That was quite concerning.  Being an all-alloy engine, the Jaguar V12 does not respond well to being overheated.   When I brought the car to the workshop, it was quite apparent that it was coming from the water pump.  The Jaguar V12 holds a lot of coolant (~20 litres), but its still better not to loose it like that.

It looked like the seal had failed and after shutting down the car, without circulation, the coolant was being ejected through the water pump seal.

When I first got the car, the water pump was one of the items replaced, so I was a bit puzzled why it could fail like it did.  On the other hand I was pleased it wasn’t a more serious problem like a head gasket.

Doing some more research, it looks like it is due to water pump availability.   For the Series 1 XJ12, most of the parts manufacturers list a rebuilt pump or a repair kit.   So this is what my car got.  Unfortunately the rebuilt pump didn’t last long.  Apparently you can get new aftermarket pumps for later cars, I presume for the HE.   From what I can tell, these normally had a double row pully, but you can order a single row, which is what my car has.

Based on all that, we put on a new aftermarket pump.   My mechanic tells me that he rarely needs to replace them, so the new one should last a lot longer.   To do the job, a fair amount of stuff needs to come off the engine, but the job can be done with the radiator in situ.

At the same time they replaced one of the tensioners with a second hand unit as the bearing in the pully was a bit noisy.   The electric fan was also rubbing the shroud so they adjusted the bracket.

The result is no more pools of coolant underneath the car when I drive it.   The engine runs pretty cool.   I verified this with an infrared thermometer.

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• Voltage
• Oil Pressure
• Water Temperature
• Fuel

They had all stopped working and I wanted to get them to work again, especially the water temperature one.   I quickly ruled out a blown fuse, as many other things in the car that share a fuse with these gauges were working.

My next suspicion was that the voltage stabilizer had stopped working.  Most of these smiths gauges run off 10 volts instead of 12, and voltage stabilizer converts from 12 to 10.  I’m not exactly sure the reason for this, but If I had to guess its because they require the voltage to be consistent and normally voltage levels in a car range from 12-14 volts.  I ordered one.

I also purchased the Jaguar XJ wiring diagram book and on examining the diagrams, it quickly became apparent that it probably wasn’t the voltage stabilizer.   The voltage gauge needs the raw voltage in order to work, and it was also dead.

Illumination was working when the headlights were switched on, so it also seemed unlikely a problem with a bad ground.   This made me suspect a problem with the power feed into this gauge pod.

Looking at what is going on is quite easy on a series 1.  The panel with the gauges is hinged and folds down to reveal the fuse boxes.   This was a design used on the Mark 2, The E-Types, S-Type, Series 1 XJ and probably the Mark X.

Instead of using wires for each gauge like in a series 1 E-Type, there is a flexible printed circuit board behind all four gauges and the clock.  This was quite an advanced design in 1968.  I doubt the people who designed it were thinking about it being in service 50 years later.   The gauges are not especially complex and simple wires would be easier!

My next theory was that there was an issue with this circuit board.   That proved to be the case.  Inspecting it carefully, the track that takes the main power feed had burned up and so therefore power was not getting to the gauge set.   The photo below shows the burned track in the mirror.

The fuse that controls the gauges plus many other things is a 35A fuse, so the tracks on this board are more sensitive than the fuse is.  I suspect I caused the problem as I had been using a multimeter to see where the aftermarket radio was wired into the fuse box the day before. At the time, I probably touched something and cause a small short, and since the fuse is so large, burned on the tracks in the circuit board.

I thought quite a bit about options.  I don’t have the skill level to repair the circuit board.   However, I realized I could inject 12v to the line that came from the circuit board to the voltage stabilizer.  This would be completely reversable if I ever got another board, and quite simple.  They way the plug to the board worked, I could push a spade connector into the back of the plug where the main power feed was, and piggyback it to the line to the stabilizer.  This would both power the 12v circuit before the stabilizer and bypass the burned track.

