[Jeroen]

I needed a little Christmas holiday project. So I bought myself another Jaguar. This time an XJ8. Pretty neat car!









But I did not like the colour, so I decided to strip it completely and give it a proper paint job. It is not that difficult to take it apart. Took me just over an hour.

So here we go! Not jack or axle stands required. A piece of foam will do nicely.



Initially it was very difficult to even begin somewhere. So I just pried the various bits a bit to see what would give. The exhaust was the first bit to come loose



In order to be able to remove the exhaust some bits at the rear needs to come off. I actually had to snap this off as it was glued, but it stayed in one piece!



Next, I could remove the exhaust, various bit of the underside of the engine and transmission and undo two little bolts.

Bit more pushing, pulling, drilling down a few bits and it all starts coming apart!





I am quite pleased how well this went. Only one small piece of the rear suspension broke, but that can be easily glued back on.



I have decided I want my second Jaguar looking like my first one. So I am getting myself a spray can of Jaguar Zircon Blue made. I took the fuel lid off my Jaguar so I can take it to the paint shop. They will take a reading of the lid and that will give them the exact colour. I hope to pick up a few Jaguar parts and the paint tomorrow.



I will ask the help of my son Thomas. I used to quite good at this sort of painting. But I havent really done it for decades. Thomas is heavily into Warhammer. (https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB...equestid=16889). And he is an absolute master at painting the tiniest of details.

Still need to fix the connector on the Spider. I am also about to refresh the brake fluid of the Mercedes. Possibly a few other odd jobs in the weeks to come.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Went around various shops to pick up parts and other bits.

I got some parts for the Jaguar. A gasket for the spare throttle body I showed earlier. And a so called puddle light.

Two bottles 250 ml, dot 4 brake fluid for the W123 brake fluid flush.

Can of spray paint for my model Jaguar, 2000 grit sanding paper, paint stripper.

Some multi coloured elastic bands (always handy) and a loupe (always handy too).



At the far back you can also just spot a little paper towel holder. I mounted it straight away. Very professional looking!!




Here you see the (broken) puddle light on my Jaguar and the replacement. I havent got around to fixing/replacing it yet. Not a big job, but I will have to lie on the floor and I was not dressed for that.





Got going with the paint stripper on the model Jaguar. Worked well on the bumpers. But not at all on the chassis. No matter how long I left it on, it did not do a thing!!





Maybe I will just try sanding it down a bit and test spray it, no primer needed hopefully

We will see.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Last night my wife was complaining about her Fiesta. The fan only works at the highest setting (4). Nothing on the lower settings.

I just realised I do not have any technical documentation on this Fiesta. (2015). Have to get me some. But a quick google shows this is a well known problem on many Fiesta’s, even earlier ones.

The Fiesta forums are awash with people who’s fan only works on highest setting.

And subsequently tonnes of youtube video’s out there as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1MHyL3sBo0

I have already ordered the new resistor at a cost of Euro 20 and that includes Euro 6 for shipping. So the actual resistors cost about Euro 14. To put that into some European price context. A Starbuck Grande Caramel Macchiato will cost you close to Euro 5 these days. So it is not a particular expensive part. But it is weekend now and December 25th and 26th all (web) shops are closed due to Christmas. Estimated arrival time is Friday 28th. Which is still ok.

I checked with my local Ford dealer. They were out of stock and with them it would could approx Euro 35 for the part alone. So we are going the DIY way, obviously.

I wonder why these resistors break down so easily? My wife’s car is only 3.5 years old with less than 20K on the clock. Not as if it gets used a lot. Obviously, these days with AC the fan is just about running all the time when you are driving, but still.

Ford must have chosen some cheap supplier for these resistors. I have ordered two different one, from two different webshops, just in case.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

A very windy and rainy Sunday morning. Perfect weather to fiddle with my cars in my garage!!

First I decided to finish fixing the connector on the fuel injector of the Alfa Spider. I had hope to be able to pry off the old connectors, but was unsuccessful.



