Introduction - MkII search & brakes

[Stefan Kjellberg <stefank@esi.com.au>]

This is rather longish I'm afraid. I guess I have to catch up on the
9 months I've been silently listening to your talk.


My name is Stefan Kjellberg. I live in Sydney, Australia, but grew up in
Sweden where you can virtually see the rust eating the cars away. 

I am married with 3 boys, 7-14.

About a year ago, I was trying to get rid of an unwanted Holden Camira. 
They have a very bad reputation, even if the later models were quite ok.
Anyways after several months of adverts and no calls, in desperation I
drove along Parramatta road visiting all the crummy second hand dealers. 
Nobody wanted to give me anything, but at one place there was this old
S-type. 

It was a great looking car. Maroon red with lots of glittering chrome.  I
had a good look at the old lady, then continued down the street. As soon I
got round the corner, the Camira started boiling, letting out lots of
steam. I made it to a service station and after a cool down and fresh
water in the radiator I felt too depressed for words and set off for home. 

I then forgot all about it until a month later when I drove past the old
S-Type. It was still there so I stopped and had another look. I got them
to start her up - battery was flat, and when it finally fired, there
seemed to be at least a couple of cylinders missing. The interior was very
worn, and engine very messy. We took it for a drive round the block, but
it stopped several times. I drove away in disgust, but I couldn't get the
old Cat off my mind. 

At this stage I didn't know too much about Jags (except for the E-type
which I nearly bought when I was younger - I ended up with a MGB-GT
instead) 

Next day at work I punched in the word Jaguar to my WebFerret search
engine.  10 minutes later I had found Nicks JagWeb and started educating
myself.  I soon realised that the S-Type and the MkII were different cars
even if to me they had previously looked much the same.  I found some
pictures and sales brochures of the MkII and the S-type which I printed
out on the new colour printer. I ordered some books from Bookspeed and
read all I could find. I started following the advertisments, which I
entered into a little database. 

Armed with all this information, I went back to the S-Type again.  This
time, I soon realised that it was really in ver poor condition, and only
worth half of what they were asking. I decided I wanted a MkII, preferably
a 3.8 manual/od, but an automatic would do.  I wanted one that I could
drive almost every day. It therefore had to be very sound mechanically,
but there should still be interesting little projects. 

So the long search started. Every week I scanned the papers.  Soon the
weekly Trading Post came online on the internet, and then some of the
dailys. That made things a bit easier. There seems to be two types of cars
advertised. Those that only appear once or twice, and those that keep
coming back week after week after month. The ones that sell quickly are
the more expensive ones, while the poorer ones (in my price range) never
seemed to sell. I looked at quite a few, but there was always something
wrong. 

After a longish Christmas holiday, I decided it was time for action.  I
got onto the internet and printed out the last weeks crop. There was about
6-8 cars available, nearly all of them in the southern part of Sydney. (I
live in the northern part) Anyways, I took off to see what I could find.
On the way I started calling the owners. The first lady thought the car
was a 2.4, and it had vinyl interior. It did not sound so good, but to
fill in time before I could see the next car, I went to have a look
anyway. It turned out to be a beautiful gunmetal 3.8 automatic.  A very
clean car, no rust, nice paint, good chrome, fantastic woodwork, very
clean engine, good interior (in vinyl) Runs well, brakes pretty poor, all
rubbers very old, suspension sagging a bit. 

It was fully restored 18 years ago, has been sitting around most of the
time since. 

I was pretty interested, but as there were a few more to be seen that day,
I left. 

None of the others came close, so the next day I BOUGHT it. The PO had
owned it for 18 months. He built a big shed especially for it, but never
got around to doing anything to the car. He advertised once, the weekend
before I called on him, and only had one call then. He was very surprised
I found his ad a week later - the wonders of the internet. 

I went to pick it up the next evening. The wife's (who knew nothing)
response when I came home was : 'Oh no, what have you done this time'. She
was most worried I had traded the faithful Patrol in I think (It is used
for going bush and on holidays as well as being my main transport) After
she got used to the idea, she (and the kids) now love the car. 

As I said the brakes were rather poor. On the drive home, they were only
very heavy (non working booster (?)), but after a couple of days the pedal
completely dissapeared. After a bit of bleeding, pressure was back, but
only for a little while. Get the wheels off and have a good look. Not good
- a couple of cylinders jammed, a badly worn rear disc etc. I decided to
pull it all apart (after all isn't that why you buy a Jag, you need all
this little projects, and besides if anything needs to be in good order on
a car, it is the brakes). 

All the bits and pieces were sent away. The cylinders to be resleeved, the
master cylinder and booster to be reconditioned.  (Boy, these old Jags are
expensive) After a week and a bit (has anybody noticed how sad a Cat looks
without wheels), it all arrived back again. Put it all together and start
bleeding the brakes. Looking forward to driving the Jag to work the next
day.

Oops, what is that fluid leaking at the back ? And at the front.  Two
cylinders leak ! Take the calipers off and send them back. Got them back a
couple of days later. The brake guys admitted to the seals had been
chipped. I assembled again. This time no leaks. Looking forward to driving
the Jag to work again.

It's time to run the new pads in. Once around the block, twice around the
block. Oops where is the pressure going ? Back in the garage, the front
right outer cylinder is gushing out brake fluid. Pull the caliper off
again and send it back to the brake guys next morning.

Got it back again next day. The guys claimed they put pressure onto it and
it was ok. Put it back on the car. Got this hissing sound again when I
pressed the pedal. 

More brake fluid on the floor. At this stage I was getting a bit sick of
brakes (but I learnt a lot) so I removed the crosspipe to the outer
cylinder and put the bleeder valve on the inner cylinder. I had brakes,
even if only 3 1/2 of them. Anyway that was enough to drive it (what a
lovely feeling, driving it again) the 3 km to the brake place

Here guys, have a Jag - fix it please. The latest theory is that the disc
is a bit (5 thou ?) unevenly worn, causing the piston to tilt inside the
cylinder. I guess I will find out eventually, after the disc has been
machined and I get it back again. 

The next problem, is how to get the rear disc off. I have heard horror
stories about that. Maybe I will take the easy way out and let somebody
else worry about that (while I worry about earning enough to pay him) 

By the way, I eventually sold the Camira to a South African fresh off the
boat. I guess he hadn't heard about the Camiras reputation, or maybe he
knew a bargain when he saw one. 


Stefan

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