This fix seems to have worked quite well, and my gauges are back to how they were before.   That is, Temperature and Oil Pressure seemingly working well.  Voltage working but reading a bit low, and petrol reading very low.

I’m not too worried about the voltage gauge, but I would like to get the petrol gauge to work properly.

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I drove up to the blue mountains via Bells Line of Road and then took the road from Oberon to Goulburn before heading back home on the motorway.

Overall the car did really well, and I found it to be very comfortable on a much longer drive.   The drive was a good mix of suburban streets, back roads and motorways.  This drive took me over 1,000km with the car, which is probably the most its has driven in less than a year since going from Melbourne to Adelaide back in 2005 as a new purchase by a previous owner.

The driving experience really is very good.  The power is effortless and I think the 3.31 rear end ratio really suits the nature of the car.   I’ve never driven one of the later HE V12s, but they had much taller ratios for fuel consumption.   The ride quality is excellent and it handles both back roads and the motorway equally well.   It started to rain, so I took it very easy around corners.

When driving the car, its easy to forget it’s well over 50 years old.  Comfort and ride are superior to a newer car.  Handling isn’t, but that’s not what this sort of car is about.  There are only a few areas that showcase the age of the car.   The first is wind noise.  The drag coefficient of the series 1 XJ isn’t all that good and there is a lot of wind noise a freeway speeds.  This doesn’t bother me a great deal, but its quite noticeable against an 80s car, and especially something modern.   I am curious if a series 3 is much different.

The next is the windscreen wipers, which are a bit average.  Glass coverage is a bit mediocre, and there are only two speeds.   The final one is the presence of quarterlight windows.  Since the A/C isn’t working, I see this as a big positive.  On a rainy day, I was able to have the quarterlight open, and get plenty of airflow with minimal water ingress.  Its a shame they died out.

The drive also identified a few things I need to sort out on the car over time:

• There is a really annoying rattle from behind the dash somewhere.  I fixed one of the a/c vents being lose, so its something else.
• I lost my gauges (volt meter, fuel, temperature, oil pressure).
• My Tachometer sometimes stops working
• I can’t get my newly installed rear view mirrors to aim correctly.
• The 2000’s era CD player is terrible and seems to work only through one speaker.
• There is no way to charge a phone on a longer trip.  I used a power bank.
• At the last fuel stop close to home, The car ejected some coolant after sitting for about 3-5 minutes.
• My wiper blades won’t wipe all that well, and while the fast speed works well, the slower speed is a bit hit and miss.  Sometimes I have to got fast speed first before going to slow.   They also don’t park perfectly.
• The kickdown doesn’t seem to work.
• I had a slightly soft brake pedal down a long steep section.

The above seems like a long list, but only a couple of them are urgent.  I filled up three times to be safe, and the consumption wasn’t too bad.   The first tank was probably a bit off from having the fuel tank replaced.  I got 16l/100km out of the second and 14.5l/100km out of the third.  Not bad given the reputation of these cars for thirst.

Ultimately I want to keep any of my cars in the condition that I could get in them and drive to Melbourne and back with no issue.  I am getting much closer to that with the Daimler, but still have work to do.

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One of the things that became apparent in starting to use the car regularly, was that the differential had a fairly major leak.  This is obviously bad for the longevity of the limited slip diff, but on the XJ series cars, the rear brakes are inboard so major leaks can impact the rear brakes.

The independent rear suspension used on the XJ and Daimler derivatives is the same independent rear suspension unit introduced on the E-Type in 1961.  It was still far ahead of everyone else when the X was introduced in 1968, and continued to be throughout the 70s and early 80s.  It was only when the competition introduced multi-link rear suspension systems in the mid 80s was it surpassed.  The original version was used until the end of XJ Series 3 production, and evolutions of the system were used until the mid 2000s.

The reason the independent rear suspension for the XJ is related to the differential is the design of system has the entire rear suspension, differential and brakes in a removable rear subframe.   Therefore to fix my differential leak, the rear suspension had to come out of the car.

