Another project on the XJS?

It wasn't always a garage queen.

The radio in the car needs a security code to function again. 

I've poured through my forum for suggestions and "universal" codes. Nothing worked.

So I decided to pull the radio and see if the code had been written on the radio chassis. 

It was actually much easier than I thought that it would be. 

Unfortunately it wasn't there. I'd looked in the glove box, under the hood and in the trunk. 

I don't have an owners manual or a warranty book. 

Audio theft was once a pretty bad problem, until the price of CD players dropped. 

I copied the model number and the serial number of the radio. 

I would need that info to get the code from an on line source. 

I could even see if the dealer could provide it for me. I read that it could be up to 40.00 from the dealer and around half that much online. 

I don't even know if the darn thing works, I could just be wasting my money. 

The stock radio is a Clarion cassette AM/FM stereo, I'm sure that it was an expensive option when the car was new. I just saw one offered for sale on the Jag forums market place. The seller claimed that it worked, but didn't have the code. So how could he have tested it? He was asking 200.00 dollars for it! 

I have no idea what the stock stereo sounds like. I am not an audiophile, I guess you could say that I've got a tin ear. I wonder what condition the speakers are in. They couldn't be much worse than the XJ6 system. With the cassette slot I could use a a cassette adapter for audio input, as from a small CD player. Or even a Bluetooth hook up. 

If I even had a Bluetooth!

There are things that I need more than a stereo but it would be nice to have some music when I'm out exercising the cat. 

There's a stereo outlet in an industrial area that I've used to install a new CD player in my Truck and '96 Mustang. 

I went down to the stereo store and looked at some of their wares. The cost of the unit is low, but they quoted a high price for the installation.

I decided to give the online code supply company a chance, it will be easier to punch in the code than to put together a new connector harness for an aftermarket stereo. 

After I entered in my data and paid my 35 bucks, the site stated that it could be anywhere from several hours to several days for my return. I've read mixed reviews about the site, I'll just have to see what happens. If it doesn't work out, I'll just make buy a stereo and make up the harness.

Update: The company that was supposed to supply the code is pretty flaky. It took over a month to get a response and that was with my encouragement. They provided a code of 9222. How can I enter that code when my radio only has five buttons? 

I contacted the company three weeks ago and haven't heard back from them yet!

It took another few weeks until I heard from the company, they told me that they couldn't help me so they were issuing a refund.

A new radio/ cd player was always a better idea!

I'm seriously thinking about putting the XJS on non op. While it runs and drives well, the braking problem is going to need some detailed attention. It might just need a new accumulator ball, as the old one has lost it's gas pressure charge. Hopefully! 

I haven't made any progress on the front suspension, and don't think that I will for quite a while. The car is safe inside the garage. It will probably be sharing the space with my '96 Mustang soon. 

Besides the annual registration fee, my biggest savings will be in insurance costs. I need to check with the Wife, but I think that it runs me around 40 dollars a month. That alone is not too bad, but add that to the Mustang, and the XJ6 and things start to add up. Still, I prefer to keep all my running vehicles active, though I'm not going to be driving the XJS until I get the braking problem sorted out. I'm sure that will take me at least a year to get around to. Best intentions aside! 

It's slept in worse conditions.

Holding onto the car and preserving it is not too costly and makes the most sense. 

Snug as a bug in a rug, I hate bugs!

For all the hours ( and there are many!) that I spend looking at cars on CraigsList, there really aren't any cars that I want more than what I've already got. This is actually a pretty fortunate situation to be in.

Lately I've been thinking more and more about my Mark VII. Thinking is how I've gotten myself into trouble before!   

 Things don't just stand still.

photo was taken at the Luther Burbank Gardens in Santa Rosa.

I have decided to put my XJ6 front and center. I plan on driving it locally as a daily, while I try to find a way forward. It's currently sitting at 160,400 miles. How long will it take me to reach 161,000?

As everyone knows, Life gets busy, things change. 

I just ran my '96 Mustang through the car wash, I'm going to cover it up while it sits outside. I just bought a new car cover for it.

It will be going into the garage soon, my Daughter will be receiving her car once I deliver it up to the Sacramento area. That will be one less car in front of the house.

My Wife has assured me that all storage boxes will be taken out of the garage and placed in my Daughter's now empty room. 

Then there will be room for another car in the garage, I intend to put the '96 Mustang inside.

The XJ6 runs well. The a/c works great and all the accessories work. It still looks fantastic.

While the CEL came back on, shortly after it passed the smog test, the car seems to run fine. 

The problem is that the left front tire will wear out the inside tread in a couple of thousand miles. 

It seems to steer well enough and it tracks straight okay. It doesn't pull to the side or dart to the side on braking. 

