March 24: I've owned my 1996 Jaguar XJS for almost nine years as of this writing, during which time it's been a wonderful car. Problems have been few, and those that have occurred have been relatively simple to deal with.

I have, however, noticed a few small issues developing over time. I don't even know if I can call them "issues." "Annoyances" is probably the more accurate term. Either way, I haven't found them to be bad enough to worry about, and have been putting them off. "I'll worry about that later" was how I addressed them.

Recently, I found myself needing to drive the car in the rain, which is something I never do. The amount of times this car has seen rain during my ownership can be counted on two hands' worth of fingers. But on one particular day last month, I had no choice. And this was precisely the perfect time for one of those small annoyances to make itself known.

The rear quarter windows that operate with the convertible top raising/lowering process had been "sticking" intermittently, meaning they sometimes wouldn't activate when commanded to do so by the convertible top control module. That's fine when when the windows won't roll down when the top is lowered. But it's an entirely different matter when they won't go up when the top is raised, especially when it's raining. The annoyance had now become an issue and needed to be addressed.

My first experience with a sticking rear window occurred probably four years ago. I put the top up at the Golden Corral along US Route 78 near Stone Mountain Park only to find the right rear window stuck in the down position. The convertible top raised like it should, and the left rear window went up, but the right rear window did not. Once I got home, I found that tapping the end of the motor with a long screwdriver would jar it loose, and it would work fine. I'm familiar with this and saw it many times as a Ford tech a decade ago.

Problems with the left rear window first occurred last summer. The symptom was the same. But unlike what happened with the right rear window, no amount of tapping could get the left rear window to move.

I did some investigating and learned that, since there's a Jaguar emblem on the car, the solution was going to be much more complicated than it should be. As a Ford tech, the solution was to replace the window motor with an updated design. But in the case of a Jaguar XJS, both rear window motors are obsolete and no longer available. This meant that I either had to fix the motors I had or take my chances with used parts.

I did some more investigating and came up with a plan. The first step was to gain access to the rear window regulator assemblies. This means the seats and rear trim panels have to be removed.

The rear seat cushion is fastened to the body with two screws. I removed the screws, lifted the cushion out of the car, and put it in my living room for safe keeping.

Two screws hold the bottom of the seat backrest in place. With those screws removed, I lifted the backrest out of the car and put it next to the seat cushion in my living room. It's a good thing I don't get visitors. They may think I'm weird or something.

The next step was to remove the rear quarter trim panels. They are held in place by plastic push pins in various locations.

I grabbed my interior trim tools and removed the push pins. I couldn't remove the trim panels and put them in my living room without unbolting the seat belts. Sliding them forward out of the way would have to do.

The window regulator assembly is bolted to the body behind the water shield.

With a little tugging, the water shield will come loose enough to be temporarily folded out of the way.

With the water shield out of the way, I now had access to the window regulator assembly.

Four screws hold the regulator to the body. Once loose, it can be maneuvered away from the glass and removed from the car.

I then repeated the process for the other side.

Since these motors aren't available, I figured it couldn't hurt to see if I could fix them myself before looking at used parts. Over time, carbon can build up on the "electric" parts of the motor, (the armature, commutator, and brushes). In a lot of cases, all that is needed to fix a "stuck" electric motor is to clean the carbon buildup. I removed the electric motor from the regulator and separated the gear from the motor.

With the motor disassembled, the brush assembly can be removed. At this point, the plan was to take the motors to work with me where I have access to all of my tools and see if I could clean all of the carbon buildup and hope for the best.

March 30: I took both motors to work where I have access to all of my tools. After removing carbon buildup from the electrical parts and greasing the gear assembly, I reassembled both motors and reattached them to the regulators. Using a remote power source, I applied 12 Volts to the motor connector to make sure each motor worked in both directions, which they did. Now it was time to reinstall them in the car and see what happens.

The regulator assembly bolts to the car body. The long arm on the regulator slides into the channel seen in the photo above.

When the motor turns one way, the regulator arm rotates and the window raises. Reversing the polarity changes the motor direction and the window lowers. I greased the regulator tracks and bolted everything together. So far, so good.

The right rear window, (seen in the photo above), worked fine. Unfortunately, I still had an issue with the left rear window. It was still stuck in the down position.

The motor worked fine when I bench tested it. So I either have an unknown problem with the motor, or it's not getting a signal. I'll have to do some more investigating to see what's happening.

April 1: Welcome to spring in northern Georgia.

This is the time of year when everything turns a shade of pale yellow thanks to all of the pollen in the air.

This is also the time of year when I get an almost daily mild headache for 2 - 3 weeks. It's been this way since I was a kid. But the biggest difference is the sheer amount of pollen in Georgia compared to Pennsylvania.

When I last visited this scenario, I had reinstalled the newly repaired window regulator assemblies hoping my issue had been resolved. The right rear window worked fine, but the left rear window still would not go up. I brought home a few more diagnostic tools from work and did some more investigating.

