POS: My 1987 Jaguar XJ6 Series III
The deadline for ordering personalized license plates draws near
and I cannot make up my mind between �XJ6 SPOS� (Stinking Piece of
St) or just plain �XJ6 POS� (Piece of St). Both, of course
describe my 1987 Jaguar XJ6 Series III pretty well, but, at this
point, I lean toward �XJ6 SPOS�.
Here is the problem. The car starts, runs okay for a bit until it
gets warm, then it chokes, coughs and dies when asked to move.
When warm, it could not pull a sick sleeper off a pay toilet.
The car has been in storage for four years and this appears to be
the source of all things bad.
After taking care of all of the usual stuff (draining the fuel
tanks, changing the fuel filter, filling up with fresh gasoline,
installing a new battery, changing the oil and filter, draining the
other fluids and refilling, and purging the old fuel from the
injectors) the car started right up. Ah, bliss. Everything seemed
fine until I tried to drive it. No deal. (See initial problem
description… the hag is still on the can.)
The first problem encountered was that the alternator belt was
broken. Okay, so the battery voltage was low. So maybe that was
the problem. After the first twenty hours changing all four belts
and installing a new alternator and battery belts, it turns out
this was not the problem. There is a very special place in hell
for the meatheads who cooked up the belt arrangements on the XJ6.
Only a meathead would mount the air pump, power steering pump, air
conditioning compressor and alternator to the engine with a variety
of fine-threaded through-bolts and nylock nuts or lock-washers and
nuts. Especially since none of these mounting bolts are even
remotely available to fitting a wrench. Universally they are
located out of sight and usually only available to touch by a
superbly conditioned contortionist. The belt-adjusting trunnions
and eyebolts are fine, but the all-but-impossible-to-reach mounting
bolts are crap.
Well, since most poor running problems usually start in the
ignition, let us look at that next. Nope, that is not it. At
least replacing the plugs, plug-wires, coil, ballast resistor,
distributor cap and rotor had no effect on running.
Next, since it will only not run after it gets warm, what about the
coolant sensor? To make a long story shorter, replacing the four
coolant sensors (thermotime sensor, coolant sensor, water
temperature gauge sensor and the double-connector sensor at the
rear of the coolant rail) with new components has had no effect on
the problem… the individual components all check out, also.
Perhaps it is a problem with the coolant temperature sensor to ECU
interface. No, that is apparently not it, either. All of the
connectors came apart to reveal that the pins and sockets are clean
and a resistance check of the wiring from the ECU to the coolant
sensor shows less than ten ohms. Ah, so it must be the ECU!
Nope. Replaced the ECU, too.–
1987 Jaguar XJ6 Series III
Roswell, GA, United States
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