So in the end I just cut them off. I was a bit reluctant doing so, as the wiring loom is quite short. But I figure I will have enough spare cable loom to get the connector properly back on.



But fixing these little metal connectors requires a special crimping plier. I thought I had one. But mine was not up to this particular job. So I have to get a different one first.


Oh, well, onto the next job: The puddle light on the right rear door of the Jaguar. Working on anything electrical, always disconnect the battery, just in case.

When I had a good look at it, I realised the door trim had to come off. The mount of the lights is attached with two large screws from the inside. So the trim needs to come off.

I am always a little weary when it comes to taking trim off any car. Especially on older cars you are likely to snap off some of the retainer clips or worse.

So I break out all my “trim removal tools”



And of course, print off the relevant pages of the workshop manual



On the Jaguar one of the most tricky parts is getting the veneer-bits off without breaking them. If you do, it is going to get very expensive to replace them. That is, if you can find a replacement part in the first place. So easy does it.





It came off, but a small part fell out:



For the life of me, I could not figure out where it went.

In the end the whole trim panel came away quite easily. I used my special trim removal plier again to detach the trim panel from the door frame.



Took off the connectors to the speakers, the electric window and the puddle light.

Even though the panel did come away quite easily, some bits broke/snapped off.

This was the easy one. It pulled out completely of the doorframe and got stuck on the panel. Easy to pry off and push back on the door frame again







This one was a bit trickier. It had really broken





When I checked it looked as if it was broken before and glued by one of the previous owners!



Put the clip into my vice. Got to use my special vice protection plates for the first time. These have soft plastic insets, so ideal for clamping plastic bits.



Glued it back on with my very special super glue that so far has been very successful in sticking bits back onto various of my other cars too.



Then the little grip pin goes on it. It looks like a bolt, but it is just ribbed. It fits into a nylon bush in the door frame.



When working on the Jaguar door panel, always make sure to keep them very clean. They are (mostly) made of very light leather. So you do not want them resting on a dirty work bench. You can not really see it, but I have special, clean towel under it.



Here a close up of how the puddle light is attached, from the inside.



New mounting plate in position



The lens cap slides on and clicks shut.



Before putting the panel back I attached the wire and checked if the light was working. Which it was not. So I checked the (brand new) bulb. Which was fine.

These puddle lights come on when you open the door. After a while they shut off again. And the rear door had been open all that time. So I had to shut the door and open it again. Presto, the puddle light lit up.

So I managed to get the trim panel back in place. Always going very carefully, endlessly checking all the bits and the various little clips and pins line up and slowly push everything back in place.



With the trim panel back in place, the last bit going back on is the veneer trim. Again, very carefully. You have to bend this part quite a bit to get it back in. Very nerve wrecking.



Looks good again!!!



And I am still left with one extra little clip that I have no idea where it came from !



Initially, I thought this was be a 5 minute job, until I realised the trim had to come off. I do not rush these sort of jobs. I have the radio playing some music. I go and make myself multiple cups of coffee, whilst I am working. Just enjoying fiddling with my car. By the time I had put away all my tools I had spend almost three hours!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Last week I visited the little car model museum just down the road from us.

https://www.minidome.nl/homeSengels.html

It is literally just 6 km down the dike from us. Very nice, immense collection. The owner, Berndt and I got on really well. I ended up spending some 3.5 hours at this little museum, mostly talking to Berndt. Berndt is twelve years my senior, but we both were born in Amsterdam and grew up in Amstelveen. We even went to the same secondary school!

I had noticed that, although his museum had quite a number of Alfa Romeo’s, my Series 3 Spider was lacking. As it so happens I have two identical 1;43 Spider models. So I promised Berndt one for his museum.

This afternoon my wife and I went over for a small donation ceremony.

Here you see my Alfa Romeo Spider Series 3 in its new home.



Berndt invited us over to join him and his wife for a drink. We got on really well and the four of us ended up going out for dinner. We had a really nice time. And we have already set another date to meet up again.