My first step was to disconnect the left rear window motor and apply 12 Volts directly to the connector. It worked fine in both directions just like it did when I had it out of the car.

The next step was to see if I had a problem at the motor connector, itself.

I removed the pin keeper from the connector.

With the pin keeper removed, the individual wires can be removed from the connector shell.

I hooked the wires together without the connector shell in place and still had no window "up" operation. I disconnected the wires once again to check the circuit with my test light and, for some weird reason, I had a signal at the harness connector.

So I had a signal at the connector, but no motor movement. But it moved when I applied 12 Volts directly to the motor connector. Very confusing. I'm overlooking something.

Since the right rear motor has worked properly the whole time, I attached jumper wires from the right rear harness to the left rear motor. Lo and behold, the left rear window worked properly in both directions. So I'm dealing with a signal problem at the left rear window connector.

I did some online research and was able to examine a wiring diagram for the windows. The six lavender relays seen in the photo above control the operation of the rear windows and convertible top. Each rear window has an "up" relay and a "down" relay. Add two more for the convertible top, and you have a total of 6 relays. They are all grouped together because the rear windows are controlled by the convertible top module, (i.e. there is no separate switch).

Seeing this, I realized that I've found my problem. Relays 1 & 2 are for the right rear window, (1 is up, 2 is down), relays 3 & 4 are for the convertible top, (3 is up, 4 is down), and relays 5 & 6 are for the left rear window, (5 is up, 6 is down). I labeled them so as to not get them confused and switched relays 5 & 6. As expected, the left rear window would now go up, but not down.

I've got a bad relay, in this case relay #5, which is for the left rear window "up" circuit. It turns out that this sneaky relay was bad MOST of the time, but decided to confuse me by working once while I was testing the circuit with my test light.

I keep a large supply of spare parts in my toolbox and found an old Ford relay that would work fine. It's interesting to note that the Ford relay is the same size, shape, and configuration as the Hella relays used by Jaguar. Since Ford owned Jaguar when this car was manufactured, I have to wonder if both companies got their respective relays from the same supplier when new. Either way, the Ford relay fit and worked. All of my windows now work properly ! And as a lesson learned, I put a few spare Ford relays in the trunk just in case.

It was now time to tackle another issue that has been around for a while. As long as I have the rear quarter trim panels off, I decided to replace my rear speakers. They had begun to sound bad recently, making a lot of popping noises, especially in cases where the bass was quite pronounced.

I replaced the speakers once before a few years ago because of this same concern. I was surprised to not only find OEM parts at a dealership, but OEM parts that were only $10 each. This did raise a red flag for me because the phrase "cheap Jaguar parts" is a fundamental contradiction and, therefore, does not exist. But since I would only be out $20, I decided to take my chances.

The problem was that the speakers I got had been on a dealership shelf for many, many years. They worked fine for a while. But the sound quality had taken a nosedive recently. This time, I upgraded to a set of Alpines that, according to what I read online, should fit in the stock mounting locations.

Unlike door speakers which are bolted to the metal door skin, the rear speakers in this car are bolted to a plastic holder that is attached to the inside of the trim panel.

I grabbed my trim tool and started gently popping the retainers loose while keeping my fingers crossed hoping they wouldn't break !

With the plastic retainers and three trim screws removed, the plastic liner separates from the trim panel. The speaker is held to the liner by three nuts and bolts. Even though I got the speakers just a few years ago, they were NOS parts, (New Old Stock, with emphasis on the word "Old"). It didn't take long for the paper sections to disintegrate.

I had to drill new mounting holes in the plastic liner, (the new speakers use 4 mounting points instead of 3). The supplied bracket worked perfectly to hold the speakers in place.

I drilled four holes and mounted the speaker to the plastic liner.

I discovered that the outside diameter of the Alpine speakers is ever-so-slightly larger than the factory speakers. This means when I reattached the liner to the trim panel, I had to elongate some of the mounting holes in the liner so it would line up with the fasteners in the trim panel. This was an easy fix and worked without an issue.

With the left speaker installed, I repeated the same procedure for the right speaker.

April 3: Alpine supplied wires for the speaker connections since the factory harness would no longer fit.

Wiring the speakers was a simple matter of making sure the polarity was correct before crimping the wires together.

I used metal crimp connectors and adhesive-lined heat shrink tubing on each wire.

I used a larger piece of heat shrink around both wires to keep everything neat.

April 10: I figured that if the rear speakers were in bad shape, the front door speakers were probably very similar. So I ordered another set of Alpine SPS-610 speakers. This turned out to be a lot more difficult than you would think only because these speakers have been superseded by a newer model. But I eventually found another pair.

I started with the right door first.

This was my first time removing a Jaguar door trim panel. So I had to do some online research beforehand. Contrary to what you would expect, these door panels were actually pretty easy to remove. One screw holds a cover plate in place in the upper left corner.

Two screws are used below the door pocket, (the outer black dots in the photo above are screws, and the inner dots are plastic retainers for the door pocket).