> What I would like to know:
> What is your opinion of this cars worth ?
I was never particularly enamored with the V-12's, but the V-12 roadster
with a manual can be a nice car. They are very refined -- much more of a
GT car than the earlier XKE's, which were rip-snorting sports cars.
> Do you think that engine mods decrease the value
> significantly, ie. rebuild, ignition, and emissions ?
The only mod that I can think of that doesn't reduce the value is conversion
to Weber carb's. I've never driven a car with the Webers, but the difference
in performance is suppossed to be astounding. I would worry about things
like a hotter cam or higher compression ratio reducing reliability.
The Allison ignition is a rats nest of wiring, but the ignition originally
fitted to the car had the amplifier mounted right between the banks of
cylinders -- eventually the amplifier would burn out from the heat. There
is a Lucas kit to relocate the stock ignition amplifier, this is preferable
to the Allison in my mind. The tach needle probably does jump because of
the electronic ignition, something in aftermarket systems seems to break
Jaguar tach's. The tach will most likely have to be rebuilt even if you
remove the Allison, expect something like $50 for the rebuilt tach on an
exchange basis.
The problem with the emissions stuff having been removed is that some of it
is needed, and some of it is junk. The air pump should be disconnected, but
that is the only thing that I can think of that should be. Reliability and
driveability could be a problem on a car that someone mucked with without
knowing what they were doing, and putting it right could be very difficult
because of the incredible complication of this setup.
For all of this, I can't imagine any of this reducing the value of the car
by more than 10%. The V-12 roadsters have been stratospheric lately, I don't
imagine that many decent ones have sold lately for under $40,000 or so. (They
may be much higher, I haven't looked at prices in the last 6 months or so).
Cars with the manual transmission, and/or cars with A/C command a premium
price.
> What are potential problems with a car which has not been
> driven much ?
The V-12's seem to be able to take not being driven. The hydraulics
deteriorate as well as any english car, the leather gets dried out, the
oil leaks out, but no special problems.
>
> Is this a 'good/bad' year ?
1973 is fine. Every year of the v-12 XKE's are different, but none is
considered to be vastly superior or inferior.
>
> What does a quality paint job include/cost ? I have had
> cars painted but I would like to have this car done in
> a top quality finish.
You can spend as much as you want on a paint job. If you are only painting
the exterior, I wouldn't expect even a top notch paint job to be more than
$1,000. Repairing rust and replacing body panels can cost a great deal,
so the figure is for painting only. If the frame rails need to be painted,
the engine has to be removed, so figure $4000 or $5000 all told. If you
want to bring the thing to concourse, multiply these figures by an arbitrarily
large constant.
>
> What about reliability ? I have no illusions of the car
> being a daily driver (it's auto #5), and understand the
> need for regular maintenance of these cars, but I do not
> want to be spend my spare time under the hood ... 12cyl ...
> well ... not all my time.
>
The 12 cylinder engine has a tendency to blow head gaskets and drop valve
seats. Aside from that, it is sturdy. Both maladies require removing the
cylinder heads, which is not easy under the best of circumstances, but with
a blown head gasket can approach impossible. They tend to blow between
adjacent cylinders, just making the car run a little lumpy. So the car gets
driven a large number of miles with the slightly blown head gasket, really
gluing the head(s) onto the block. Just check for a blown head gasket
real carefully.
Steering racks tend to leak, and a rebuilt rack is about $700 on an
exchange basis.
A complete oil change requires 11 or 12 quarts, not that it really matters.
Doing anything on these cars takes about 3 times as much time/effort as it
would on any other car. For instance, one of the body panels has to be
removed if you want to rebuild the brake servo cylinder. The clutch can
be replaced without removing the engine, but it is very close to the same
amount of effort as it would be to remove the engine. The amount of
plumbing that has to be removed to remove a cylinder head is astounding.
> How do I break the news to my wife ? :-)
Carefully.
>
>
> Ted Lepich UUCP:{..!}uunet!metter!ted
> INET:ted%metter@uunet.uu.net
>
>
is cheap (under $20,000?). If it is significantly under market value, and
you have the money available, go for it; you'll always be able to sell it
for what you have in it when you get tired of it. If it is at market value,
I would pass this one up, because of the performance "upgrades" and removal
of the emmissions stuff. The faded IMRON paint also sounds fishy, IMRON
is not supposed to fade. It sounds like the car has led a fairly hard
life. But if it is cheap enough, that shouldn't be a deterrent.
Joe
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