Rebuilding the drivetrain.
With the Supra back on the road, it was time for some maintenance on the Daimler. It had been 16.000 km’s since she had been looked after. So, I made an appointment with Jaguar Rotterdam. But before that, I asked a Jaguar specialist in Gorinchem to replace the shock and springs. About two weeks before I brought her to Gorinchem, I started hearing some noise, that sounded like a worn drive shaft.
I also wanted to replace the taillights with original ones. Some previous owner has replaced the original one for X308 taillights. So there was some work to do.
What should have been a 20 hour job, turned out to be a 50 hour job. I had to reschedule my appointment with Jaguar Rotterdam twice.
Since I bought her, I got more and more the impression that at some point this car had a hard life. For example , the interior looks nice, but when you have a really close look, you will see there are a lot of broken or missing things. Of course, it is an old car, but I have had cars for a long time and I don’t break that many things. Also I have learned from the specialist in Gorinchem, that the company that repainted the car did a bad job. Not only with the paintwork, but with rebuilding the interior. Which explains some missing parts.
The biggest setback was that a stud of the left rear suspension was bent. I do remember when I replaced the rims, it was really hard to get rear left one of. So I think, that someone skidded at a curb and damaged the rear suspension. To replace all the silent blocks on the subframe was also a hard job. Also the bearing on the left side was gone. So far gone, that also the hub was all torn.
It took the specialist some time to convince me to accept the 50 hours. But I must say, the ride is much better now. There is hardly any noise coming from the rear.
Right after she came back, I replaced the old Michelin tires with new ones and that improved the roadholding as well. And, probably because the bearings are replaced, I think her fuel consumption is dropped with 5%.
At this point, it is a car that drives very good. It will need some interior work and at some point a new paint job. Was it wrong to buy this one? Well, the thing is, that apart from two twelve cylinder Century’s, I haven’t found another one with these specifications. And the Century’s are quite expensive and a V12 doesn’t run for free. So, I don’t know. But as long as she keeps running I will keep her and I going to enjoy every minute of it.
