Back in the 80's and 90's I restored a few AMX's and Javelins.
These XJ's are some what a PIA compared to a car just 10-15 years older.
I swear, the engineer that designed al the connectors, brackets, etc is laughing his a$$ off.
Every bracket that I want to take off, you have to take off 3 other things to get to the last bolt!


Slack

I usually hear people comment on how easy they are to work on. To each his own I guess.

Yeah, compared to my 2008 F350 V10,, it is

PITA to take apart? Naah!

Just takes;
patience,
positive attitude,
PB blaster,
torch,
nut spliters,
air tools,
a $1000 of hand tools,
some swearing,
beer,
skinned knuckles,
more swearing,
bandages,
now a negative attitude,
then finally posting the issue here and...

...before you know it a big smile...its all done...

Jeeps are easy try any brand new car on the market right now.A water pump on a new ford taurus is like 18 hours to do.

You are in the minority man hahah

The only thing that bugs me is the mixture of SAE and Metric.. Otherwise they are pretty easy IMO.

Im the same way. The mixture of sae and metric. Otherwise i can have almost anything done on my xj in a weekend at most

I put long tube headers on a 2002 Z28. THAT was a PITA. This XJ is simple in comparison.

X2

I agree with this. I owned a Mercedes e320 that required the front bumper to be removed just to change a headlight!

Just replaced headers and intake on mine. Sure was PITA

I had to replace the gaskets on the upper and lower intake on my ford ranger 4.0 couple of weekends ago. It was a 8 hour job for me (shop wanted $600 just for labor). Replaced the exhaust header and the gasket on my XJ a couple of months ago, and it didn't take half as long, except the headers where not correct, and I had to hit them with a torch and a hammer to get the intake to fit. but if that had not been an issue, it would have been a 4 hour job, max.

My Subaru has a boxer engine (flat four). The spark plugs are on the bottom of the engine. To change them, you have to remove the engine cover from the bottom of the car, disconnect the exhaust, disconnect the engine mounts, loosen the transmission mount, lift the engine four inches (using a special engine hoist that mounts to the shock towers), remove the coils and finally remove the spark plugs from the bottom of the car using a ratchet with swivel extensions on it. Then reverse all that to get it back on the road, and good luck getting them in straight with that swivel extension. The procedure is 16 pages long in the FSM. For ****ing spark plugs.

That's one of the reasons I laugh when people whine about having to take the coil rail off a '00 or '01 XJ to get to the plugs. You have no idea. XJs are easy if you have the FSM, the correct tools and enough time to be patient.