Stant. It extends the full “:reach” necessary for the XJS when hot. 
Be sure - if the thermo. doesn’t have a jiggle pin - to drill a "“weep” hole in the perimeter of the flange for air bubbles to pass through, though. Pin or hole, make sure it is @ the “12-o’lock position” when in place. 
How would one go about figuring out which MY and engine you have?
Fix the cooling issue forst ot the rest will not be of import…
Only reason I fixed ignition and fuel first, was to get engine running. I never let it idle more than 10 minutes, keeping an eye on temps. I guess you could fix cooling system first, but I always like to know that my engine is good before going that far.
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