On my car the exhaust system wasn’t in great condition and had to be cut before the rear suspension could come down. This will need to be replaced later. The good news is that the underside of the car is in good condition. With the rear suspension removed, the differential could then be serviced. A clunk in the rear suspension was traced to be due to bent trailing arm mount brackets.

While the car was in having the differential leak fixed, a few other things needed sorting out, including:

• Leak from transmission pan gasket
• A couple of small coolant leaks from coolant hoses
• The fan clutch was not engaging properly when the engine was hot

In addition to those things, when changing a fuel sender on the left hand tank, it was clear that the cleaning the tank a few months ago hadn’t worked very well.  The tank was still very dirty.  New fuel tanks are still available, so I was able to purchase one and have it sent directly to the workshop to be fitted.   I had feedback it looked like it was very good quality and had some kind of internal ceramic coating.

The front brakes were leaking and so the calipers removed to be rebuilt.  In doing so, it was clear that it was necessary as the pistons were in pretty rough shape.

I also had some new external rear view mirrors fitted, including one on the passengers side.  This wasn’t optioned when the car was new, but I park very close to a wall in my storage area and I don’t want to damage the side of the car.

It as a lot of work on the car, but none of these things are all that unusual for a car that was laid up for a while.

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• Soft brake pedal
• Dirty passengers side fuel tank and pitted chrome on fuel cap
• Dented rear bumper
• Tachometer not working after my attempted repair
• Fuel gauges not working properly

The soft brake pedal seemed to be resolved by cleaning up the calipers and getting the pistons moving a bit better, and then re-bleeding the brakes.    The passengers side fuel tank was a bigger job.  It had to be removed from the car, and it was clear it had been out before and been re-sealed in some way.  It was a bit rusty inside and some of that sealer was flaking off.   The tank was cleaned in acid and then put back in the car.

The drivers side was in much better shape.  Since the rear bumper comes off to get to the petrol tank, the dented section was replaced with a better one.   I also had a better chrome filler cap to replace the pitted one with.

It turned out I had done the tachometer wiring correctly.  However, there were some issues with the wiring at the back of the Tachometer which once fixed had it working properly.

During this service, it was also identified that I would need to bring the car back in the new year to address a major leak from the differential, and that one of my fuel pumps was not working properly.   I planned to replace that myself.

While the car was in, it also had an oil and filter change and other checks.

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Instead of using OPUS, I had the car converted to a Pertronix LU-1122A.  Instead of a separate ignition box in the vee of the V12, the Pertronix unit is completely inside the distributor.  In period, the OPUS boxes used to overheat given their location, and were moved in later cars.

The Pertronix system has my car running very well, but the downside is that the Tachometer was no longer working.   Unlike on the six cylinder cars, the V12s were always electronic ignition, so the distributor is already the right type.  From my research, all I needed was to put a resistor between 9,000-10,000ohm between the negative terminal of the coil and the tachometer.

To work out how it was wired, I purchased a book that contained the wiring diagrams for the car.  That helped me understand the purpose of the wires that went to the plug for the OPUS unit.  I was able to identify which wire went to the Tachometer.   Once Identified, I purchased a 9,500ohm resistor and made a line to go from the OPUS plug to the negative terminal on the coil.

I’m terrible at soldering, I so I used some connectors that need a heat gun to join the various wires, then put some heat shrink on top.   Installation was quite simple, but unfortunately it didn’t seem to work.

However, it turns out I had done it correctly, and when I had the car in the workshop, I had them check.  It turns out that the wiring behind the tach was not connected properly, and once connected it all worked.   Its been pretty reliable since, but occasionally it has stopped.  I don’t know why yet.   Generally it works pretty well.   I don’t know if its 100% accurate, but then I doubt the tachometer ever was.

In addition, the other quick fix I did was to purchase the proper V12 badge for the centre console and use some trim adhesive to install it.  A small thing, but it looks great in the interior.

