strange days

CROWEMATE/ready for first Jag

Hey J.A.M.

Good to hear from you again! I greatly appreciate your help. I also agree
with you on the Beatle sequence.

Thanks for the odor removal advice (Laughing) because I am attempting
to keep the "old" smell...I have found it gives me an unusual "control"
over my passengers (Ha) So far the car is more dried out than anything and for this I am glad. I am working hard to re-condition the leather.
Kathy

Strange Days Indeed! (John Lennon recording, but I suspect all 4 Beatles played in that song, based on certain nuances of their playing which are present,
but for some reason they didn't want anyone to know, because as John said in 1980, 'we're just 4 rusty old men').

the musty smell usually comes from the car sitting and moist carpeting, air the interior. Remove front and rear floor carpets, remove foam pads under carpets,
those usually smell musty if water is seeping from the floor drain plugs. Put those under the sun for a week. Instead of bothering rebuilding an alternator, replace
it with John's Cars GM-ALT, a special bracket and a 95 Amp GM Alternator retrofit kit for the Series 3 XJ. At 24, your car needs all the energy it can get, the
Lucas alternator is probably tired anyway, and at 65 Amp, not much good even if rebuilt. (it is only good to connect it to your bicycle and power your TV or
microwave with it!!). If you get water dripping on your feet while cornering, your a/c water drains are plugged with debris, clean them with a wire hanger straightened.
Otherwise check all floor plugs, press them in place, look for water traces or rust, in fact the foam pads should tell you if there's any water coming in.

CROWEMATE/ready for first Jag

Thanks Dennis! I am grateful for your post...actual chain of events will be on Tuesday installing new voltage reg, new alternator,and nice new battery...Sat. after I had already posted my mech. got back to me and made
the suggestion that I react exactly as you suggested...put them all on now to avoid the "other" chain... I want to mention the fuel additive again in hopes that I might actually contribute something helpful to this wonderful board...my mech. said my accelerating problems were in truth my
car trying to tell me it was not happy with the 91 fuel I was using...I got the octane up to 97 and she purrs right along...the hesitation was
immediately gone. His reasoning was in 1980 fuels were very different than now, and reg. leaded gas was still around... 91 was considered high octane back then and whether he is correct or not, my battery problem aside I was stunned at how the car "soared" down the country road it was on....like it wanted to speed and instead of constant pressure on my gas pedal I was actually holding the car back!
Again thank you and would like to hear from any 1980 xj6 folks out there!
PS... I have a little pin money tucked away and saw a derelict 1954(?)
Mark X . Question for all of you, would it be worth putting in mom's hay barn til I could fix it up? It brought a tear to my eye when I saw the neglect this car has suffered... Kathy

Hey Kathy!!

Congrats on your new Jag. Just bought our 1st one as well. Ours is an 86' XJ6.

As to the voltage regulator swap out. I have no idea if Jag's react to this situation the same as all cars do, but I chased a NO-charging problem on my 1970 Cutlass for quite some time.

I would have the system tested......bad voltage regulator......next time bad alt., etc. etc.

Then some one told me that a bad regulator will cause the alt. to fail and the same condition can occur in the other order.

The final solution was to change BOTH at the same time. Problem was solved and never happened again.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Dennis