ANyone had experience with Jaguar XJ6's? Engine I don't really care too much about as I'm thinking about swapping something different and not a american V8 or anything along those lines. My wife's aunt has a older XJ6 sitting in their yard that hasn't moved in a few years and would love to take it off her hands and tinker with it. I've always wanted one and would rip everything I could out of it to loose some of it's heftiness and I like stripped interiors cause I'm weird. lol.
The engine is actually one of the more robust parts of the older XJ6s. It's things like the dual fuel tank setup with multiple solenoids to get the fuel in the right direction, and rust, that are the real killers. Slow power windows that often just quit, AC controllers that go bad, and of course just general wiring oddness. On an engine swap you do rid yourself of two problem areas, however: the alternator and starter.
I've had a couple of these cars, an even with all their quirks I still like them a lot.
a long time ago I bought a series II xj6 that had been sitting so long I first had to cut down a two inch wide tree growing through the engine bay to pull it out. but after allot of cleaning, rebuilding the cd2 carbs, and quite a bit of electrical work, it ran great and i drove it for a year or so. the rear end on those are massive and the inboard rear brakes are a pita... i often had to clean the carbs, sometimes while on a date or in a suit on the way to work, once in a tux even... but i liked it despite its problems, and weight. im not sure you can lighten one up much without some major work. when the brakes failed on mine(line blew out at the mc for rear brake lines), i went through a chain link fence, and about 50 feet of heavy brush including small trees before stopping (less than a foot from the highway, scarry) with only a few small scratches , no dents, nothing.. the earlier ones at least, were built thick... i gave it away when the tranny failed , but it was a fun car to have for a while...
I always thought an XJ6 with the drivetrain swap from an E34 M5 would be a lot of fun
Inboard brakes...ewwww. I'm not looking for anything oddballish like that. I found a 320i for 500 and a 12A rotary engine and tranny for 250. Hmmm....
uhhhhhhh. so? lol.
I haven't done the rear inboard brakes on the Alfa yet... I figure I could replace all those deDion bushings with nice polyurethane, and while I have it down, I'll do the brakes, too. Still, not really looking forward to it...
Off topic, but. The only pain with the Alfa brakes is if you have to replace the rear disks. There is so much tension on the bolts that hold the two parts of the axle together and there is so little room to get a tool in there that job can make you cuss. I ended up cutting the heads off all of the bolts to get them out.
Enjoy.
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