Removing rear deck upholstery panel

Started 27th January 2026 at 05:21 · Ross Leavens

📷 No photo added

Hello everyone! I am a new member and discovered this site after recently acquiring a ’88 Cabriolet. My prior Jag was a ’86 XJS, which I reluctantly sold for a mini-van some 25 years ago. Although my current car has less than 28,000 miles on it, it sat in storage for many years and the fuel hoses are all original, so yes it does smell like petrol in the boot! Thus, I am replacing all the hoses, filler neck baffle, sender gasket, injector lines, etc…. Fortunately the tank appears to be rust-free and no outright leaks in the boot. However, I want to remove the tank and have the seams welded to assure that they do not develop a split in the future (had to fix that on my ’86).

I quickly found out that removing the tank from the Cabriolet has some steps that I don’t recall carrying out with my XJS. Specifically, it appears one needs to remove the boot hinge assemblies in order to slide the tank out (please correct me if I’m wrong). And in order to get at the bolts on top of the hinges, one needs to remove the rear deck upholstery panel.

I removed the four large decorative bolts from the top of the panel, assuming I could then slide the upholstered panel forward and “pop” it up from the underlying deck. I am getting too much resistance and I am afraid I will mangle the panel in the process. I’m sure there is a very simple method that I’m just not getting (oh, wait, it is a jaguar), or not. Please looking for input if anyone has done this.

Thank you,

Ross

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- 28th January 2026 at 08:48 #24749
  
  Laurence Jones
  Keymaster
  
  Hi Ross,
  
  Have you seen this video on YouTube – appreciate it’s removing the tank from a Coupe but he mentions the struggles to get the tank out, and it appears he didn’t remove the boot hinge assemble.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Laurence
- 7th February 2026 at 15:47 #24952
  
  Ross Leavens
  Participant
  
  Yes thanks, I did see this video. I finally got the tank removed. I found that the ends of the “spring” rods were hanging down low enough to seriously gouge the tank if I tried to force the tank out. I could have trimmed down the ends of the rods, but I didn’t want to do that. In the end, I was able to gingerly lift up the rear edge of the rear deck upholstery panel to access the bolts mounting the hinges. However on my ’88 there is a metal stap in the middle of the body work that is spot-welded over the middle of the rods, as a safety feature I assume, in the event that they fatigued and broke. The spot welds are hidden under the trunk weather strip, so after drilling them out (will tack back after re-assembly) the hinges were removed with ease and the tank slid out freely and without any forcing or scratches!
  I don’t know if the metal strap is only on the ’88 or if earlier years had it. Design “fixes” did evolve a bit on these I gather. To my amazement, the tank is pristine and without rust or leaks! However, I don’t trust those seams to hold and I am going to have the tank seams professionally welded, and coat the tank inside and out. After replacing all the fuel lines with Gates Barrier FI hoses, I expect the tank will slip back in as easily as it ultimately came out. Then 3 little spot welds and back on the road, a lot less smelly in the boot!
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