Nothing to report on the XM front, as we are still on the other side of the world, but I have spent a few days working on my old XJ-S, which almost qualifies as a "barn-find", as it has not run for 15 years, and has been walled up, untouched in a garage for 12 years.
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To make matters worse, it had a leaking water pump when last run, and then the intake manifolds, water manifolds, all of the all of the ignition system and fuel injection equipment was stripped off it (including the wiring harness that runs from the front of the car through the passenger compartment into the boot).
The ignition and fuel injection (d-jetronic) were then shipped to the UK on my e-type, but quickly removed form that, as the tuning was all wrong for the engine spec in that car, the bits put in cartons, and survived 4 house moves in the UK, and then shipping back to NZ.
So I started work on it a week or so ago, fitting a water pump that I had previously sourced (you have to strip a lot off the front of the engine to get to it), then going through boxes of parts identifying things and fitting them in some semblance of order. It was surprising that I remembered how it went together, but I only had to refer to the manual for the static timing data and a few of the relay pin connections.
After all that time and travel, I had only lost 6 screws, about 30 washers and one throttle spring (all of which are probably still fitted to the e-type.
So this afternoon, I found that I had no more parts to fit, and having sniffed the 15 year old unleaded petrol, I decided that it might not be totally 'off', I fitted a battery, and turned the key. The fuel pump whirred, the starter churned, but not much else happened. I did some basic checks of spark and injection, but nothing was obviously wrong, then I checked the cold-start injectors, and they were not being fired, so I bypassed the relay, to fire the CS injectors straight from the starter solenoid signal, turned the key, and the engine burst into life! It died as soon as the key was released back to the run position, but at least the problem was now reasonably isolated.
After a period of random fiddling, I found that one of the pins had pushed out the back of the connector of the LVDT sensor, I pushed that back home and the engine would now keep running. After plugging up a manifold air leak, it is now running very nicely indeed, so I am very happy.
Now to get some tyres on it, get it out of the garage, give it a wash and see if it will get through the WOF (MOT) test.
I am still amazed that it seems to be running perfectly on 15 year old petrol, and it even has a vented tank, so all of the volatile components should be long gone.
