OUR CLASSICS
Our tales from the driveway, garage and out on the open road
John looked for the solution to his ailing Jag ’s water pump on the other side of the world, when he should’ve been searching closer to home
1971 JAGUAR XJ6 SERIES 1 4.2
A while back, I started the XJ and could instantly smell coolant. I stopped and had a good look and realised it was leaking from the water pump bearing. A little prodding confirmed the pump shaft had plenty of movement, so I tried to order a new water pump. My usual suppliers both told me it was not available for my car and that it would need rebuilding, and the waiting list was lengthy. They both told me that a 4.2-litre XJ without aircon uses a unique water pump. Further research has shown that this is, in practical terms, correct.
I found someone selling a remanufactured pump in Australia and took the plunge as I didn’t want to leave the car in bits for months. That was, however, a bad idea as I had to pay over £50 in import tax! Reluctantly, I downloaded the courier's app and paid, and the part was delivered a few days later.
On opening it up though I discovered it was a double-pulley air-con type which I think could have worked if I’d machined off the pump’s nose, deleted the car’s viscous fan and fitted an electric one, but I didn’t want to do any of that to an original car. I looked at sending it back but the cost of postage and the import tax back into Australia was pretty much the cost of the refund, so I decided to see if we could remove the shaft and pulley. We removed the locking screw and tried to ease it off with a press, but just broke the pulley!
By this time the car had been off the road for eight weeks or more, and to be honest, I was cheesed off with the whole thing. I then did some research and found SP Water Pumps who specialise just in rebuilding water pumps. It quoted me just slightly less than the whole Australian debacle had cost, so, a few days later, I made space in the storage unit and started dismantling it.
After watching my old friend Edd China do this very job on YouTube I did think about taking the bonnet off to make it easier, as Edd had done, but I decided that, being on my own, this was probably a way to add a paintshop bill to the whole thing. The pump is quite buried so I had to take off the slam panel, the radiator, the viscous fan and the various pipes and hoses before I could get it off. Knowing the water pump would be away for six weeks or so, I labelled the nuts, bolts and brackets, as my long-term memory isn’t that good.
