| I recently attended a JDCA drive to Bulli organized by the Grand Tourers Register (i.e. XJS, New XK). The drive started in Southern Sydney and took the grand pacific drive through the royal national park. Unfortunately the event organizers Jag (a lovely XJS convertible) developed an issue and had to pull out of the event, but overall it was a very nice day and some nice cars on display. The video below is a sped up version of the JDCA drive to Bulli. It shows the route through the Grand Pacific Drive, sea-cliff bridge and in to Bulli. The […] after checking all the connections, the Retrosound Model 1 is now back in the E-Type and I also replaced the cigarette lighter while I was at it. The cigarette lighter had rusted internally and was no longer working – and on longer drives the battery in the GPS was not cutting it. Replacing the cigarette lighter was fairly easy, although the replacement had a shorter collar which I needed to extend with a piece of pipe from the hardware store. It is good to have a working radio in the car. While on the test drive, the glass cover […] The Retrosound Model One I have in my Jaguar had stopped working – symptoms were that the display was lit up in every possible place (i.e. like a digital watch showing 88:88). This had happened before, and the cause turned out to be one of the 12v lines was not connected. The Model 1 uses two 12v and a ground – one that is always live and one that comes on with the ignition. In the Citroen, I have wired up a dash switch so I can listen to the radio without the ignition on as it does not have […] The brakes on the E-Type have been somewhat problematic since I got it. When the brakes got hot, they would not always release fully. Over the last 4 years I have tried a number of things to fix the problem but it has always come back to some extent. When I still had the car in the USA, it was worse, the brakes would decide to lock on, and they would get to the point where the car was immobile for 5-6 minutes until they finally decided to release. I was stuck by the side of the road on quite […] What the best differential ratio is for a straight six engined E-Type (Series 1 and Series 2) is one of those topics that generates plenty of opinions. So much so that my car has had two changes over its life. US delivered E-Type started life with a 3.54 ratio, which my car now has. This is the same ratio it had when new (being delivered in South Carolina). When restored it was changed to 3.07, which was the standard ratio for cars sold in Europe. Later on, the owner before me changed it back to 3.54. This article covers the […] There are two ways to get to the Hunter Valley – the boring way, on the F3, sitting in holiday weekend, bumper to bumper traffic; or you can take a bit of a detour and go via the Putty road. This weekend, I chose the Putty road and to take the E-Type, and this decision was vindicated by a great drive with minimal traffic, vs the people I was meeting up at the hunter who sat in traffic getting on the F3 and then at Cessnock. The E-Type performed well, especially on the back roads and it was good to […] The JDCA had an informal E-Type register run up to the cafe at Swane’s nursery in Dural. An informal run meaning that the cars had to be on full registration to attend – not a problem for me. There are around 140 E-Types on the club register, so a nice variety of cars that can show up to a run. (I think the record is around 45 for any one particular event). Despite getting up early to get the car out, it was bucketing down near the garage this morning, so I had to attend an E-Type register run in […] The E-Type went in for a service this week, and came out with a new set of ball joints for the front suspension. It will also need new front wishbones at some point as a number of shims were needed to get it all put together right, so I’ll keep an eye out for a good deal on those. Next time I’ll also need to have the rubber mounts for the steering rack replaced as well. As well as the front suspension, the the brake lights are now working – I had them repaired in 2011 when I still lived […] It had been a while since the E-Type had been on a good long drive, so a friend of mine came over to the warehouse and we took the E-Type out for the drive below. View Larger Map I’ve done most of this route before – Galston Rd is always a good one, as is Bells Line of Road. I was also impressed withe the Commenara parkway – will take that again instead of Pacific Highway. The pie shop on Bells Line of Road is also a good stop off point. The E-Type performed well, and was […] The one thing about my E-Type Jaguar that stuck out like a sore thumb after I bought it in 2010 was the 80’s cassette deck that has been installed in place of the original radio. This looked like an easy thing to update. I first looked at Ebay to see if I could get an original radio but even broken radios were going for quite silly money (not as silly as what people want for Citroen DS radios as I would find later). I then looked at some of the radios that are advertised as modern radios that have a […] | |