This museum is tiny, but it is hugely interesting. I have never seen such an extensive and interesting collection of model cars. Berndt does not like publicity, so he does not advertise, he or his museum are not on social media. It is just a hobby for him, so he does not want too many people to come around. Only real enthusiast preferably. He is a real entertainer, with some great stories and he knows his car and his models. And every model comes with a story on how he obtained it. These days, quite a few get donated by individuals and companies. (E.g. KLM, Donkervoort, me). So his collection is still growing by the day!

Apart from his model cars he has several 1:1 classic cars. He showed me around his garage, which is impressive. On one of his classics, an Austin Eight, he is disassembling the engine. The cilinder head is stuck and I have promised to help him in the new year to free it up.

Berndt is also the organiser of the very successful Lingewaal Classic Car Rally. (See https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/beyon...therlands.html (Vintage & Classic Cars touring around our village in the Netherlands!)) This year saw the 20th edition and also the last one as the council Lingewaal ceases to exist. It merges with two other councils and we will become council West Betuwe. Berndt is already talking to some folks at the new council. I have offered my help and support for next year rally. Should be fun.

More to come in the months to come

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

As you might recall my eldest son Luc and I have been working on a persistent problem on his VW Golf GTI Mk4. The speedo wasn’t working and the fuel gauge was going wonky.

As I mentioned before these are well known problems and there is a lot of information on various forums. However, so far, everything we tried was in vain. I did manage to procure a cheap new pickup element. This morning, boxing day. Luc and I set out to see if we could fix these two problems.

The new speed pick up.



First we took the left front wheel off, as we thought we would get better access. In the end that wasn’t necessary.

Can on two jacks and two axle stands and me underneath. Luc handing me the necessary tools.



Swapping out the pick up element was very easy. Undo to connector and next you can unscrew the pick up element. Pop in the new one, re-attach the connector and that is it.

Luc putting the wheel back on



Luc using the torque wrench on the lug nuts.



Took the car for a test drive. The good news is, the wonky fuel gauge is fixed. So we are pretty sure that is due to a problem in the old pick up element. However, the speedo was still not working. It is showing a bit of movement but that is all.

So we put the car back on the axle stands, I cleaned the connector one more time, made sure the pick up element was installed correctly, but to no avail.

I wonder if the drive unit itself is busted. I will need to do a bit more research.

Also, the GTI sounded very, very sporty when Luc and his partner Maloeke arrived yesterday morning. So we checked the exhaust and we think we might have found the problem!



Actually the pipe going into the rear damper has come off completely. We will check the prices with a quick fitter and then check how much the rear damper unit will cost on line. It is a relative easy job to replace these.

To be continued

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

I had hoped the new resistor for the ventilator of my wife’s Fiesta was going to arrive today. No such luck. Even so, I decided to check where it is located in the first place. Fairly straight forward, ours is a left hand drive, so you dive into the passenger footwell, undo one screw holding the trim panel on the console in place. Remove the panel, stick your head down the foot well, look up and you will see it. Two screw hold it in place.

Here you see it removed, but still attached to the connector. When the part arrive I will have it back in, within five minutes.



We have had a whole series of Ford Fiesta’s, just about all the various models over the years. Never had a problem with the fan speed before. Apparently, it is very common across all models / years. So I ordered two of them, just in case.

The two resistors I ordered, including posting, are still cheaper then what Ford would charge me for the part. On top of that would be labour. Which is always expensive here!!

On the Jaguar Model front I have made some progress too, but none of it very good. I tried to get the original paint off, used paint stripper but that did not do a thing. So I just used very fine sand paper (2000) to sand down the chassis and spray it. The spray finish did not look good and the colour was way off. So I tried the spray on just a piece of metal. Looked fine and a near perfect match with my 1:1 Jaguar. So the paint is fine, the surface of the model is the problem. So today I tried acetone. Did not do a thing either!! So I tried a small blow torch. That did not take the paint off either, but it did damage the model! So I have to get a new model again!!

I was more successful with my Alfa Spider. The special crimping pliers arrived. Very cool, with a ratchet mechanism.



