My current major hobby (and money pit), is a 1985 Jaguar XJ-S that I purchased in 1999. It was in a sorry, horrible state that I never would have touched knowing what I do now. In spite of all that, I have learned immeasurably from my experiences with it and have very nearly completed a restoration of the car.
Lessons I have learned but have not documented to date include:
- A complete tear-down and rebuild of the engine following a dropped valve seat. Excellent post divorce therapy, I highly recommend it to anyone.
I happily drove the car about 15,000 miles beyond that and then parked it for a while (with a front transmission seal leak) and bought a newer car to drive on a daily basis. A little over a year ago, I looked at the car, took a deep breath, and started spending money on it. Junking it would have been a total loss and doing my own work has actually landed me fairly close to breaking even. So I:
- Removed and completely rebuilt the front suspension
- Removed and completely rebuilt the IRS (somehow a 3:31 differential fell in there during the process)
- Installed a 5-speed manual (there is no smiley to express how it makes the car feel)
- Installed a 2.5 inch exhaust from the manifolds back
- Installed an AJ6 Engineering ECU
- Installed over-bored throttle bodies and manifolds
- Re-dyed interior
