Exactly, Rick. It never hurts to be prepared for this crap. Your IMT O-ring experience was living proof for all of us who have the 3-litre engines....

How tough was changing that oil pan gasket? What else had to come off from underneath in order to allow you to do it? My problem will be getting the car high enough off the ground in order to give me the room to do the job. I have a pair of Rhino Ramps that are great for oil and filter changes, but they may not provide enough room under there to actually drop the pan and change the gasket (especially if a bunch of other stuff has to come off first)....

By the way, our S-Type is sitting right at 42,400 miles....

 

It is sitting at a tad over 57k. Told you guys that I drive the sh*t out of this car, got her with 34k

 

Basically Jon, the ramps will suffice. It originally took me 5 hours to do the job (keeping in my tradition drinking a few beers), start to tires back on the ground. I could do it in less than 4 now. As I remember, it would be like an oil change procedure and removal of the (2) front motor mount bolts (easy).

I opt'd to remove the crossbar from the cowl and jack motor up high enough to remove oil pan.
The other way is to remove the motor mount bolts and (4) sub frame bolts and drop the sub frame low enough to remove oil pan.

I found it WAY easier to go my route due to the fact I was doing the job on my back and not with the vehicle on a lift.



Parts: Jaguar oil pan gasket $50.00, Mr. Gasket (big box store) $32.00, 7 qts. oil and a new filter. Thats it,

 

Jan has put more than 24,000 miles on our S-Type since I bought it on December 19th, 2008. That's not quite 15 months of ownership. Plus, the car essentially missed all of August 2009 when it was in for repairs after being hit by the careless Geico driver last summer....

 

Thanks for the short tutorial, Rick. But I don't think I want to risk jacking up my engine. Always worried about what that can do to the way it lines up with the transmission....

I think I'll have a look at what JTIS has to say (if anything) about changing the oil pan gasket. Wouldn't be surprised if it's not mentioned....

 

If all the bolts are in the bellhousing, the trans should keep it's alignment with the motor. They should move as one unit.

How much does the engine have to move?? does the pan have to come completely off? Is this a rubber or cork / paper gasket?

George

 

To replace that gasket, the oil pan is going to have to come off, no other way around it....

I'm also interested in how far the engine has to move. I looked at JTIS (my copy covers up to the 2004 model year), and removing the oil pan is a pretty big production, probably 25 steps or more. But it also instructs you to remove the HVAC compressor and the alternator and other steps that really had me scratching my head and wondering why....

I would suspect that this factory oil pan gasket would have to be rubber. But apparently the original gaskets were not very good quality if they're failing by 40,000 or 50,000 miles. Just like the original IMT O-rings. Let's hope that the new oil pan gaskets are much better. Judging from JTIS, this is not something that anyone would want to do unless you have to....

Jeff, I'm betting that Rick is right and that your leak will ultimately turn out to be from your oil pan gasket. But the good news for you is that it should be covered by your Select Edition warranty....

Rick says that the replacement gaskets run from $32 up to $50 depending where you source them. Not too bad. But if you can't do it yourself because you don't have the tools or the confidence, the labor involved in the job will probably run $600 or more. Pretty damn steep for a failed gasket....

 

See what I'm thinking... is if the gasket is rubber, could you separate the pan from the block, slip the old gasket out, and the new one in by pulling it over the edge of the pan, then setting it into place on the top lip of the pan. does that make sense?

This would prob minimize how much the engine has to move. Mind you I haven't see the engine and the clearances, but rather just thinking aloud.

 

There's 20 or more oil pan bolts or screws that probably go right through the pre-drilled holes in the gaskets, so that pan will have to come off. Plus, you've got to thoroughly clean the remnants of the original gasket off of the two surfaces. No way to properly do that unless you pull that oil pan off.

Hopefully Rick will confirm or deny this....

