Tuesday, July 16, 2002
Kam’s Column - 16/07/02
Hello Again!
It’s been one of those weeks – we haven’t had any really exotic jobs come in, but that doesn’t mean we’ve been slacking off!The tally of timing belts has grown yet again, and everyone on the team has been involved. We actually turned two people away as well –
not because we were too busy but because they had only had their belts changed recently.
Unlike many motoring items, timing belts don’t need doing every year, so give us a call and we’ll tell you when your next one is due. We even had a man bring his Nissan Primera into us, only to discover that he had a timing chain, not a belt!
I think that the only time I carved out for myself was to go and see the Scooby Doo movie with Josh –
what a fantastic film and I’m not sure who loved it more, me or him!
By far and away the largest job to grace the workshop involved a 20-year old Jaguar XJ6, belonging to Professor Higgenbottom OBE. It was, I think it fair to say, a superb car with every single one of its miles recorded in an official log.
Yes, that even includes trips down the road for a pint of milk… It is truly one of a kind.
We’d actually seen the car about a week before, rectifying a minor fuel leak from the fuel tank junction with a brand new length of high pressure hose. However, on Monday morning, Prof. Higgenbottom called up to report that the leak had reappeared.
“Is it from the same place?” I asked.
“Not exactly Kev, it looks like it’s a little further down the car.” It sounded very much like the new piece of hose was pressurising the system to the correct level, but that the adjacent pipe was too old to cope. To be on the safe side, I dispatched the Kam Rescue Team to bring the car in (there’s nothing worse that leaving a trail of fuel down the road
behind you).
Once the vehicle was in the workshop, my initial guess was confirmed, so I asked Scott, the only engine specialist in evidence at that moment, to get to work swapping the fuel hose to a new item. Once that section was replaced, he started the engine up again, only to watch the next piece give way! I thought a call to the Professor was in order.
“It looks like we’re going to have to replace all of your fuel lines Professor.
The old items can’t cope with the proper fuel pressure anymore and are splitting on us.”
“That’s fine Kev, I did wonder if it would come to this. The car is 20 years old after all!”
Seeing as Scott started the job, it was officially his. Once he got stuck in to removing all of the fuel management system, injectors, wiring and other electronics, the rest of the Kam crew reappeared! I think that they had seen the big, fiddly, job coming and tried to avoid it! Plus of course, you really need to know what you are doing when dismantling a car’s brain, so Shaun was definitely the best man for the job – although I’m not sure he
saw it like that!
It took literally all day as the XJ6 had a lot of hoses, all in a fairly poor state of repair. Had the first hose not split a week ago, the system might have soldiered on a little more, but we’re glad that we got to it when we did. If one of the hoses had gone in the main engine compartment, things could have been nasty…
While we were working on the Professor’s historic beauty, we replaced all of the water hoses as well. Now that the summer s here, coolant systems are required to work much harder, so you need to know that all of the pipes are up to the task.
It’s as well to be certain, especially in older vehicles, so if you think that your coolant systems might need checking, give us a call!
Professor Higgenbottom’s XJ6 is another instance proving that we don’t just fit exhausts and tyres (although we do have a large stock of Stunnas in whatever size you want…).
Whatever you need, Kam will rise to the task.
Until next week, keep those timing belts and water hose jobs coming – we want to protect your summer holiday from unexpected mishaps!
Dr Kev Allen.
