More Mechanics, More Car Repairs

Depends.
When you say break it, do you mean deliberately? And I presume you are taking it to the mechanic afterwards to have it repaired and you don't want him to know you broke it on purpose?
Does the character have some sort of mechanical ability, or is it someone not too knowledgable just going under the bonnet and hitting it with a hammer?

the first thought that occurred to me is stripping the differential due to hard driving. That's a set of gears in the rear axle that puts the power to the wheels. not easy to break in a Jaguar, though!
Anyhow, if you drive it more than abotu a hundred miles, mr Lucas will break it for you. (almost all old brit cars have Lucas electrical systems. They were notoriously unreliable)

You could ask here http://www.jaguarforum.co.uk/forum.php

I ageww with the prophetsnake. British cars had bad electrical systems. The coil could die. Spark plugs could break. The generator could fry. Fortunately, cars with electrical problems can be dead one minut and inperfect order a couple minutes later with the replacement of a single part. And it doesn't usually require removing many bolts.

Fallen said:

Just a normal breakdown It's just with the engine already having been through a strip and rebuild, I'm at a loss for what can go wrong when it's had a good shake up like that. My usuall choices (clutch, gearbox etc) have already been replaced.

So what other parts could cause trouble after a rebuiled? Enough to require towing to the garage.

E.g. we had a Rover 45 and the female clips kept slipping off the starter motor. Something like that maybe...?

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Well, that's perfect. Like I said, Lucas electrics of that period were a nightmare.

Even just getting a bit damp can shut the car down. A bit of moisture in the distributor will make the engine almost impossible to start, and make it run very rough if it does. If you do manage to get it to start, th het from the engine and sparks in the distributor would dry it out after a few minutes and the car would run fine. Any good mechanic would spot this problem very quickly and dry the distributor out with a paper towel, which might work, or a hairdryer, which would work.
The connectors that fell out of your Rover would happen frequently to an old Jag, even when they were very new, needing someone who knew what they were at to attend to them.
The rest of th bits on those old Jags were extremely robust, not really noted for breaking anything in particular. They rusted badly, of course.
A friend of mine has a 3.4 Mk2 (68?) and it goes fine.

Lucas electrical systems

Prophetsnake said:

Depends.

Anyhow, if you drive it more than abotu a hundred miles, mr Lucas will break it for you. (almost all old brit cars have Lucas electrical systems. They were notoriously unreliable)

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Ah, Lucas Electrics... In the States, Lucas was known as The Prince of Darkness.

I had a '66 XKE that was fraught with electrical gremlins - I even had a minor fire under the dash while stuck in traffic one day. I replaced it with a '67 Austin Healey 3K that also had Lucas electrics - big mistake. Ever since those days I've avoided anything with a positive ground.

And here is a list of simply hilarious jokes *) about lucas electrics. Maybe your mechanic can tell the protagonist one or two while he fixes it.


http://www.hermit.cc/mania/tmc/articles/lucas.htm

ironmikezero said:

Ah, Lucas Electrics... In the States, Lucas was known as The Prince of Darkness.

I had a '66 XKE that was fraught with electrical gremlins - I even had a minor fire under the dash while stuck in traffic one day. I replaced it with a '67 Austin Healey 3K that also had Lucas electrics - big mistake. Ever since those days I've avoided anything with a positive ground.

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Positive ground isn't really the prob with them. They were mostly just badly made. It was pretty easy to change any of those from positive ( and they call it 'earth' not 'ground' in the UK for the benefit of the OP) to neg was pretty easy. The big prob with pos earth is rust. It encourages it. As if British cars from the 60s needed any encouragement!