About a week back Karl made a great post on the backsory of a sweet little 911t barn car we got in.  She hasn’t been run in a very long time and we’ll document the rest of her revival as we go.  For today, just a quick note on the fuel system. We always get the request to “just tune the carbs because I had another shop do all of the other work.”  That call comes in monthly.  Here is one …

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The other day I call the big Porsche carb rebuilders and ask them for some split shaft Solex parts.  They said they will send me all they have because they won’t mess with ’em anymore.  They do a high dollar solid shaft conversion.  That was an eye-opener.  If these guys don’t want to mess with these then they must be problematic. If a car is a concours queen I’d rebuild the Solex for you.  If your car is a driver we are …

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Usually pushrod tubes and valve cover gaskets, right?  The PO had been smearing rtv on the cork and around the tubes to stop the bleeding, but there was a bigger issue that you couldn’t see because the leak had covered the outside of the valvecover in a thick, black, sludy goo: Something made a hole, and somebody tried to weld it…you can see the steel on my bench through the holes in the bird poo weld.  No amount of RTV around the …

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I love these days with a theme, it really lets you get a rhythm going,  and for some reason the Jaguars seem to come in bunches.  Last time it was three XJ8’s on the same day.  Today it’s X-types.  First we had a nice 3.0 5-speed throwing all kinds of “transmission fault, DSC failure, restricted performance” codes.  We have the Jag DLR software and it shows the TPS isn’t talking.  The Jag is a drive by wire and the TPS …

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A customer brought in this nice little 912.  It hasn’t been run in some time but seems very complete.  She is still wearing the old Solex carbs which makes life a little harder but we’ll deal with it. Whenever you take a car with multiple carbs in for work on the carbs expect the tech to do a few things first.  It stinks to shell out the hours but we can’t skip this stuff. #1 Compression test: He will want …

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So this little X type has chucked its drive belt.  Owner took it to a shop that said it needs a new belt, so one was installed.  Couple days later from under the hood there came smoke, noise, and another chucked belt.  Maybe engaging the AC clutch on the locked up compressor is causing a little of the trouble?  So a new compressor is all we need and she’ll be fixed right this time. Installing the serpentine belt on an x-type …

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This awesome Supercharged XJ came in with the same kind of rattle with the same kind of start-up rattle that led us to update the VANOS on the M5 earlier on the blog.   The dealer told the customer that it was the timing chain tensioners and that they were not covered by his extended warranty.  Well they are, and we’re getting this customer taken care of. For many years the Supercharged Jags dropped the VVT that was on the N/A …

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Charging heats the plates in the battery, batteries do not like temperature extremes.  This is a very nice car that was left on a charger unattended and boiled the electrolyte out.  When they boil over a lot of stuff gets devoured by the acid, the battery was ruined, the car won’t start, and someone has to clean that caustic crap outta this trunk, and the box re-coated to keep the caner out.  You can see at the seam where metal has started to …

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