So maybe it's not necessary to rebuild the whole suspension. I need to take a look at it and try to isolate the problem if possible. 

I also need to see f I can deal with the CEL,

Circumstances changed when it passed smog, I got the rest of this year, and all of the next before I go back for testing. I imagine that I will be able to clear up the problems in that time.

This is the most positive that I've been able to feel about this car in quite a while.

Today I re-seated the coolant level sensor in the coolant tank that I had accidentally knocked out of place while replacing the transmission cooler lines. The warning light on the dash indicated that I was really low on coolant, but the temp gauge never moved out of normal range, and the level was correct. I looked under the hood and saw the sensor hanging down, Today I re-seated it and the warning light went out.

I decided to check on how loose the front wheels were. I jacked up each wheel and found some bearing play in both sides, but it wasn't that much. The left front wheel didn't feel that bad. 

It bears looking into. 

I'd like ti talk cars over coffee with him.

I just started watching videos from Jay Leno's Garage again. I had always found the videos to be interesting. I liked the way that Jay displayed the car, discussed it's design, engineering and history, sometimes with the owner or a marque expert. During his pandemic series he was alone in the shop, after discussing the car he'd put it up on a lift and show off any interesting features of the chassis. Then he would take it out for a drive. 

I enjoy these internet shows much more than the televised version. In those, Jay would often have a special guest and there had to be "stunts" and stupid stuff like burn outs. 

I have watched the YouTube series in the past and I usually find that Jay projects  an "Everyman" persona. But of course he's not. He another rich guy who has a team of car repair and restoration specialists at his warehouse shop and complex. While it is evident that he is quite involved with his stable of vehicles, it's also clear that he doesn't have to get his hands dirty or fuss with a difficult repair. Which is fine and as it should be, because he is in a position to pay someone else to fix his cars, his time is probably more valuable than that. 

I do find it kind of funny when he describes a certain car as still being pretty affordable, "usually you can buy one for under 100,000 dollars." He will often catch himself after that statement, and explain that it's a lot of money, but a bargain compared to comparable models. But he has championed lower cost cars like '99 Corvettes and early Miatas. He has also praised owners that handle their own rebuilds and restorations. It's been a long time since he was a bucks down car enthusiast, his current reality is much different than most ordinary enthusiasts. 

Still. I appreciate his efforts to convey the essence of the car hobby to a wider audience. 

I find that revisiting his site and watching the series has made me appreciate my current stable of cars much more. I have a couple of cars that are pretty special, the XJS and the '51 Mark VII, and if I'm lucky I'll get to get these cars back on the road. Just owning them has been somewhat rewarding. I realize that there were many cars which have become quite valuable as of late, that were a couple of decades ago just considered to be worthless junk. 

I once wrote that the value of car magazines was to maintain the enthusiasm of the hobbyist, they helped provide the shot of energy and motivation to keep our projects moving. 

For that, I thank you Jay!

 I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree.

That's where the branch snapped off.

Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. 

Apologies to Joyce Kilmer.

Life in the Urban Forest.

I wish that he'd made one of mine a little bit better.

This is another reason that I can't get any work done on my cars!

My house is surrounded by mature trees, of all kinds.

The green strip in front is home to a massive messy, over grown specimen that drops seed pods all through the year. It is huge, towering over the street lamps. 

These were originally planted around the entire cul de sac, my neighbors on the east side of the court, that were there, back in the day, cut them all down before they grew too large and never replanted anything in their place. 

It 's true that they provide a lot of shade, but the branches spread over my driveway, almost all the way to the porch roof. 

The City actually came out once and trimmed them all quite well. That was twenty years ago, they haven't been back since. That was year that the City had a surplus.

Did I mention that they make a horrible mess? 

In the front yard, which blends with my neighbor's, we've  got  two Chinese Elms, two olive trees and there's a redwood in the front  side yard. 

In back I've got an impressive row of five redwoods along the west fence line. another olive in the right n/e  corner. Next to the inside gate I've got another redwood.

Two of my redwoods grew from seeds. The one in the front side yard and the one next to the gate. I had trimmed the rear trees and left piles of cuttings in those spots until I could dispose of them. Seeds fell from the pods and took root, now there are two beautiful trees there. It only took a bit less than thirty years. 

By the south fence line there used to be two pines, now deceased. they fell down in a storm and were cut up and carted off. 

There were three fruit tress along the south side if the house, now only the cherry remains. 

I like these trees, they are one of the things that attracted me to the house. 

Except for the Eucalyptus that is in the s/w corner of the yard,

I was excited and proud to have a yard that looks like a park.

That was over thirty five years ago.

