This is my daily driver. Purchased by me in 1998 as the fourth owner it had only 65,000 careful miles:
Ok – just kidding!
This is it:
Since purchasing the car in 1998 I’ve almost doubled the mileage. For the most part it’s been a dependable, and economical means of transport. You’d be hard pressed to find something as classy (and classic) for the kind of price that I paid for this Jag. The gas mileage is pretty bad (only about 12 around town), but when you factor in the purchase price, the fact that all maintenance is easily carried out by myself, and the low taxes and insurance that need to be paid (because of its age), it’s a good deal all around.
Classic Jag ownership is not, however, for the faint of heart. My XJ6 has suffered two of the major issues that most owners will either have experienced, or are aware of their inevitability:
Transmission Failure
The Borg-Warner 66 transmission fitted to the 6-cylinder XJ6 cars is notoriously weak , given that it evolved from a transmission that was originally designed for a much lighter and less powerful car (the AMC Rambler). Once they start to slip, chances are that they will quickly self destruct. Mine did exactly that in 2002. Fortunately, there is a popular conversion kit available from John’s Cars that allows the ubiquitous Chevy Turbo Hydramatic 350 to be mated to the XK engine via an adapter plate. The TH350 is easy to find, and very cheap compared to a rebuilt BW-66, and it’s well known to be bulletproof. The only hassle was raising the car high enough in the air to remove the old transmission and get the new one in there, but it was definitely worth it!
Head Stud Failure
The head studs on the XK engine pass through drilled holes in the block surface and into the water jacket before eventually threading into the block below the cylinder bores. Most engines I’m familiar with have the threaded holes on the block surface. I believe the theory is that attaching the studs lower down pulls everything together more tightly and evenly. Sounds great, but failure to keep the coolant fresh results by regularly flushing the system can result in corrosion of the studs just above the point at which they thread into the block. I found out that mine were weakening in this way when I noticed back in 2004 that coolant seemed to be findong its way into the combustion process, so I decided to give the head nuts a quick torque. The sinking feeling that comes with torqueing up a head bolt only to hear a “snap” and feel it give is something that needs to be experienced to fully appreciate. Fortunately, I was not the first to experience this problem and found a couple of posts on the Jag Lovers Forum containing descriptions of the fix. Fortunately each stud threads into the block right behind a freeze plug, so the stub of the stud is “accessible” from outside the block. Basically, you grind down the remains of the stud, drill a hole the next size up from the old thread, tap the hole, twist in a helicoil to bring it back down to the original thread size, and you’re done. Of course you need 12″ long drill bits to reach down there, and you’ll need an extra long handle on your tap (I welded an old stud to the end of a regular tap). Not a trivial task, but certainly within the means of the reasonably competent mechanic, and definitely very satisfying to complete. 4 years on and the repair is holding up nicely, thank you very much!