 

Lining the gasket up, while tedious could be done with a light and starting each bolt in just a couple turns working from front to back or vice versa, what's the difference as far as that is concerned whether the pan comes off or not, you still have to make sure the gasket doesn't pinch or shift. If the gasket is truly rubber, and has no adhesion surfaces, but rather simply uses bolt tension to make the seal it should come off clean. If its not rubber, or if there was permatex or other liquid gasket maker then that's a different story.

One more thing. Has anyone bothered to check the torque on the pan bolts? I had an E36 BMW m3 that developed a leak from the pan gasket, and it was because the pan bolts had backed out over time. Tightening them down with the torque wrench cured the leak, and it did not come back.

George

 

I guess we are hi-jacking Jeffs thread, but here goes......

Jon you are correct that the alt. and HVAC comp. need to be unbolted, BUT NOT removed, there is enough play in the lines to swing each out of the way and tie them up with an old metal coat hanger(s).

Since Joyces Jag is a southern vehicle ALL bolts look like they were just installed (no corrosion effects) so removal was quite easy.

The oil pan HAS got to come out. There are 15 bolts. 2 of which will be difficult to torque on reinstall, you have to use a swivel and an extension to tighten, throwing off torque ratio, the rest easy to torque.

After removing the 2 motor mount bolts and 4 cowl cross frame bolts, placing a piece of 2x12 (what I had lying around) on my jack to disperse weight. I jacked the transmission AND motor up together using tranny pan as jack point. There were no signs of engine or tranny movement from side to side and no cracking or binding jacking up. The motor raised about 3" maybe a bit more, the large wire harness on the top back of engine (near the intake) will touch firewall. I climbed back underneath and wiggled the oil pan off and out. One other thing the steering rack has to be unbolted (2 bolts) from the sub frame but not removed, just hang it out of the way. No I did not have to get a front end alignment afterwards.

The pan gasket is aluminum, less than an 1/8" thick with rubberized coating running on inside gasket and bolt holes (see photo) the gasket I believe will crush abit on reinstall with proper torque (sandwiching effect). The gasket BENDS easily!! You want to get gasket over the oil pick up tube before the oil pan gets installed. Don't forget a few beads of silicone on block and front cover mating surfaces.

oil pan bolt torque 18 ft. lbs (25Nm)

The local Jaguar dealership want just shy of $1,100.00 to replace.

This looks ALOT more difficult than it actually was!!! I would not hestitate to do it all over again if needed.

If I can answer anymore questions feel free to ask!

 

I'm used to that happening here....guess it keeps things interesting. But I also know how this one will end, with the dealer replacing something...

Maybe the oil pan discussion should move to another thread just so others will be able to find it when we tell them to do a search....

 

I will do a FAQ on this with the photos that I have. Not many detailed photos though.

Road trip Jeff, bring the family and sit a spell. we'll knock it out and have a grand old time. Plus the weather is getting really nice here!!!!!!! Got plenty of spare beds here!

 

Watch what you say....Jenn's Dad lives in Florida...Hmmm, a stop over on the way down? Just two conditions, No mowing the grass and move the gnomes since I don't know how to explain those.....

 

Hey Rick, can I be next after Jeff? This thread got me worried as usual so I did some poking around under the hood late yesterday afternoon. As Jeff pointed out earlier, you can't see much from up top, but I didn't feel like dropping the undertray and climbing around underneath. I just did an oil & filter change about 15 days ago and didn't notice anything unusual, but I wasn't specifically looking for anything like this, either. I do remember that my undertray was dry, no oil spots on it....

But reaching down into the front of the engine bay yesterday and wiping around with some paper napkins, I was able to come up with some dark black "road gunk" from some of the hoses and components down deep in the bay. Nothing wet, nothing fresh, not a great deal of it, just what I would call an accumulation of grime that may very well be perfectly normal on a May 2005-built car with 42,400 miles on it, even with an undertray always in place. I just don't know for sure....

