This update on the Curfew XJ-S won’t be a long one, as I haven’t done much with the car due to the ongoing CV19 lockdown, although it is almost ironic as this is when it should be being used more.
I’ve taken the car out a couple of times recently (since lockdown has eased), just to keep it all moving and so that it doesn’t get in a huff. The recent hot weather has shown a tendency for it to run a little warmer than I would like, and because of that I’ll look at upgrading the cooling system later this year, as I want to be able to drive the car reasonably hard without worrying about overheating it. Just yesterday water began pouring out when I came back from a short drive and after some investigation it seems that the pressure relief cap had been replaced with a copy at some point, and it was failing, with water escaping at normal running temperatures. Fortunately I had one that I could pinch from another car and it seems to have done the job, for the moment at least.
Curfew also has a tendency to have intermittent (and very sudden) loss of power for a split second and then repeating a split second later and so on until you come off of the throttle, which could be any number of things that are probably electrical. Oddly enough, it only seems to happen on roundabouts, so there is some investigation to be done. Over the coming weeks I’ll be getting the car serviced and (hopefully) using it more, along with trimming back the ‘inner’ arches more if possible, and getting the suspension properly set up. We’ll also take a look at the speedo drive and see why there is an occasional fault with the odometer.