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Jaguar went to the dual fuel tank system with the S-Type of 1963.  It then flowed into most of the subsequent models, with the exception of the XJS, until the introduction of the XJ40 in the mid 80s.

Just before Christmas, I had the tank on the passengers side removed and cleaned out.  It was pretty nasty inside, the lines were full of gunk and the screen on the pickup was all blocked.  When it was all put back together, I as advised that the fuel pump for this tank was not able to provide enough volume and it needed to be replaced.

At least on the cars with the quad carburettors like mine, they used a pair of SU AZX1400 series double ended fuel pumps.  The original pumps were points type, but the new ones are normally solid state.  Each tank has its own pump, and there are valves to make sure the return fuel goes to the correct tank.  These same pumps were also used on some Rolls Royce models too. The photo below shows the SU pump that was in my car.

They are now very expensive, at around $1,000 per pump landed in Australia.   The pump that I had been using on the good tank was a FuelFlow 2LM12 pump from New Zealand and seemed to be working well.  Given I have the redundancy of dual pumps, I decided not to spend $1,000 on a fuel pump, and went with another FuelFlow pump.  At $220 delivered, it was a huge saving. The photo below shows the existing FuelFlow pump on the left and the SU on the right.

The pump arrived the other day and I went about fitting it today.  The fuel pumps are located in in the boot, in a cavity to the rear of the spare tyre.  At least on my car, each pump was responsible for the opposite fuel tank.  That mean I would be changing the drivers side pump.

At first it all looked rather complicated, but slowly tracing all the lines had it starting to make sense.

Each tank has its own output line, and those are connected to the opposite pump.   There is one line that goes to the engine, which is on the drivers side of the car.  Therefore, there is a fuel line that goes from the left side pump, over to the right side pump, then to main fuel filter.  Only one pump runs at a time, so when the left pump is in use, the fuel flows past the right pump but not through it.

There is a single return line from the engine, that is on the passengers side.  That connects to both tanks, with a valve that determines where the fuel should go.  This is important, as if both tanks are full, its important that the return flow go back to the tank it came from.

The wiring also looks more complicated than it is.  Since the pumps are double ended, each end has separate power and ground connections.  The power feed for each pump goes to the valve, on each side.   I didn’t really examine these carefully.

The fuel lines for the FuelFlow pump were the same as the SU.  It was quite simple to get the fuel lines setup.   The power feed was a bit different.   The SU has a single power line per end, and the body of the pump acts as a ground, with an unshielded ground wire.   The FuelFlow has a plastic body, so has power and ground lines at each end. The photo below shows the new FuelFlow pump installed.

I didn’t use the unshielded ground wire, I made up a new ground harness that went into the chassis where the valves screw into the body.  The power feed was simpler to adapt.  The wiring in my car had a power feed to the inner end of each pump and then a wire that went to the outer end.   I used the same setup.

The pumps were not screwed in.  Rather they had rubber straps at each end that held them in place.  The SU pump also had a back plastic surround, that I assumed was to cut down noise.  This was missing on the existing FuelFlow pump, but I re-used it for my new one.  When I later tested the pumps, the new one was a fair bit quieter, so I’m glad I kept it.

It started to bucket down with rain as I did the job, so I didn’t end up taking the car on a test drive.  I was able to verity that the correct pump ran when I toggled the switch on the dashboard.

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By October 1972, the Daimler Saloons were all based on the Jaguar XJ.  The old 420 based Sovereign had finished production in 1969, and the DS420 limo had a separate price list.  That car had a broad appeal, finding buyers from Royalty to funeral homes.  This price list is for the UK market.

The Jaguar Price list of the same period also offered the E-Type which never had a Daimler version.  An E-Type 2+2 was similar in price to a Double-Six.

