"Jules Richardson" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 26 May 2011 06:12:37 -0400, Robert Green wrote:
My big problems were when water got under the hood, when the
transmission (Borg-Warner) blew up, when the power steering pump blew up
spraying the hot exhaust manifold with enough PS fluid to create a small
cumulo-nimbus cloud outside the gates of the Naval Academy during June
Week (now I would be shot as a terrorist bomber), the sudden loss of
spark to three of the six cylinders (it did managed to limp thirty miles
home in that condition) a failed A/C compressor, which apparently was
held in mid-air while the rest of the car was built around it (it was SO
hard to remove), a fender full of tree-nuts that apparently only grow in
Spain, plenty of the body rust you allude to, an engine that ran hot
enough to alligator the paint on the hood, ...

Ha ha! I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read that. It all
sounds familiar - I've had the tree-nut problem, and exhaust manifold
bolts that require a team of trained squirrels to reach,

My squirrel team was killed in the power steering pump explosion. (-:

and loss of
spark (passing folk at 90mph or so on a country road when the supply to
the coil gave out) and, of course, engine heat - Triumph were famous for
poor QC and their V8s left the factory with a small beach of casting sand
still inside, which of course just loved to block engine cooling passages.

I had a TR6. Sold that to a kid that damn near killed himself in it by
hitting a stalled tractor-trailer. Very lucky to be alive. Almost no
protection for the occupants and it was even MORE trouble for the short time
that I had it than the Triumph. Awful to work on, very crowded under the
hood, unlike my Volvo 142 that had a cavernous engine compartment with this
teeny little engine held in place by massive struts. The easiest car ever
to do engine work, however when the wiper motors failed, it required
disassembly of the whole dashboard to replace. By that time it had 300K
miles, an old street sign for the rear floor boards and the fender from a
144. So I took my jig saw and cut through the dash to where I knew the
motor was and removed it that way.

The Mark X was the four door predecessor to the XJ series. Walnut
fold-down picnic tables behind the front seats, all walnut dash, twin 13
gallon fuel tanks with separate electric pumps, gauges for everything
(no idiot lights), leather power seats, power windows, a big boot, a
well-fitted tool kit and a top speed of 160 mph.

Ahh yeah, I remember a friend had a Mark X... very sleek car.

Once I picked up a female hitchhiker who proudly proclaimed: "I know what
kind of car this is - it's a hearse!"

The XJs
were nice, too, and I think they sold quite a few of those in the US - I
keep thinking I should try and get one someday. My uncle had a Mark IX at
one point - I'm not sure if those ever made it to the US market, did they?

I've seen one or two IX's on the street and more at vintage car shows. They
were an older, Rolls-Royce-ish sort of design.

The XJ13 was Jaguar's Le Mans racer attempt - http://www.netcarshow.com/
jaguar/1966-xj13/800x600/wallpaper_02.htm - very nice lines, I think.
Shame they never made it a production body like they did with the E type.

They did make one of their racers into a production car. Steven McQueen
owned one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_XKSS

I'm not enamored of the style - it looks bulbous. But I'll bet they're
worth a fortune because productions was so limited.

What's Lucas Electrics motto? "Get home before dark!"

Ha I've been in so many European cars of the same era though, and they
really weren't any better when it came to electrics. Quite why they
couldn't figure it out, I don't know. I've got a '60s Ford F100 these
days though and that's really not any different - maybe the US climate
(and roads) were just generally kinder on vehicles, so they didn't get
the same bad rep?

I know it took a while for the Japanese to build cars that would work in the
wide range of weather found in the US. I assume the Europeans had similar
issues, tending to design cars for their local environment. Brits, of
course, drive on the wrong side of the road so that introduces a number of
left/right hand issues because the cars usually are built to accommodate
both types of steering. My Mark X was left-hand drive but there were
obvious "vestigial" right hand drive connectors, fittings, etc.

It was a great experience, and I learned more about cars than I ever could
from one that ran well, but now I drive a Honda that starts every time and
gets me where I am going without incident.

Did you see the bit about "Lucas Wiring Harness Replacement Magic Smoke?" I
never fried the wiring harness on the Jag, but I did smoke a 1967 Buick
Riviera with the drum speedometer, the fastback and the flip up (mostly)
headlights. Had that up to 110 mph when I was a police reporter for the
Washington Star when I responding to a Signal 13 (officer down) call. I
knew from what my journo prof said that when cops are "running on code" they
will NEVER stop to issue speeding tickets so I got in line with all the
cruisers heading up US Route One, leaving the ground when I hit a big enough
dip. I'd recently wrote an article about doing a stint at the Bondurant
Racing School which gave me a very false sense of confidence about
high-speed driving. Very false and life-threatening, too! (-:

The woman with me, whom I was giving a ride to her dorm when the call came
in, wet her pants and I finally has to slow down when an older police
cruiser, doing about 130 mph passed me. Obviously the piston rings were
just about shot because he laid down a trail of blue smoke so thick I
couldn't see anymore. When I finally got to the scene I was so loaded with
adrenaline that my knees just buckled as I stepped out of the car. It took
a few seconds to get my footing back. Poor Leslie was shaking like a leaf
while trying to tie her sweater around her waist to conceal her indelicate
condition.

I did one other high speed chase before I made a deal with God and gave up
chasing cop cars. I was going 100 mph on a four lane city thoroughfare,
following a line of police cars responding to a bank robbery. One thing
they drill into you at Bondurant is that braking at those speeds isn't a
practical way to avoid disaster, even though it's a reflex response.

I remember (and will remember until the day I die) trying to brake for a car
nudging out from a stop sign way, far ahead and realizing I had covered an
enormous distance without appreciably slowing down. Fortunately he had seen
the long line of patrol cars ahead of me and stopped, half way into the
intersection. I remember whizzing by so close the car shuddered as it
passed within a foot of the other car the way it feels when a huge truck
passes at high speed. In those few seconds (which seemed like an hour) I
made my deal with God. Don't kill me tonight and I'll find safer work!
That (and getting shot at during a 7-11 robbery) did the trick and I went
back to school to study CompSci.

At 100mph late at night, by the time you see it, it's already too late to
brake for it. There's the difference between many American sedans and Brit
sedan/sports cars. Before the Riviera and the Jag was a 71 Ford LTD
ex-state trooper car. Humongous engine, incredible torque but likely to set
sail at really high speeds because of its very boxy design and high
undercarriage. Prodigious understeer, too. A whopping 7 miles to the
gallon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_LTD_(Americas)

It's "sweet spot" was the ability to catch up quickly with almost anything
that shot past you. Accelerating from 55 to 85 was like having a rocket
assist. But at about 90, it started to lift. With the window cracked the
whoosh kept getting louder and louder until you got to a little over 90.
Then it was clear something had changed aerodynamically - as if I were
passing the sound barrier. (-" That car was very high off the ground and as
enough air got rammed under the chassis the handling became terribly
squirrelly. Squirrelly is NOT what you want at 90+ mph.

--
Bobby G.