My trees are more than mature, they are pretty darn old, That Eucalyptus was already pretty big when we moved in. I will admit that I never tried to trim it until it was too late. When I was a youngster in my 30's, I thought nothing of climbing a ladder with a pruning saw. Those days are gone. 

A bit of a mess.

The Eucalyptus had two trunks splayed as a "V'. One very stormy night over twenty years ago we heard a mighty crack, and in the morning found that the Eucalyptus had decided to split in the middle. I managed to cut it up and cart it off myself, but I didn't trim the other trunk. 

The tree grew into an odd, gnarly looking, twisted mess with branches sticking out at all angles. It became overgrown with ivy, that almost killed it. It remained in that state for many years. Before we had our shed built, I decided to trim and clean it up. I climbed as high as I could and cut and stripped the ivy from the tree. 

I did some trimming, of what I could reach. It was now way too tall. The top of the tree was left free to grow. I wasn't too worried, I imagined that it would stop growing at some point.

It didn't. 

After the shed was built my Daughter thought that the enclosed space behind the shed would be a great place to put a table and some chairs, kind of an out door room. 

This was after my earlier experience with a severely overgrown Oleander tree/bush. That was the one that fell in another storm, pretty much filling up all my yard space. I reported on my struggle with that tree several years ago in this blog. 

She was scouting the possibilities when there was a sudden loud whump! I looked over just in time to see a huge bunch of branches fall between the trunk and fence. Luckily my Daughter was not sitting in that space where she could have been hit by an errant branch. The bulk of the branch fell between the trunk and fence. A long bit of branch fell onto my neighbor's yard. 

Luckily they are empty nesters and there weren't any children in the yard and in harms way. A couple of days later I went to work.

I fired up the chainsaw, (plugged it into a long extension cord, actually) and did my best Paul Bunyan act. Another crisis solved, though I told my daughter to forget about using this space. Since it was behind the shed it was easy to forget about.

A little more than a year had passed.

This is what I found on my side of the fence.

My Daughter was rearranging items in our second shed late at night a couple of days ago. She came in and advised us that she'd heard a loud whooshing sound and thought that the tree had lost another branch. She wasn't kidding, a huge branch had fallen off straight down the main portion, landing in my west side neighbor's yard. It broke a section of fence and was about twenty feet into their yard. 

This is what fell in my neighbor's yard!

My yard is quite a bit higher than their's, and there is a retaining wall and a 15 ft. up slope. that is pretty much bare and not used for anything. They do have a young child, I often hear him playing in the yard. Their back lawn and play area was far enough from the fence that the kid would have been safe, but it would have scared him pretty bad.

The heaviest portion of the tree fell right next to the fence and since it happened at ten at night, there wasn't anyone out there who could have been hurt. But it's sobering thought.

We've had to face the facts, that tree is just too dangerous to leave as it is. We are going to have to have it severely trimmed. That's gonna cost some bucks!

Who knows what danger lurks in those boughs?

I like to do as much around the house as I can, but I'm a realist, I haven't tried to climb in a tree in a long time, that's why they have become so overgrown.

The plan was to drastically cut back the eucalyptus, all the way to first "V" about eight feet up. That's cutting off a lot, since the tree was over forty feet high! This was a huge job.

It takes a pro to do the job safely.

The front street tree is an even more enormous specimen. The tree hasn't been trimmed since the City did a little work on it over twenty years ago. One of the branches reached from the green strip to the roof of the front porch. Luckily this is a healthy tree that has never dropped any branches. That would have been disastrous.

Why all this discussion about those trees?

Well, they have become a priority. I had to get the yard squared away somewhat so that the tree guys could safely have access to the eucalyptus, which is located between our first shed and the fence. 

This is just part of the clean up that I handled.

Work, effort and worry, not to mention money. 

I got a good price, but the job cost me what I paid for my '96 Mustang. 

So things are being pushed back a bit. 

This is the start of the three piles of cuttings that I made.

The tree crew came out and did a great job, but it's going to take a while for the budget to recover.

 I wasn't done with the '07 Mustang yet. There were still a few things that I wanted to have done. 

What's hiding under that car cover?

Next up was an oil change.

While I was there I had them change the differential lube. The first time in 164,000 miles. I remember that differentials were once considered to be lifetime components, but a modern car's life has gotten longer and longer. Back in the Old Days it was the engine that went first, usually needing a a valve job by 50-60 K, a complete rebuild at double that mileage, followed by the transmission, usually the original buyer had traded in the car years before the rear end would need attention. 