In terms of the XJ based saloons, the range overlapped significantly.  The main difference was that the short wheelbase XJs (2.8 and 4.2) could be ordered with a manual transmission and no overdrive.  While most Daimlers were automatic, overdrive was standard for manual.   In addition, the Vanden Plas was not offered on the XJ12 LWB, although one car was made for the Queen Mother.

Generally the Daimler versions were very slightly more expensive than the equivalent Jaguar.   Where the models were the same, the Daimler was 3-4% more expensive than the Jaguar. Looking at the price list, the Double-Six looks to be incredible value, just under 15% more expensive than a 4.2 SWB.

The Vanden Plas on the other hand, looks significantly more expensive, at over 40% more than the Double-Six.  However, if you normalize the two models, and add all the options standard on the Vanden Plas to the Double-Six, then the difference is 13.65%, or £525.21.   That actually seems pretty good value for a coach-built interior.   The difference between a 4.2 SWB and a 4.2 LWB is 9.7%, and those two cars are basically identical.   

The options list on these cars was quite extensive.  The options with the * were standard on the Vanden Plas, which is basically everything except for the chrome wheels.   Air conditioning was a pretty expensive option, which is why it was rarely seen in the UK market.

Features like a sunroof or central locking were never offered by the factory on a Series 1 XJ.  Dealers would fit a webasto sunroof if requested.

My Double-Six Vanden Plas was produced in January 1973, so the first owner would have used this price list to order the car.   It was a very expensive car, but compared to A Mercedes-Benz or Bentley, quite well priced.

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1 – Drive the Car

First step was to get it registered so I can drive it.  I’ve now put about 100 miles on the Daimler.  It hadn’t been registered for around 20 years (although it was used on a trade plate for a few years after that) and It’s only done less than 6,000 miles since the year 2000.   A bit of use already has it driving better and better.

This is also helping me identify future improvements.  It runs well when warmed up, but not so well when cold.  The suspension work so far was the minimum required to get the car registered.  It will need some more to bring back the great ride these cars are known for.

2 – Clean and feed the leather

Preserving the special Vanden Plas interior is critical, and so one of my first steps was to clean and feed the leather.  The leather is not perfect but its really very good for its age.   I’ll want to do this a few more times.  I used the Auto-Glym leather conditioner.

3 – Clean the carpets

The carpets were pretty dirty.  I removed the ones I could easily and used my little carpet cleaner.   The ones in the car I did as I could.   It made a pretty big difference and the water out of the carpet cleaning machine was pretty dirty by the time I had finished.  I also noticed that the underlay material was missing on the passengers front, which led me to my next job.

4 – Replace the underlay on the passengers front

I had some carpet underlay on hand I bought for a previous project.  It was thinner than the material used on the rest of the car, but two sheets together was about the same thickness.  I used the front carpet as a template and cut two sheets to size and installed them.   These cars had pretty extensive sound deadening compared to a regular XJ.

5 – Installed a battery monitor and charge port

I use the BM2 Bluetooth Battery monitor in all my cars.  While the Daimler is fitted with a voltage gauge, I am not sure how accurate it is.  The bluetooth monitor allows me to quickly see the voltage of the battery even when the car is not running.  The gauge is particularly useful on the Mercedes and Citroens that don’t give you a voltage gauge, but I was able to verify that the alternator was working well, and the gauge in the car reads a little low.     In addition, I installed a port for my ctek bettery chargers so I don’t have to worry about alligator clips.

6 – Installed a second hand lower grille

The lower grille on my car was totally missing.  Its not immediately obvious on the series 1, but having a gaping hole under the front bumper is not ideal.   I was first given a grille which turned out to be for a series 3.  I then found one on uk ebay that was for a series 1 and fitted it.  A small improvement that makes quite a difference once fitted.

7 – Fixed rattling hubcap

On my first couple of drives, I noticed quite a rattle from the front drivers wheel.  At first I wasn’t sure what was causing.   I couldn’t see anything hitting the wheel when the car was jacked up.  I couldn’t see the trim ring touching anything either.   Turns out the Daimler badge on the hubcap was loose.  I’ve removed the hubcap and added some glue, and will refit and test.

