Dateline - 04/19/2014 - I know some of you believed it would never happen, but it has. The Jag is back on its own wheels! For those of you who have followed this blog from the beginning, you will remember that the Jag went up on jack stands in October of 2009 (see post http://www.leapingv8s.blogspot.com/2009/10/down-for-winter.html). Note the title of the blog post: "Down for the Winter." Oh if I only knew then what I know now! Four an a half years later it is finally back on its own wheels and I have pictures to prove it:
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| Still on jack stands |
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| On the ground at last! |
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| PROOF! |
Also on Saturday I cleaned up the garage. It was really a necessity because I forgot how much stuff I had stored under the car! I had to find a place for it all so that I could park my other car in the garage. So, with the wheels back on, I had a lot of room against the wall and was able to rearrange things and throw out a winters worth of stuff that had collected! Nice to have a clean garage!
Sidebar: I've not had the XJ6 on wheels since I purchased my XK-8. Now that I have them both on the ground, I took a look at overall length and even with the bumpers on the XJ6, the 2002 XK-8 coupe is LONGER than the '71 saloon! the XJ6 is significantly taller though. It just goes to show that, even though these cars were considered "full size" they were never as big as others on the road. One just has to remember the England of the 60's (my car was designed in 1967 remember) to realize why. Not many freeways, lots of B and C roads that are barely two lanes wide, parking was at premium, gas was very expensive (for the time) and you paid higher taxes depending on the weight of you car. So there was a lot of incentive to keep cars small, light and economical. Remember, the Morris Mini, MG Midget, Austin Sprite and Triumph Spitfire all came from England and these cars were built until British Leland went out of business in the early 80's.
In the cleanup, I found all the side windows (eight of them in all) and brought them into the house for cleanup. On Sunday evening I started the long process of cleaning the windows, window tracks and chrome polishing. Someone in the car's past had Mylar window tinting installed, most of which had gotten pretty clouded over time. So I peeled all of it off, which is a major job because the glue sticks to the windows. The way you get that off is to soak the window is Windex, then use a single edge razor blade to scrape it off. It turns into a gooey mess pretty quickly and I went though half a roll of paper towels before I finished. Took about three hours. I've also got some rust issues on the window tracks (Rust! Go figure!) that I need to take care of, and chrome to polish, but I can take care of that another night.
So, pretty productive weekend I'd say!
