2000 Jaguar XJ8

[PhilA]

More lights. Driver's side turn signal repeater wasn't working and that was annoying me. 

Turns out the wire they used had turned to powder. 

Tore all that out and refitted with new. The car would originally have had a blanking plate in the hole. 

However, it doesn't, so it now works. 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Full compliment of exterior lights (not all of them on but they all work).

Makes the car look a little more cared for. 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

A spare part arrived.

 

Phil

[Noel Tidybeard]

that video was like open university on bbc2 on sunday mornings🤣

[hairnet]

On 15/06/2024 at 00:08, PhilA said:

A spare part arrived.

 

Phil

flathead or ls7??

also @eddyramrod you need to import a phil for a week your problems would be gone

 

[PhilA]

Flathead, quite the opposite. 

Everybody says to put an LS in but that's quite an agricultural engine in comparison. 

Gaskets and chains arrived. I had a go at the crank pulley bolt but it didn't want to budge. I need to find the big windy gun I have and see if that'll pull it off. 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Found my impact wrench. Shall see if that does the trick or not. 

 

Phil

[hairnet]

7 hours ago, PhilA said:

Flathead, quite the opposite. 

Everybody says to put an LS in but that's quite an agricultural engine in comparison. 

 

Phil

so the 50p test a murrican motor would fail?

[PhilA]

No but I'll take an alloy quad cam 32 valve 6800 rpm screamer over a 16 valve pushrod.

 

Also, great success.

[2flags]

Now all you have to do is get the pully off. It will either come off with just the breath of fairy wings or will need the power of Thor's hammer to shift the bastard. Only time will tell. 🙂

[PhilA]

I need a bigger tool

This one broke. 

[2flags]

Thor's hammer it is then. 🙂

[PhilA]

It's all in the procedure, which incidentally isn't in the manual. 

Tighten up. Beat the hell out of the bolts holding the pulley. Loosen off. Repeat. 

 

Phil

 

[PhilA]

I have created cam locking tools.

Much welding and cutting and grinding and farting about. 

Revision 2.0 is triangulated. 

Holds things in place while the chains are changed.

Grease pen coming in the mail soon, along with rear main seal (is out, might as well).

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Because all the finest tools are BROWN.

[PhilA]

Ordered the cam tool set. Found a Chinesium version for $45 so eh, that got ordered. Need to reset the vvc, lock it so it can all be torqued. Will still be using my camshaft tools because they're better than what comes in the set (a piece of box section with two bolts).

[PhilA]

Weather subsided enough to go out and sweat a bunch in the sun. 

Improvised a tool and pulled the old main rear seal out. 

Brand new one in place. 

Need to torque down the flywheel bolts. I forget if the manual says Loctite. It does for everything else...

 

Edit: Manuel says no Loctite, just three stage tightening sequence.

[PhilA]

Rain stopped just long enough to torque things up. 

So, that's done and it's good.

Phil

[PhilA]

Apparently the gallery plug behind the flywheel that needs the seal replacing. Got a couple on order because I baulked at the 300%+ markup at the local dealership.

Avoiding outside today. Already had a small tornado (above) so I'll just wait for the o-rings and Loctite to show up.

 

Phil 

[hairnet]

Put all yer tanks outside

Wont have to use a tap then 

Storms suck - hope the wind fucks off

[PhilA]

Engine work today.

Got this far and the 12% forecast rain occurred. Profusely. 

Waited for that to clear and carried on. The breeze went dead calm and the humidity just skyrocketed.

Got one lid off. For 112k this is pretty damn clean.

Further dismantling showed that it's had chain and tensioners done already.

Looking overall good in here. Turns out it's had the quiet chain mod done at the same time. The chain I bought is the simplex type so I checked the ones on it and they're fine. Look like they have maybe 15k on, if that. Guides had no wear at all.

Locked it all up in place and replaced the top chains, tensioner pistons and guides.

Nearly passed out from the heat, 40+ in the sun. Got this far and called it; need to put pulleys and ancillaries back on. Waiting on a single washer now to call it complete.

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Ran around the houses yesterday to buy this. First one ended up being open and wound up to max by sometime who bought it, used it then returned it. 

Also ordered another specialist tool to lock the pulley so I can attempt to twist the engine off the table whilst tightening it up. Pulley bolt is specced to 280lbft.

I've never had to buy so many specialist tools just to do maintenance items on an engine before. Little wonder places here refuse to touch the cars.

 

Phil

[PhilA]

More tools. 

That's a lot just to do up one bolt. 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

A little time after work where the clouds moved in and it was a shade cooler outside.

Decided to fix the new ash tray I bought. The light holder was brittle. I glued it but it cracked again, so adding a little foam rubber for it to bear against fixed that. 

Gave it a good scrub. Tested the light, works. Tested the lighter. Works. Cleaned the lighter, previous owner smoked cigars. 

Read up in the manual how to pull the center console. 

Refitted everything, that's good now. 

Flops open with a light touch. Do need to replace the armrest, it's the wrong color and the cup holder is broken. Breakers want a fair penny for them. 

 

Phil

[PhilA]

Finally some halfway decent weather. 

Cleaned up the sealing faces of the crank pulley and slotted it back in place.

Lubricated the wedge up with Vaseline as per the manual. 

Fitted the reaction brace, broke out the big tools and got it torqued up to 275 lbft.

Reassembled the ancillary parts and cranked it over. Large oil leak ensued. Took the lid off and reapplied sealant. That cured the leak. 

Cranking it over was a little concern because it wasn't even, so I pulled the plugs. 

Don't look bad, all 8 showed signs of running well. 

Tried running a compression test. Got some very low numbers so oiled the cylinders up and tried again. 

Cyl (Jag) (US) {dry/wet}
A1 2 210/235
A2 4 215/225
A3 6 200/245
A4 8 215/255
B1 1 125/250
B2 3 85/235
B3 5 85/225
B4 7 85/270

Much better. 

Put the plugs back in and now it cranks over very evenly so I'm happy with that. The rings will come round with driving. No telling how long it sat before I bought it, plus it's been sat out here for a couple months. 

Phil

[calebaaront]

Love this era of Jaguar! I love it so much I bought the hearse variant

[PhilA]

4 hours ago, calebaaront said:

Love this era of Jaguar! I love it so much I bought the hearse variant

They managed to somehow channel essence of Maxi into the back end. Didn't know they made hearses from these...

Apparently bore wash from the start-up procedure is a problem on these engines, something to do with the emissions. That's a likely culprit for the low figures.

 

Phil

[24vdiamond]

So is it going to be much of a job swapping over? in from the top or bottom? 4 Weetabix breakfast?! 😁

[PhilA]

2 hours ago, 24vdiamond said:

So is it going to be much of a job swapping over? in from the top or bottom? 4 Weetabix breakfast?! 😁

Worst part is going to be getting the hood off. 

In from the top. Access is good. From the length of things it looks like this engine bay had been penciled in for a v12. The 8 looks lost sitting in the space. 

 

Phil

[hairnet]

10 minutes ago, PhilA said:

 From the length of things it looks like this engine bay had been penciled in for a v12. The 8 looks like it might be binned in favour of this

 

Phil