This weekend I think I'll drop the front portion of my undertray and have a better look. I'll report what I find, if anything. If it looks like what Jeff described, I know I'll be in the same boat. But having just done an oil & filter change on this car, I'll wait until the next one is due at 48,000 miles before addressing the oil pan gasket. Our car has never lost or used any oil between my 6,000-mile service intervals, the oil level remains right at the full line on the dipstick. So I hope I'm worrying about nothing right now....

Rick, you say that this is a common failure issue (like the IMT O-rings) on our cars. Who told you that? I don't recall reading about it here on the forum. Maybe I just missed it....

$1,100 for a new gasket job at the dealership, huh? Now that is indeed scary....

 

Hehehehe we are actually 3 minutes off of I-77, Jeff from your front door to my moved gnomes would be zzzzactly 8 hours! We have alot of family, friends and acquaintances stop over night on their annual snowbird trips. Joyce and I kid about becoming the "SouthKaralina B&B". BTW no mowing when company is here, its margarita time!!

Jon, since yours is not dripping yet, it would be hard to see from above. When your changing the oil just look at the HVAC pump and Alt. bolt heads (both visable to the front sides of the oil pan) , if oil is dripping at those, there is a good chance replacement is in the near future.

I believe FactoryJagTech (on sabbatical) and Brutal both told me about the failure and the tech here at Scott Jaguar. Like Jeff, everytrip to Scott Jaguar I take donuts or booze.

Here is a picture of our belly pan and how bad our drip was after owning the vehicle 12 hours!

 

Rick, you are by far the most documentingest photo-mechanic I've ever seen! Did you give photography lessons to Rielle Hunter before she hooked up with John Edwards? I'll bet she got inspired by your gnomes....

Man, that is one greasy undertray. I'll bet you were livid when you pulled that thing off for the first time. Did you know the car had leak issues when you purchased it?

Thanks for all the tips and pics. I'll drop the front portion of our undertray this weekend and have a good look at the compressor and the alternator bolt heads. Sure hope they're dry....

Lousy original IMT O-rings, lousy original oil pan gasket - what other original seals are known to be lousy on these cars?

 

Ha Jon, Miss Hunter said she didn't go down on nasty lubby juice drips, only clean ones!

As far as livid YIPPERS!!!! Since I was told by the nice used car salesmen that the car had ZERO mechanical issues!! It passed their 120+ point inspection with flying colors. I tried to make a deal with them to cover parts only and I would cover labor. This is why I had taken all the pictures to prove to "the honest family car buisness" that it was indeed the vehicle they sold us. They told me to "go F-bomb myself"!! Being an Ebay car, I quoted this in their feedback. They came back and said a check will be in the mail if I retract my feedback. For the lousy $500.00 in parts back, guess what I told them, hehehe "go F-bomb yourself"! That was the end of our relationship!

Tranny sleave is next, but ours well you know I am not going to jinx myself!

BTW, I would eat S* off of any part on this vehicle now! hehe

 

Yep, I forgot about that O-ring sleeve in the ZF. That one scares me the most. I hope I never have to deal with it....

Those "4,389-point top-to-bottom certified razzle-dazzle inspections" that all dealers tout are just jokes. After bringing Jan's S-Type home and giving it the once-over that first evening, I discovered that the battery cells were nearly dry and the car was missing some seat rail trim pieces behind the front passenger seat. Fortunately Jaguar ponied up and sent me the trim pieces in the mail after I called them about it. And had they really inspected the car the way they claim to, they would have found and fixed those crushed and cracked rear tie-rod bushings that you tipped all of us off to last spring. As it turned out, I had to get that done on a warranty fix. Jeff, you should take a look at yours now. I'll bet that's your next Select Edition job after you get your oil leak sorted out....

 

Rick - lovely pics!

Jon - if you decide to check the torque on the sump bolts be sure to do it gently with a torque wrench, they're only my-small-hand-tight