RESTORED XK

OUR JAGUARS

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RESTORATION or thorough overhaul of a Jaguar only seems worthwhile for reasons concerning value and age. Classics such as an XJ-S or a Mk 2 for instance, both qualify for throwing several thousands of pounds at to make as good as new, but what about a Jaguar that’s not even 15 years old? Perhaps it’s better to revive such a car now instead of waiting for problems to pile up and then make a start.

James Canton had more reasons to revive the aluminium-bodied second-generation XK seen here. His late father, Alan, bought it brand new in 2007, after having owned an S-TYPE and a couple of XJ saloons, switching to the sportier two-seater coupe. When he sadly passed away in February 2015, James was only 25 years old, but he wanted to keep the XK and so he sold his then beloved BMW M3 to fund it. At the time, the paintwork was starting to deteriorate, but the car was still used for James’s wedding day and his sister’s. “The quality of the paint that was on it and how it had aged was quite poor,” he says. “It really let the car down. There was heavy aluminium corrosion on the bottom corners of the doors, just behind the rear arches and a little patch in the middle of the roof.”

A local bodyshop, Evolution Car and Commercial Body Repairs, had been used by James for a number of jobs, and he asked them to respray the XK. Being a major amount of work and what with the Covid-19 pandemic, some four years passed before the job was started on 31 May 2021.

The plan for the respray was to remove all of the glass and exterior trim, but leave the bodyshell rolling. Such an undertaking was easier said than done and James soon discovered the perils of undoing plastic and rusty fastenings. He recalls that all but one of the steel fastenings for the sideskirts needed carefully dissecting with a die grinder to remove the heads and avoid damaging the plastic. Most plastic fastenings had turned brittle, so there was no point in refitting them.

Ordering new fastenings became a major task for James and was just as timeconsuming as trying to remove them in the first place. He became very good friends with Ross Williams at his local Jaguar

dealership, Stratstone in Cardiff, who allowed him to study microfiche diagrams to determine exactly what he needed. Admittedly, the XK had been bought from this dealership and their willingness inevitably earnt them a living because James recalls spending roughly £3,000 on new front and rear screens along with a box no bigger than a shoebox partly filled with all the necessary clips and fasteners.

Other costly components included the chrome-finished plastic exterior trim to the tune of £466.98 and the glass for the driver’s side door mirror at £163.82.

Thanks to the pandemic and possibly Brexit, parts availability was often very difficult. Take the Jaguar badge for the front grille. This has been on back order for nearly a year with Stratstone, although he did manage to find one at Moss Europe, so he called them, asked them to double-check it was on the shelf and they dropped it in the post for him.

Determined to avoid rusty fastenings in the future, he did try to source stainless-steel screws, nuts and bolts wherever possible. This is often feasible for securing non-structural components, and universal fittings can often be found instead of having to buy them from Jaguar, which can be more expensive if they consist of individually packaged items.

The respray was completed during the remainder of 2021 (from the end of May onwards). Steve Handley at Evolution Car and Commercial Body Repairs recalls that he had a few dents to repair in the doors, which were extracted with glue pullers (equipment that’s glued to the dent, enabling it to be pulled to reshape the metalwork). He also has stronger dent pulling equipment that is welded to steel or aluminium bodywork, but this wasn’t necessary in this case. And some dents could be pushed out if there was access to the back of the panel.

The majority of the respray was taken up with sanding down the paintwork and

TOP: James Canton with his dad, Alan, who bought the XK brand new in 2007 ABOVE: The XK was used for James’s wedding and also his sister’s

removing any imperfections. Steve explains that he started with P180-grade papers on a random orbital sander with a dust extractor attached (the bodyshop equivalent of a vacuum cleaner), working up to P500. Any aluminium oxide was cut back to the bare metal, then blocked with a treatment similar to a rust inhibitor to help prevent it returning. Often with three people working on the XK, Steve estimates the entire respray from start to finish took roughly one month of workshop 0e479381-0069-45af-b2a9-c0a37e1e14de 0e479381-0069-45af-b2a9-c0a37e1e14de May 2022 \ Jaguar World | 63

time spread over eight months. Unforeseen problems are always to be expected and one of the biggest calamities that occurred during this respray concerned the colour of the paint. Steve usually mixes the colour himself, but on this occasion, ordered it pre-mixed. After applying it, he and James realised it wasn’t an exact match to the original – it was more of a blue colour – so the bodywork had to be sanded down and prepared again for a better matched mix of paint.

The project was interrupted on several occasions when James needed to work on the car, or the bodyshop had other jobs to attend to. For instance, James wanted to overhaul the brakes, so he removed the calipers and took them home to strip, sent them away for powder-coating in grey by The Wheel Centre, then rebuilt them himself with new seals and pistons.

He also spent numerous hours hunting down parts or specialists that were able to revive the car’s original parts. Take the aluminium trim around the door glass and rear side windows. This is finished in a bright silver, but it had turned dull. Being roughly 1.4 metres long, he struggled to find a specialist who could anodise it (some could only produce a matt silver finish, not a bright silver), but after speaking to EV Wood Anodising of Birmingham, he drove to their premises, transporting the exterior trim, and asked them to help. They can anodise components up to three metres long, so could cater for these pieces. They also completed the job in a day, so James could wait and return home with them. The total price came to a reasonable £120, although prices have recently changed.