I went to a real mechanic to have the transmission fluid and filter done. The quickie place will only do a suction fluid removal, leaving the filter in place. Besides that, I wouldn't trust their technicians to do any real wrenching. This model Mustang doesn't even have a dipstick. Sealed for life, Riiightttt! This does insure that once it starts to leak fluid it should be immediately taken in for service. No more carrying a container of fluid and a funnel in the trunk, No more mystery, magical cures being added to the transmission in hopes of a miracle. Theoretically the owner would take the car immediately in for service, maybe they could catch a small problem before it became bigger.

More likely, the owner will continue to drive the car until the fluid drops to a dangerous level and the car quits moving, resulting in serious damage.

It was also time to have the rear brake pads replaced. 

I also wanted to have the fuel pump replaced. When I told the mechanic that I wanted the fuel pump changed, he asked if it there was a problem with it. I told him that it seemed to be working fine, but at over 160 K and over 14 years of age, how long was that likely to last? Fuel pumps just quit without any warning. The fuel pump on my '96 Mustang quit late one night on the freeway, after providing 190,000 miles of service. You never know when that will happen. This was a pre-emptive decision. 

This has gotten me pretty caught up with deferred maintenance

Some of these things could, and should have, been done a few years ago,

It would have spread out the cost over a few years, instead being such a big expense at one time. The oil and diff lube change was 110.00. The brakes, transmission service, and fuel pump was 800 bucks. Add the hoses and belt replacements for 700.00. Over 1,600  dollars work on a car that might be worth four times that amount.

Are there still some things that could go wrong over time? 

Certainly:

The water pump, starter motor, alternator not too mention the power steering pump and a/c compressor. How about the radiator?

The transmission, the differential ? When the airbag recall was done the dealer's mechanics told my Daughter that the rack and pinion was worn. There is a little noise at the extremes of travel but no leaks or looseness, The alignment is holding fine. But telling her that it was worn, worries her. Until a lot of slop is evident in the steering I wouldn't worry too much, but she is a worrier. 

That's another big ticket item for the future, my '96's rack is much the same.

Speaking of the diff, there seems to be more noise from it lately, which I find kind of strange. I always thought that it was a bit noisy even when it was newer. There aren't any grinding or clunking sounds or vibrations. I've never had a diff wear out, could it be the rear wheel bearings? 

Maybe, I don't think that the car will get too many miles put on it in the coming year, I plan to look into it. 

I wasn't trying  going to rebuild the entire car! I was just trying to get it caught up on deferred maintenance.

This was our family car that we bought new. We gave it to our youngest to use and it would be hers when she moved out. That day came years later than I might have thought, but it's finally coming.

Except for a collection of dings and scrapes it is still a pretty solid automobile. I've tried to impress on my daughter that cars need attention and they cost money, pay less attention, pay out more money. 

You are always going to pay. I told her that if you need a new car to feel more secure about driving, well that's a valid choice. You just need to budget for a car payment for the rest of your driving life. Of course there are alternatives that are almost as good, but they take attention and commitment. 

My Wife and I are giving her the car for free, it will be put in her name and she will now be responsible for paying for it's future expenses. 

I know that I don't currently have a lot of feelings for the car, but for a long time, it was one of our family cars, and we went all over in it. It was used for family trips and vacations. It held the four of us, and luggage and stuff. Once we drove back from Camarillo with a large model Ferris wheel in the back seat wedged between the two kids! The folding rear seat backs give it a lot of flexibility in carrying cargo. 

It is, and feels substantially bigger than my '96. It handles great and is more stable at high speeds. To be perfectly honest, the 200 hp. V6 is all it really needs, it will go as fast as you want (limited to 110 mph.) and return excellent gas mileage in the process. I recall driving it down to Southern California to drop off my Son's friend down at UC Irvine and my Son in Ventura at his school.The ride home was accomplished via my favorite highway US101. It was still brand new at the time. It performed brilliantly over this type of highway, the trip was made with the light of a full moon and the headlights were really effective in lighting up the road. I drove even faster than my normal 70-75 mph, I hit 100 and even cruised at 90 mph. for a time. Lately I've been driving it enough to become reacquainted with it's charms. I could be completely happy with this as my only hobby car, but I have the means to stretch out a bit more, and I love the personality of the V8 GTs.  Our particular car, equipped with the Pony package which provided 17 in. Bullet wheels shod with Pirelli Z rated tires, grille mounted driving lights, and a leather interior, is something that an enthusiast could live with. Just as it is. I do have a lot of admiration for the car's design. I drove one at the Hertz used car lot a year or so before I bought the '07 and I was impressed by how beautiful it looked and how good it felt and drove. It made me feel like taking off on a long road trip, which is the best compliment that I can give to any car. 

I'm going to tell my Daughter that if she should decide to trade it in get a newer car that I'd like first dibs on buying it back, it's too good to give away.

I hope for the best.