Alpine adventure 2025

 

Anne-Marie and I had decided to give the XJ-S a proper task this year: The minimum travel distance would be 3700 km, we would be aiming for Alpine passes and temperatures in southern Europe is often around 35°C.

 

The preparations included the following points: 
Air con service, which basically just was a tightness check and adding R134a up to the 950g it takes. It’s essential to have a working AC on a trip like this in my opinion.
Engine and differential oil was changed, new spark plugs, coolant and brake fluid change and greasing of all nipples.
The ignition leads were cleaned as I was at it, and the ignition amp (Lucas AB14), which was moved out front some time ago, had a rain shield added and the connections was packed with dielectric grease, all to reduce risk of problems in rain with the amp now being exposed to rain rather than the extreme temperatures at the original location. 
As the gearbox oil and filter was changed recently that was left as is. 
Brakes and tires were of course also checked, and finally we could pack the car and set off Saturday morning. As usual on a car adventure, we were bringing all the stuff we could imagine we could possibly need, so the boot and partially the rear seat was packed…

 

Germany always means traffic jams and slow traffic due to roadwork, accidents or just traffic intensity. A7 around Hamburg is still work in progress, and reaching the Elb-tunnel entrance caused the usual 40-50 minutes delay.

The temperature gauge soon started to crawl upward in slow traffic, but not critical. I guess new water pump and/or radiator will have to be added to the list of tasks to look at in the future. As soon as we moved at some speed everything was ok.

This first leg of driving was not efficient due to the roadwork and traffic. We managed only 750 km in 10 hours and we made our first stop in the centre of Gießen. Sunday was a lot better, probably due to both being Sunday (no trucks allowed!), but also just because we were on less used roads.

First properly interesting part of the journey was in Switzerland, where we after an overnight stop in Göschenen at the northern end of the St. Gotthart tunnel went over the Furka pass (2430 masl), visiting several James Bond viewpoints from Goldfinger and of course had a nice cup of coffee at cafe near the now abandoned Belvedere hotel. This location is at the Rhone gletscher, the start of the mighty Rhone river. We continued west from Furka through Gletsch (!) towards Zermatt with the ambition to see Matterhorn. Motorized traffic was not allowed the last kilometers, so we parked in Täsch and took the train to Zermatt. After that we drove into Italy via the Simplon pass (2000+ m) in a thunderstorm and thereby testing my ignition amplifier protection. Schwitzerland is quite expensive, so the plan from start of the day was to cross the border to Italy before next stop-over, and we actually made it all the way to Parma, where we stayed at a nice agriturismo .

 

Late same day our first issue with the car started showing: The condensation water from AC didn’t drain properly/at all, and the logical outcome of that issue is wet feet for the driver and wet footwells in both sides. The condensating water from the A/C is collected in trays with a drain, but when the drain is clogged, the trays is emptied in curves, typically when exiting the motorway. This only happens after long drives and is therefore not likely to be detected before doing a long drive like this.

When we arrived at the destination at Lago Trasimeno after around 2100 km, I got the car lifted enough to get under it and clean the drains with a stiff wire.

There had also been direction indicator issues both before departure and during the drive. I thought I had solved this by changing the relay, but no. It turned out to (probably) be the hazard switch causing the issue. I lubricated it and gave it some on/off motion, and it has worked since!

The return was again via Suisse using San Bernardino pass, this time with a stop in Chur and a great hike in the mountains using the cable cars and train. First day without driving at all!

The final return leg was a proper one: 1160 km with an estimated driving time of 10:40, when asking google maps early Sunday morning (again a truck free day). This estimate was as expected optimistic due to traffic, fuel, coffee and food stops and also a stop to make the water warning lamp go off. My optimistic guess is that my very old coolant caps are not tight enough, the seals are quite worn. I also added 1 liter of engine oil in after appr 4000 km, but back home and on proper flat ground I can now see, that the level is above max. The oil level reading on the V12 is affected quite much by the car being off level, and after 3 stops without finding a level spot I decided to add the oil based on the readings I got.

Back home the numbers are 4696 km done, CO2 from some 650 liter of 95 E10 released and the confidence in the old girl taken to a new level !

Engine is an HE from ‘89 without catalysts and around 200.000 km on the clock. Gearbox GM400, diff 2.88, tires 205/70R15.

Cruising speed (on GPS) has typically been 130-140 km/h on German Autobahn and otherwise according to limits, which often means 90-110 km/h on main roads.