[x300] Differential Struts

Hello -

You may recall that I’ve been fretting about unpleasant noises emanating
from the LH rear suspension of my car. I mentioned in my last post that the
differential struts were my next port of call.

I have now taken the struts off and have two more questions for listers:-

1 The shoulders of the 12mm diameter bolts which pass through the bushes
at each end by no means extend the full length of the bushes. In other
words, about half a length is actually occupied by the threaded portion of
the bolts. I have carefully examined the inner sleeves of my bushes and
found that the threaded part of the bolt has chafed the metal. It appears
the flexing of the bushes has caused ‘chattering’ between bush inner and the
threaded portion of the bolt. This of course has caused wear and a certain
amount of ovality. Why wouldn’t Jaguar have fitted bolts with long
shoulders and short threads to obviate this fault? It seems an obvious
enough design weakness, even to an amateur such as I.

2 I mentioned in a previous posting Jaguar doesn’t supply replacement
bushes. I found this odd and have tried to find out why. One Jaguar dealer
told me it was because there are design faults with the originals and so you
are compelled to buy new struts complete with bushes if you wish to replace
the originals. However, another dealer told me a slightly different version
of this. That is, Jaguar recommends the installation of the assembly fitted
to the supercharged version of the car to all X300s. Evidently, this will
fit in the mountings for the current separate struts, but is an altogether
more elaborate and effective design. Has any lister heard this? Has anyone
done it? Is there any fortunate person reading this owning a supercharged
X300 who can tell me what precisely are the differences in the
differential-to-chassis connections?

Many thanks.

Steven Corbett