Update on the Jaguar Enthusiasts' Club’s Spares Initiative with SNG Barratt - June 2022

Members will recall that earlier this year, the Jaguar Enthusiasts' Club formed a partnership with SNG Barratt designed to improve the supply and quality of spares available for older Jaguars. From an initial long list of spares identified by members as being no longer available (NLA) or in need of quality improvements, Barratt’s team has distilled those items into a prioritised format. Key to what the company will tackle first are a mixture of practical facets such as, how difficult will be the production task? Could the item be manufactured inhouse? And, of course, how large will be the demand for the finished product?

Already, as a direct result of your suggestions, work has begun on several investigative projects. Your comments have helped trace buyers of a faulty batch of XK engine head stud nuts and examination of a similar quality issue for XK camshaft D washers is underway.

For the XJ40, replacement headlamp washer jet covers have reached the prototype testing stage and, if successful, should progress to production before too long. The related connector for the headlamp wash/wipe pipework has been adopted for reverse engineering activity too as have the troublesome waistline seals which have now progressed as far as looking for production sources.

E-type owners will be pleased to learn that the various designs of radiator caps have been listed for a quality control review and dependent upon the results, possible design work.

Despite its relative youth, some important parts for the X300 range are very difficult to find these days. Among these are cylinder head gasket sets and exhaust manifolds which suffer regularly from cracking. The SNG Barratt development team is working currently to produce these head gasket sets inhouse, using laser engraving technology. Undamaged samples of the exhaust manifolds have been obtained ready for reverse engineering. Since this will be a relatively expensive process, members needing these manifolds should contact Barratt’s to register their interest in purchasing them when available. In this way, Barratt’s will be able to gauge the demand and viability of carrying out the necessary preparatory work for production.

A regular problem for XJS owning members is finding replacement headlamps if the twin headlamp conversion is not favoured. Through the Spares Initiative, we have been able to put a keen XJS member (Andrew Feaver) in contact with Barratt’s. Prior to our initiative, Andrew had been working to design a suitable replacement headlamp for facelift cars and he is now in discussion with the company to see if that ambition can be realised between them.

Whilst it will take time to move these examples and many others in the pipeline, from consideration to quality tested stock on SNG Barratt’s shelves, excellent progress is being made within our new partnership. Using the spares reporting process, please continue to supply examples of Jaguar spares that you are told are NLA or may have quality issues associated with them. In this way, we will all help to keep our favourite Jaguars running when the stock of original Jaguar supplied spares is exhausted. Keep reading the club’s media for updates which will be posted when there are developments to report. The Spares reporting proforma is available on https://jec.org.uk/spares-initiative . Send the completed proforma and any additional information to [email protected].