8 – Owners manual and keyring

I purchased an owners manual and keyring.  I couldn’t find a Vanden Plas owners manual, but owners manuals for the regular Series 1 Double-Six are easy to find on uk Ebay.  At the all British day, I also purchased a Daimler keyring, which has sadly already broken.

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Both the car and the engine are masterpieces.   The V12 Series 1 XJ was the culmination of Jaguar at their best and when it was launched in 1971 it was a revelation and the ultimate sports sedan.

The V12 engine was probably the most advanced mass produced engine of its period – An all alloy overhead cam v12 that started out life as a race engine and then was developed for the road.   It was originally supposed to have fuel injection from the start, but the supplier cancelled the project and Jaguar came up with the quad carburetor setup as an interim measure.  The engine is well built and strong, but suffers from prodigious thirst.  The timing couldn’t have been worse for Jaguar, launching such an advanced engine right before a fuel crisis.

Even with the XK engine, the Series 1 XJ is a world beating car.   The V12 just took it to the next level.     I’ve always wanted to own both a series 1 XJ and a Jaguar V12, so it made sense to buy a car with both.

While a short wheelbase XJ12 was appealing, the model I really wanted was the Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas.   This wasn’t going to be an easy car to find.    There were only 351 ever made, and none sold new in Australia.   Survival rates are not great.   In the 90s they were just seen as a thirsty old car, and pretty much worthless.   Since most of them were sold new in the United Kingdom, rust claimed many.   Private imports in Australia do exist, but there are few in good condition.

The Daimler Double-Six was an XJ12 with nicer trim, a different grille and more chrome.    The Vanden Plas model took it to the next level.   It started out with a long wheelbase chassis with all the available options except for the chrome wheels.   This included air conditioning, fog lights, electric windows, remotely operated rear view mirror, Radiomobile 8 track, and Sundym glass.

The cars were assembled at Browns lane to a base coat of paint and then sent to the Vanden Plas Kingsbury works to be finished by coachbuilders.  This included a sumptuous interior, special metallic paint colours and a vinyl roof.  A regular Double-Six was £3,848.90.   The Vanden Plas would set you back £5,439.06 as of October 1972.  

I have been on the lookout for one for many years.   One popped up for sale about four years ago, but I wasn’t in a position to buy at the time.  It also didn’t seem like the car for me.  After a while, I saw an interesting XJ12 SWB for sale in British Racing Green.  Given I figured I may never find a Vanden Plas, I went to look at the car.   I liked it, but it wasn’t the car for me.

A while after that drive I mentioned this to and old friend, who told me that a Vanden Plas he used to own might be for sale.   It had been repainted and had a new vInyl roof fitted, but the current owner had two Bentley projects to do, and was thinking about selling the Vanden Plas.   On the upside, it was rust free and freshly painted, and had a pretty nice interior.   On the downside, it hadn’t been registered since 2005.

A deal was done after I went to see the car.    It wasn’t perfect, but it was a rust free Vanden Plas.   The interior wasn’t perfect, but it had a nice patina and was pretty original.   Before I took possession of the car, it required some work to transport it safely.

• Installing electronic ignition to get it to run properly
• Ensuring it would not catch fire by making sure the carbies, fuel hoses and so on were all attended to
• Making sure my lovely V12 engine would not cook by getting the cooling system to work
• Fitting tyres that held air on the correct wheels
• Making sure the brakes worked
• Fitting some of the missing chrome from the repaint

With that work done, I was ready to take possession of the car.   It still needs a few things to get it to the point where I would be confident driving it to Melbourne and back, but it runs very nicely when warmed up, and the engine stays cool.   I’m very happy with it and am looking forward to slowly improving it over time.

So far the main thing I have done is take it on smaller drives.  It runs better and better the more I drive it.

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