Jaguar XJS Rear Wheel Arches

[Guest 10992]

Hi all, I'm sprucing up my old 1991 Jaguar XJS with a view to selling her afterwards. The rear wheel arches are shot and one at least could really do with replacement. Nobody makes replacement wheel arches for the XJS and they are a funny shape, so trying to weld in another might be a problem. I have been told about 'universal' wheel arch repair kits has anybody any experience of these or other suggestions?

 

[piman]

Hello John,

are you sure that replacements aren't available from the specialists, like Martin Robey? I would be very surprised if they are not. I doubt that universal wheel arch sections would be practical to fit, for as you say, the XJS has a funny shape to them?

Alec

 

[Guest 10992]

Hi Alec,
I've just checked the Martin Robey website and they don't list any for the XJS. I've been told by my local Jaguar breakers yard that for some strange reason nobody makes them for the XJS. I've googled it loads of times but nothing comes up either. Robert

 

[piman]

Hello Robert,

well I am surprised especially as it is a popular car still, but does often needs a lot of body repairs?

Alec

 

[oz.]

You say you have a local Jaguar Breakers... Could you not cut off an arch from a not rust one?

 

[piman]

Hello OZ,

"Could you not cut off an arch from a not rust one? "

A long shot as they are notorious for rusting in that area (and others), unless you are lucky to get an accident damaged one that is sound.

Alec

P.S. http://www.skjagtech.co.uk/jaguar-parts/new-parts/xj-s-parts-pages/xjs-section4.html

 

[Guest 10992]

I could try the breakers option but I didn't want to make life hard for myself.
SKjagtech looks promising. Not come across them before. I will bang off an email to them later.
Many thanks for that.
Cheers Rob

 

[GeorgeB]

Hi all, I'm sprucing up my old 1991 Jaguar XJS with a view to selling her afterwards. The rear wheel arches are shot

Is that the 'facelift' model of XJS? If so, I thought one of the improvements claimed for the new shape was that the body was galvanized for the first time. If it's one of the last of the original shape, it's a scandal they were not galvanized and generally better protected against rust. Is the rest of the car OK, rust wise?

 

[Guest 10992]

Yes it is the facelift model. Not sure whether it's been galvanised or not. Sometimes I think it's more to do with the quality of steel rather than the coating. If the coating gets chipped it just eats away behind the coating, rather like old type underseal.

 

[GeorgeB]

I'm reasonably sure it would have been galvanized if Jaguar's claims back then are to be believed. Perhaps the zinc coating was so thin as to be almost worthless and easily scratched, as you say. It's disappointing to hear about your rust, given it's the facelift model.

 

[dapper]

you said rear wheel arch which side?

Upper or lower? I know thew do the rear lower drivers side. £143

You could try Gordon Jaguars.

Oh and by the way they wheel arch is the whole rear side mainly including the butress.

I am restoring a V12 1978 5.3L

Dave

 

[Guest 10992]

To be honest all round really. It's uneconomical to replace the whole side as i'm only doing her up to sell . I really don't want to see this car go to the great scrap yard in the sky as I think there is a few more years left in her. But I have to balance fondness with finance!

 

[Blackjack]

The "universal" wheel arches they used to make were just an "L" section that had been cut at intervals along one edge so the in made a sort of threepenny bit impersonation of the shape of the wheel arch.

If you buy a roll of heavy lining paper (plain wallpaper), and make a patter of the wheel arch aperture, you can then tranfer that to some ply wood (thick is best, but as you probably wont need the whole sheet, some 1/2" cut in half and glued together to make some 1" might do) and cut out the shape of the aperture in the ply wood, twice.

Use that to mark some steel 3/4" (or whatever the return on the arch is) from the template and cut that out.

I used to cut the steel smaller than the plywood, and drill through the corners of the plywood after I'd lined the tow pieces up. That let you put the steel in a plywood sandwich, and line the plywood up with pins through the holes, and get the scribed line on the steel lined up with the edge of the plywood,

Clamp the edge together, beat the lip over.

Edging the plywwod blanks with a sutiably shaped strip of steel/wood will let you make the rest of the arch profile.

The arch panel then needs shaping to fit the boy contours. Curves are best done by tuck shrinking the return lip, swage lines usually mean cutting the return to let the rest of the panel fold.

 

[Guest 10992]

Hi Blackjack,
Thank you for taking the time to give me clever way of duplicating a wheel arch. I'm sure other people on this forum must encounter the same issue too. I'm not the most skillful of fabricators but if I can't find anything off the shelf I will most certainly have a go at your method. Many thanks Robert

 

[Edd-XS]

Just a quick message (don't know if this is too late or not!) but XJS rear wheel arches should be available from SnG Barratt http://www.sngbarratt.com/catalogue...&categoryid=8&stype=2&pagepos=0&back=y&next=y
Hope this helps!

 

[jaz hitch]

Hi all, I'm sprucing up my old 1991 Jaguar XJS with a view to selling her afterwards. The rear wheel arches are shot and one at least could really do with replacement. Nobody makes replacement wheel arches for the XJS and they are a funny shape, so trying to weld in another might be a problem. I have been told about 'universal' wheel arch repair kits has anybody any experience of these or other suggestions?

i had this problem repairing my xjs,i bought i pair of rear quarter repair panels from sng barrett,you get the lower half of the rear wing with the full wheel arch on it, on one side of the car i used the whole panel as there was plenty of rust and on the other side i simply cut the wheel arch of the repair panel and used it,taking care to get the cars body line spot on prior to welding.the cost of the panels was about £120.