Overengineered

(12/02/2022)

Today I started tearing into the driver side door. I really wanted to get the window down so keep airflow inside the cabin now that I had a lot of the interior wiped down. Up until this point I was keeping the vehicle sealed up to not spread any mold/smells into the garage.

I’m still amazed for such an expensive car the door cards are essentially a pressed carboard…

I’m also amazed how much of this vehicle is GM based. This is the window regulartor:

Here is a VERY old style of door lock actuator – a solenoid.

A neat feature of the jag is that when someone unlocks the door with a key or the little flap inside the cabin, the other door will lock/unlock at the same time.

I’m going to ditch these solenoids (they are toast anyway), but I plan to retain this magical feature…somehow. Sensors. Lots of sensors.

Inside the solenoid shows how they accomplished this in ’86:

Ok, back in the car we find more hidden plugs in the wiring harnesses!

This is the button that actuates when the door is open/closed. Why is this soldered when everything else on the car has a plug? The passenger side and the trunk lid switch are also soldered, so this isn’t a one-off.

Back to the trunk we have the power antenna motor. I love power antennas. There’s something charming about them. This one is in perfect condition sans a rubber grommet and I was able to source a replacement. Even though I rarely listen to FM, I will still connect this to the head unit.

Grounds everywhere. Any place there could be a ground, there’s a ground.

Hidden behind the passenger quarter panel is this evap canaster. Just tucked in there.

Then there’s this.

This is a timer. A milage timer. From what I read the O2 sensors need to be replaced every 30k miles. Modern vehicles would look at the output of the sensors and tell you when things aren’t working as they should and trip a check engine light. The XJS? Timer. When you hit 30k miles a light in the dash appears specifically for these sensors. The sensors could have failed 10k miles ago. They could be still good. Timer. Reset the timer and you have 30k more light-free miles.