Practically Classics Forum

chrismanchr wrote:I thought it was still as smokey as it was at the start lol theres a shot where you see the back of the car disapearing down a road
in oxford at the end and theres a trail of blue smoke ,pherhaps its because I was watching it in HD lol

I have just watched it on sky+ as I have been abroad and yes you are right there is a plume if blue smoke as it disappears down the road.

I agree that towards the end of the programme there was a shot of the Jag driving away from the camera emitting smoke but this was accompanied by Mike Brewer's voiceover summing up what they had done to the car and it was pretty obvious that this was meant to be before restoration footage of the car. If I recall correctly the road was rather rural and certainly not central Oxford.

I think the VERY blue smoke in that clip was added with a computer but there was certainly a large cloud in the "before".
Anybody going to the NEC this year will have to ask them. Edd is usually pretty honest when you speak to him about the real problems they had with cars.

Given the apparent current fashion for looking for every possible opportunity to criticise Wheeler Dealers on this forum I am somewhat surprised that no one has pointed out the howler in the recent Jeep programme when Mike exclaimed "That's a genuine Spitfire there!" over footage of a Hawker Hurricane !!!

I saw the MK2 Jag episode and I reckon that Edd did find and cure the blue smoke problem. The gauze was blocked and the catch tank looked like it was overflowing. When they were cruising round Oxford I didn't see any blue smoke coming out of the exhaust so I reckon Edd nailed it.

Bring on the TR6!

I've had three Mk2 Jags, two were 3.8s; none of them had a 'catch tank' for the breather - this was clearly an old tin someone had fitted. The breather pipe should go to the inlet tract but the original air filter and piping had been replaced with after-market stuff so there was nowhere for the breather to be connected. The reason for connecting the breather to the inlet is that the partial vacuum in the induction tract reduces the pressure in the crankcase which makes it less likely for oil to get past the piston rings and any crankcase fumes can be burned in the combustion chambers.
Even if the gauze had been clear the end of the pipe was immersed in the gunk in the 'catch tank' so the flow was effectively occluded anyway!

I was only guessing when I said this, five years ago, in this very same thread:

some baldy geezer from that north wrote:I'll be watching it on Quest in 2017 if they've outbid PickTV for the rights by then.

Anyway, after I'd read that and been out to buy a lottery ticket that'll win a draw in 2022, I watched that episode, as seen again last week and during today's selection on the UKTV player app, and saw nothing odd about the idea of fitting the catch can on a significantly modified one of these, when even a split new, fully run in XK engine needs extra volume for breathing purposes in such cases as when it's being thrashed hard out of Taylor's Hairpin with an Austin A40 pushing hard from a quarter of an inch off the Jaguar's boot lid, and then there's the strong possibility that, depending upon which end of the season the engine is needed, it may have been run flat out from the crate, so could be horribly glazed to the bores.

I think them two should be reported to trading standards for selling a car that was not fit for purpose. And not disclosing information about the smoke and having a oil catch can due to worn piston rings causing excessive blow by gasses

It's hardly uncommon for an engine that's been modified for better performance to be assembled with piston / bore clearances at the loose end of acceptable limits to allow for the extra heat generated by a hard driven car that came with a modified engine and had been used for the odd track day from time to time, in which case the compromise arises whereby the additional crankcase pressure is best dealt with by adding the catch can. OK, so it's by no means the only way to achieve this, but a dry sump system or a tight, unmodified engine would both involve much more expense and that MK2 was, IIRC, a pretty inexpensive example of the type. The catch can would only have become a problem in a track oriented car if it wasn't emptied every so often.
The ideal solution would of course have been to address the tolerances by means of an engine rebuild, but the XK, fine engine though it undoubtedly is, does like a drop of oil and blue smoke isn't at all uncommon. I'd pop a nice Mercedes OM606 into the car in the case of a worn original engine reaching the point at which the oil consumption becomes excessive, but that's just me and besides, this car had problems rather more alarming than the engine, again IIRC, I have every edition of WD on HDD as well as a subscription to the Discovery + service and yes, some of those earlier episodes did seem to miss some issues with cars or possibly to address things in order of priority within budget, but now that Mike has come back to the UK and F1 trained motor engineer Mr "Elvis" Priestly is doing his work on the cars, very good work too judging by the job he made of the orange Beetle in one of the recent episodes of WD Dream Cars, maybe the series will focus on unattainable exotica rather than staying with WD's original concept; a shaow that featured cars and repair techniques that were relevant to those who aren't super rich and would tend to be buying cars that need work. In that situation, being caught out by a less easily addressed fault is hardly unexpected. Edd's workshop diaries, now showing in his YouTube channel, may be better suited to folk who are less realistic in their expectations?

WD has done some rather decent work too, such as the Amphicar.. OK so it almost sank due to an unforeseen transmission fault, but the thing is that even that and the equally impressive Jeep rebuild don't come with a warranty. If it's perfection that's needed then buy a three year old Datsun Cashcow from a dealership and watch its value fall off the edge of a this:

I must admit that im quite enjoying wd, although im only watching the ones with cars id like.. one day he's in the uk, the next America..