I cut out the "no joke" because quality on Jaguars *was* a joke.
In the back of the shop where I took my bugeye I saw a Jaguar XK140 with a
burned up motor. I traced down the owner (pause for a politically incorrect
comment abut dumb woman drivers), and had the motor rebuilt. One of the
missing items was the dip stick. I bought both the service manual and the
parts manual, and looked up the part number. Wacky Arnolt was glad to sell
me the replacement with the part number stamped on the stick.
When the car was finished I began driving it. After a while the oil pressure
would start to vary drastically. I took the car back and the mechanic
checked the oil using the stick. Read full. We added some oil and the
problem went away for a time. We repeated the exercise twice before he got
an idea. He drained all the oil, and replaced it with the specified number
of quarts. Turns out that while I had the correct part number, as stamped on
the stick, the full/add marks were in the wrong place. He chased down the
leak and all was well. No wonder there is virtually no British car industry.
BTW, when I took it on the road I discovered I was passing most of the cars
in front of me. The car handled beautifully at that speed and it didn't seem
excessive. When I got back I checked the service manual against the part
number stamped on front of the speedometer. Seem I had the wrong speedometer
and I really must have been traveling about 95MPH. Fortunately this was in
the early 60s before most speed limits.
Quality?
Jack
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