I practiced first on a couple of pieces of wire and loose connectors. Very glad I bought 20 of them. So once I was satisfied I could make a good connection I went to work on the Spider.





Looks pretty good!

Next I rolled down the rubber boot and it is now a perfect water proof connection once again.





As I explained before, because of some stupid Dutch interim classic car road tax arrangement, my Spider (and W123) are not supposed to be on the public road from 1st of December till 28th of February. So technically I can not test drive my Spider. My wife would go ballistic if I did.

But here’s the thing. I need to know if the three things I fixed (loose hose clamp, new spark plug leads and a new fuel injector connector) have solved the problem of the Spider holding back above 4000 RPM. If not I need to dig further and that always mean it is going to get more complex.

My wife is of to visit her mother in Barbados, West Indies, in a week. She will be gone for three weeks. During those three weeks friends of ours are coming to stay in our house. I will be travelling on business a lot, but I will be home most weekends. He is a real Spideristi as well, and is a great mechanic. So I dare say we might find a way to sneak off a little test drive in the neighbourhood!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

We have been away for a nice long weekend to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. We went to Groningen in the North of the Netherlands. A two and half hour drive. We always take the Jaguar on these sort of motorway blasts.

Whilst we were away the new part for my wife got delivered. I got a notification on my phone,So when we can home, before putting my Jaguar back in it’s spot, I put the Fiesta in my garage:



Checked the old and the new part. The new one is considerably larger, but it would still fit and it works !



Bit of fiddling under the dash board



All closed up again, ventilator working as it should be, happy wife!



Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Tomorrow my old neighbour Toon is coming around to help me with another job on the W123. Those who follow this thread will have seen spanner mate Peter and me replacing the distribution chain some time ago. Initially we had some problems with the chain having jumped a tooth and then the tensioner was set incorrectly. All those issues were fixed.

When we fixed the the chain back into it’s correct position it meant cutting through one of the links once again. Unfortunately, I nicked another link a bit with the pneumatic grinder. Not much, but I never felt entirely happy about it. I have driven the mercedes a couple of hundred of kilometers with no problems since. But I still consider it a bit of a weak spot. So I decided we are going to replace the chain again. This is a case of better safe than sorry. If that chain breaks, it is very likely the engine will be severely damaged, if not totalled, so it is just not worth a gamble.

We are still in touch with our old neighbours and Toon and his wife came over to see us in our new home some weeks ago. You will have seen Toon in some earlier posts as well. He also owns a Mercedes W123, a coupe 280. So we often worked on our cars together, lending a hand.

I am looking forward to it.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Toon arrived this morning. After a bit of catching up and some coffee we got to work.

I had put the Mercedes in its customary “Spannering postion”



We quickly took off all the bits and pieces. For me it was the third time in as many months, so things went pretty smoothly.

Here you see a close up of my worry. You can see the new link, but you can also see the one to the left is somewhat nicked. It is and will remain anybody's guess whether that weakened the chain or not.





Put a lot of rags around the chain and cam shaft to ensure nothing could fall down. Fire extinguisher stand by and I ground down one link again. The pieces of wire are there to handle the chain more easily. An oily distribution chain is extremely slippery. Under the rags we had tied the chain with tie-wraps to the sprocket wheel on the cam shaft.



Rather than replacing the whole chain we decided to replace just one single link.

My newly acquired chain punch came in very handy. Here we are using it to get the little connecting plate in place.



The end result, the plate fits neatly over the two pins.



Now to tighten it!



The end result, I am very pleased with it:



We bolted all the bits and pieces back in place again and started the engine. Immediately we heard a weird noise and when I pressed the accelerator we got hear some sort of clinking noise. So I quickly shut down the engine. At first we could not figure out what it could be. We had checked the timing of the engine, the chain tensioner everything. Then I noticed a loose bracket. The bracket is a DIT construction I made for the cruise control. In order to take the valve cover of, you have to undo one bolt that holds it in place. We had forgotten to tighten that bolt. With the bolt tightened the engine sounded fine.