Similarly, he searched high and low for a specialist who could restore a number of the exterior plastic trim components that he couldn’t buy brand new and which needed replacing. He discovered that most specialists he contacted were not willing to complete such a job on a small scale, until he spoke to Chrome Illusion in St Helens in the north-west of England. He took all the parts he wanted refurbishing to them and returned the same day with all of them looking as good as new.

The conclusion James draws from all of this sums up any restoration when he says, “What you think is going to be a two-minute job can turn into a three-day ordeal.” Yet the hard work has clearly paid off.

When the XK was returned to James’s own workshop at the beginning of this year, the glass and exterior trim had been refitted, but there were still a few jobs remaining and new problems to fix. Those overhauled brake calipers were refitted with new discs and pads and bled through, but the brake pedal wasn’t firm, and because of this, the engine wouldn’t start (the brake pedal needs to be pressed when starting the engine).

James, his team of friends (some of which had more mechanical experience than him) and a local garage by the name of Motortech, suspected the brake pedal had been pushed too far and had turned the master cylinder’s seals inside out. The answer was to replace the brake master cylinder for around £340, which judging by its location in the engine bay, was going to be straightforward. Or was it? “I thought I’d have it replaced in an hour, but the stuff you have to take off is never-ending,” he remarks. “There’s a small plastic bulkhead to remove, which means the coolant reservoir has to come off. We spent an hour and a half taking stuff off the car to change the master cylinder. It was 11.30pm on a Wednesday evening when we got the engine running.”

The wheels were stripped and powdercoated by The Wheel Centre, who had also powder-coated the brake calipers. “I then finished rebuilding them by cleaning and refitting all the bolts that create the split-rim effect,” says James concerning the overhaul of the wheels.

Some replacement parts were painfully expensive, such as one of the Xenon motorised beam headlights for £1,536.33. The original headlight’s lens had turned opaque and James realised it had to be replaced to complement the refreshed paintwork.

Having estimated the respray and rebuild has totalled roughly £15,000 to date, James doesn’t regret spending a single penny. “The whole ethos of the project is it was my father’s car, so I wanted to restore it as a tribute to him and to preserve and keep it for a long time to come,” he explains. “So if I can take things apart and rebuild them, then I will.”

James admits that he has always liked this XK, but can he compare it to his BMW M3 that he sold to fund the project? “The M3 was a good daily driver if you wanted it to be, but was a lot more aggressive in its personality,” he says. “The XK is

Before the respray, the 2007 XK was a goodlooking Jaguar, but close up, there were a few cosmetic issues that needed fixing

Aluminium oxide had crept underneath the paintwork on the doors and bubbled up, which let the XK down in several places

The respray got underway in May 2021. Doors, bumpers and bonnet were all removed and painted separate to the bodyshell

Meticulous reassembly after the respray began at Evolution, whilst James took parts away to refurbish, such as the brake calipers

Above and below: Wheels and brake calipers were powder-coated by The Wheel Centre. James painstakingly polished all the wheel rim bolts

sophisticated and refined but can still get on with it when you want her to. It’s the perfect car to cruise to the south of France in, but you can also have a lot of fun putting her through her paces.”

That first drive after the respray and rebuild was quite a moment, as he recalls, “Driving the car for the first time after the restoration was very emotional for me, something I didn’t think it would be. These projects have a way of making us reminisce of all the reasons for the project, all the things that have happened and all the things that the car has done, but more so, the person behind this project - my dad. I wonder what he would make of the car and my efforts?

“Everyone has a childhood memory of sitting on their father’s lap, behind the wheel of the car, while he does the pedals and you steer, and that’s how this car makes me feel every time I drive it. To me, it will always be his car, I have never really thought of it as mine.”

There will always be something that needs doing to this XK, but to date, James hasn’t needed to do too much work on the engine, gearbox or suspension, although some of the front susp pension ball-j joints were replaced post-respray and the rear adaptive dampers were changed a couple of years ago. As for the 4.2-litre V8 engine and its ZF six-speed automatic gearbox, there’s a mere 70,000 on the clock, so routine maintenance is all that’s needed for now.

There probably won’t be aa a time when everything has been finishedd d on this XK (the next job is to refurbish the ww wood veneer on the interior), but at least major tasks such as the exterior paintwork have been addressed. “It’s not a rare car or particularly low mileage, but it is incredibly important to us,” says James, which perhaps sums up why such cars turn into time-absorbing g proj jects. If he andd d his family do keep this car, thh hen they will surely be relieved to have maa ade a start pree eserving it so early instead of lee eaving the jobs to pile high.

“I hopp pe one day my children think aa as much off f this car as I do and you neverr r know, ii itt t cc coo ouu ull ldd d gg goo o oo onn n tt too o dd doo o tt thh hee e ss saa amm mee e ff foo orr r tt thh hee emm m as it has for mm me. ” RH