I agree with your assessment of current MK2 prices:
> $0-$4k buys you trouble,
> $5k-$8k gets you a daily driver that you may need to work on,
> $10k-$15k puts a very nice piece of hardware in your garage.
However, even the last group doesn't get you out of trouble. These cars
are large and sophisticated - vacumn-assisted disk brakes, power-assisted
recirculating ball steering (which I prefer over the unassisted package as
turns lock-to-lock are less), big, elegant interiors (read expensive to redo),
relatively sophisticated suspensions,
Jaguar's second attempt at a monocoque body (read tin worm fodder), and of
course the XK engines and Moss or BW gearboxes: virtually
every system after 30 years may be in some sort of trouble.
Since they've always been relatively inexpensive, its easy to find cars that
have been given only enough maintenance to get by - seals, gaskets, grommets,
bushings, pressure connections worn nearly to the point of failure but not
quite, electrical systems jury-rigged in lots of strange places doing lots of
strange things (like choke switches bypassing the auxilliary starting
carb), wire wheel splines worn to virtually nothing, rear suspension attachment
rust and component failure leading to the famous MK2 rear-end squat, auto
trannys kept from leaking by fluid the consistency of molasses (change it and
it will be on the floor the next day), missing or broken pieces by the gross
that were not worth the effort to keep up (clutch master cylinder filler cap,
wheel spats, owners manual and literature, tool kits, spare wire wheel,
fuse box cover, oil bath air cleaner, radiator shroud, battery
tie-down), rust (potentially everywhere, from corrosion in the
thermostat housing to heater pipe failure to the body itself).
And of course the kicker to all this is that parts can be difficult or
impossible to find, expensive when they are found,
reproductions, when available, may be cheaper than NOS, but poorly made and
ill fitting, and the list goes on and on.
I've seen "nice" cars at the upper level in price with bondo for bodies, seats
recovered with vinyl, chopped carpets and headliners, inane
modifications (vinyl roofs, chevy V8's, fender flares and mag wheels,
positive to negative ground conversions to install massive stereo
systems), massively jury-rigged electrical systems, wrong radiators,
heads, badges, sheet metal, all of which could be cost-prohibitive to restore.
Anyway, I agree with your advice and have some of my own:
1. Be very wary of rust or bondo'd areas.
2. Get it on a lift and have a Jag mechanic familiar with the MK2 look it
over,
take it down and test drive it.
3. When looking, take along a MK2 owner if possible. Local JCNA chapters
should
contain such people.
4. Try all electrical items and look for any homemade "fixes"
5. Ask for a list of previous owners.
6. Ask to inspect all service records associate with the vehicle.
As well as the normal run of things to do when looking at used cars.
Incidently,
I've found a lack of the latter two can be quite telling.
But oh my god do I love them! Lovely to look at, lovely to drive, fun
to own (if you
get a good one!).
On a different note, my car has a Borg-Warner DG-250 auto tranny.
After having both stick and auto, I would guess I'm a heretic since I
prefer the elegance and panache of the auto-tranny equipped "saloon"
(even though as John of John's Cars says: its a slush box!). I'd be
interested in others' comments.
Patrick Fitzhorn
Mechanical Engineering
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
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