So another job done!

Onto the next one; flushing the brake fluid on the W123

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

This morning the second resistor for the Fiesta arrived. So I will have one spare in stock of the years to come!



The box of Quality Streets is an empty one. We ate the content over Christmas. These days the boxes are made of plastic and they make handy storage containers for in the garage/shed.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Earlier this week my eldest sister Hilde came to stay with us for a few days.

Our parents passed away many years ago and unfortunately our sister Renate passed away, way too early, last year as well. Renate had always kept the family photograph albums of our parents. I had not seen them for many years. It was good reminiscing over old times.

I found two photographs of me, some 4,5 years old, taking the wheel in my Dad’s car. The car is a DKW. My dad had several of these, before moving on to VW1600, K70 and ultimately a long string of Audi’s and ending up with a Volvo as his last car.





The first image is taken in our street in front of my parents home, where we (parents, three sisters and me) lived, in Amstelveen.

The second image is later that year on our annual holiday. In those days that meant we went away for a week or so, rented a little home/Bungalow somewhere in the Netherlands, usually near the sea. The car has a roof rack attached. These DKW’s did not have a huge boot. So for holidays the roof rack was put on. I used to ride up front in my mum’s lap and my three sisters would take the rear seat. No seat belts in those days.

My dad would allow me and my friends to ride up on the roof rack sometimes! Just on some rural back roads, going at a very sedate pace. But it made him the coolest dad in the neighbourhood obviously.

These images are taking in 1964. In the Netherlands that was an era where it was still quite a thing if you owned a car! Many of our neighbours did not own cars, although that would change quickly during that decade. The sixties/seventies was a very prosperous era in the Netherlands.

My dad had absolutely nothing with cars. For him they were just transportation pods. But from very early on, I was interested in cars. I had my first driving lesson the day I turned 18 (legal requirement) and passed my driving test a few weeks later.

Upon passing my driving test, my dad handed me his car keys; “From now on you can do al the family driving”. At the time we had a nice Audi 80, so not a bad car to start with. I bought my own car, for 50 guilders, a few weeks later. An old beat up VW Beetle, or Kever as they are know here. 50 guilders in those days was worth two weeks worth of newspaper round. I always had a some little job from when I was thirteen years old, news paper rounds, working in a toy/model shop, working as a deck hand on harbour tugs, driving rental cars across Europe.

With the Kever I got into serious spannering too. At the time I was attending naval academy . They allowed all students to work on their cars during late Friday afternoons, using all the tools from the academy. In those days there was no MOT, so anything was considered road worthy.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Fiddling with cars, for me, also means talking to others about their cars/hobby, reading car magazines and obviously visiting classic car event. This weekend saw the Interclassic car show in Maastricht in the Netherlands.

https://www.interclassicsmaastricht.nl/en/

It is by a large margin the top classic car show in the Netherlands. Nothing on the scale of say Techno Classica in Germany, but it is still sizeable. It also tends to display a very high quality of cars.

I have visited it many times over the years. Very often with spanner mate Peter, or other friends. Peter always gets me complimentary entry tickets. Due to his profession, classic car valuations, he always gets invited and usually has a few spare tickets to go.

This year I went with another, new, friend of mine, Berndt. The owner of the Minidome museum. https://www.minidome.nl . Apart from owning a museum with more than 7000 model cars, Berndt also own quite a few classic cars. All British, that is his main interest.

Set off in the Jaguar at 08.30 from home. 6 km drive along the dike of the river Linge to pick up Berndt in the next village. We arrived at 10.00 in Maastricht. A very smooth 170 km drive. Most of it doing a very comfortable and legal 130 km/h on the cruise control.

We entered the exhibition and first things first, sat down for a cup of coffee. Peter and his son joined us. They had spend the whole Friday roaming the exhibition, stayed the night at an hotel and were about to go home.

Berndt and I spend the whole day roaming the various stands, looking, discussing cars. We met and talked to a lot of people. The classic car world is a relatively small world. So you tend to bump in people or companies that you know or have dealt with in the past. Everybody there has, obviously, the same interest so it is easy to have conversation with just about anybody.

We met up with another mutual friend of the two of us, who lives in the same village as Berndt. He was displaying his (replica) D-type at the Jaguar club stand.

Although a replica, it is still good and unique enough to be part of the Jaguar Club. And he has a C-type too. We will be joining him and a few others in September for our trip to the Goodwood Revival event.

Just a couple of images to give an overall impression.





Having an Alfa Romeo Spider myself, all variants always draw my attention. This was a gorgeous looking one, but with a price to match! To put that Euro 120.000 in perspective. My 1986 Spider is valued (by Peter) at Euro 13.000.



One of my all time favourite Ferrari’s, the Dino. I am particular fond of this colour too. I think it really suits it, even better than the customary Ferrari red. All yours for just a shade under Euro 400.000,--! Make sure you are well under 1.80 tall or you won’t fit!



For those with a more technical Ferrari persuasion, the engine of an F40



All these exhibitions tend to have some sort of theme. This year the Italian brand Lancia was put in the spotlights. Not many Lancia’s left, but many consider it to be one of the top marques ever. I seem to recall there was a TopGear special about the best car manufacturers ever, or something like that and they choose Lancia too. When all is said and done, I am not that bothered by Lancia. Some unusual and interesting cars. But they do a pretty good paint job on their engines.



Some of these classic cars are just getting ridiculously expensive. Look at the Mercedes at 1,3 million Euro!



Both Berndt and I were very restrained. Berndt did not buy anything and I only bought a box of heat shrink tube. The other day I used some on the repair of the fuel injector connector of the Spider as shown earlier in the thread. But I noticed I had just a few bits left and all the same size.

I do not use it very often, but always handy to have a selection in stock!



We left around 16.30 and were back home around 1800.

Great day. Today I am visiting another model railway event. The wife is away visiting her mum in Barbados for the next three weeks, so I have plenty of time to bum about.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Update on the Spider; I managed to take it out for a sneaky test run. Remember I am not supposed to have it on the public road till the first of March. But I really needed to know whether the various jobs I had done solved the problem of the engine stutter at high RPMs.

I am happy to report that the Spider revs up all the way to 6000RPM without missing a beat!.

Now I just need to wait for 1st of March to start touring properly again.



When I was wiping down the Spider (it was raining whilst I took the test drive) I noticed a little tear in the window in the hood. Not a huge problem as such. I will drive top down no matter what the weather is like. Sun, rain, sleek, hail, snow, I will drive top down. But on our tours, when we are staying overnight, it is not a bad thing if the hood is reasonable watertight . I have never repaired anything like this before. So I have put some question on a few classic car pages on Facebook. See what comes up.



Note, I had to put something underneath the window in order to be able to take the image of the tear.

Now, as some of you will know, I also maintain a thread on my garage/man cave.

Some members spotted the various rags I keep on one of the shelves and were appalled that it looked so untidy. In my defence I will say most were actually nicely folded up underneath a few that had just been thrown about.

I spend some time this afternoon, sorting through my rags. The main reason I keep them in different piles is they serve different purposes. Some are for drying the chassis, others for wiping windows, others for applying wax, others for polishing etc.



I was also give some old sheets by my wife. I cut those ups in in smaller towel size bits and they all go in a big box (yes, unfolded I admit). These are used as wipe-down oily rags.




Another little domestic job. I have several Maglite, flash lights. The mini Maglite stopped working. Checked the batteries, but they were fine, checked the bulb, fine also. So there is something wrong with the switch. I manage to take the thing apart, but it looks as I need some new parts.



Would you believe, it comes with a huge instruction pamflet:

https://datasheet.octopart.com/LM2A0...t-10489891.pdf

So I need to find my some parts.

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Great! What a beautiful car

I saved the Maglite PDF. I think I have a couple lying around. Have you enquired into LED-upgrade units for yours?