Yes that clearcoat bubbling & cracking on the bumper was nerve racking lol.

Since her "nose job" I've re-christened her Jaggy-O/Jackie O due to the added elegance factor lol.

 

Well went to a big box store & on my return to the car it would not shift past reverse. No codes/messages so I thought that w/ the J-Gate recently being dismantled for the light replacement, that maybe something had come loose or broken. It was the screw on the left that seated the shifter rotator mechanism it had come loose & was protruding enough to stop further shifting. The thread in the hole was stripped, so for now the 2 screws are removed & it's shifting fine.

I'd really hate to have to replace the whole shifter after all the grief of getting the lights finally working. But the E-Bay hunt is now on.


Edit :
Anyone have a J-Gate diagram w/ part #'s ?!

 

Is it basically the whole collection of parts that constitute part number 3?

 

It's the semi-circular part that rotates when you shift. Maybe #22 or 23 ? I just had Lasik, so I am hindered vision wise.

 

I have one of those somewhere in the garage, but I suspect it's different than yours. The part numbers for that whole piece are different; yours being an XJ8 and my parts coming off an XJR. I will try to find it tomorrow and maybe provide a picture.

Perhaps that semi-circular piece is the same? Not sure....

 

I just pulled this out of a box. Does it look like what you are talking about?

 

Yes but let me re-check tomm. in the light, to be 100% sure. It maybe the part under that(that houses it).

Thanks !

 

This morning I tackled the Bank 1 knock sensor replacement. (Error code P0328) Pretty simple once you've done one (and had all the proper guidance from this wonderful forum). The Jaguar engineers could have put it in a more inconvenient place, but I guess they didn't have time to find one and figured, oh what the hell, lets run it along this equally inconveniently-routed heater hose!

I was surprised how tight the nut holding the sensor was, but was pleasantly surprised that the sensor itself was loose once the nut was removed, and could easily be removed with a pair of those extraordinarily long needle-nose pliers that I only find a use for once in a blue moon. I sprayed the stationary knock sensor with electrical cleaner, and re-routed the new sensor, a bit of a pain, but not too bad.

As per forum advice I purchased the $32.00 272940880300 knock sensor listed for the 00-06 Jag S-type 3.0L V-6 instead of the $130-$175 one listed for the XJ8, and so far it seems to work fine.

I took the car out for an early Sunday morning test ride, revved it up to 7 grand with no problems. Hopefully that was the cure. And I have another spare sensor for the left-hand Bank 2 should I need it.

Thanks once again to all on the forum, this place rocks!


Other knock sensor threads
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...d-code-199250/
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ensors-197844/
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...sensor-173563/
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-98xj8-197831/



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This week :

After a stern talking to w/ the guys whom rebuilt my transmission in Nov. sub 1,000 miles ago. I explained my displeasure w/ the newly inherited harsh 1st shift into drive on the first run of the day.

Transmission checked
Trip Switch Installed
Thorough detailing as it's officially "pollen wars" in the south right now.

 

My weekend mostly sucked The only good part was getting together with my family for Easter.

It all started so innocently. My plan was to use my 3 day weekend (they gave us off for Good Friday) to install a number of parts on my XJR. The goal was to do the supercharger belt, supercharger belt tensioner, engine accessory belt, accessory belt tensioner, water pump, alternator, thermostat, a new temp sensor, and give it new coolant. I did not succeed

The first thing that happened involved the splash pan/engine guard. I don't think it has EVER been removed on this particular car. Half of those Torx bolts were completely seized in their clips. After removing the bolts that were able to come out, I hit the stuck fasteners with PB Blaster. I did the bottom of each bolt near the head, and I also hit the other side, where the bolt protrudes through the threaded retaining clip. I sprayed it several times over the next 24 hours, while I worked on doing various other things around the house.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. The first of my 3 days was pretty much wasted. That was annoying, but I was still optimistic at this point. So after letting the PB Blaster do its thing for 24 hours, I tried to remove the stuck fasteners. They absolutely WOULD NOT budge. I ended up stripping out the heads after multiple attempts to get them out. So, I had to pull out my pneumatic cutting wheel to grind the heads off. And that worked, albeit very slowly, but the heat generated from the tool caused the plastic around the stuck fasteners to melt a bit, thus enlarging the hole. It would be possible to use washers to make the bolts work with the enlarged holes, but I decided to just go ahead and buy a new splash guard. So that's an extra $65 that I hadn't planned on. But, it DID have a few holes in it, as well as some major scratches. So I probably would have replaced it soon anyway.

After I finally took the splash guard off, I drained the coolant. I managed to do it without making much of a mess, which made me happy. I then started to try and remove the various parts that I wanted to replace. My first obstacle there was not car related, but rather tool related. I opened up my toolbox to get my 1/2" breaker bar for the supercharger tensioner, only to discover that someone had "borrowed it" without asking me first! So I hitched a ride with a family member that lives near me, went to Harbor Freight, and picked up a 1/2" breaker bar. 18" long for less than $9, using a coupon that I received in the mail. My family member dropped me off, then went back home.

Now that I had the proper tool, I tried to insert it into the supercharger tensioner. But no matter which position I tried, from above or below, I couldn't find the right amount of clearance to get it in there. After some head scratching, I realized that the fan assembly needed to come out. That should have been easy, since it only has 2 bolts. The bolts didn't give me any trouble, but the electrical connectors did. They were stuck in there pretty good. After a ridiculous amount of wiggling, they came out. So I pulled the fan assembly out, and I finally put the bar in the tensioner to loosen the belt. The rest of the disassembly went smoothly after that, with the exception of me slightly stripping the head on one of the water pump mounting bolts. I decide to order 5 new ones, and they should get here within a week. I decided to use the old ones for now, and install those new ones at a later date. I have to say that I wasn't a big fan of the price for those bolts. With shipping, it was $43 for those 5 little chunks of metal. It also turned out that I had ordered the wrong temp sensor, so I put the old one back in. I then installed the new thermostat, which didn't give me any trouble.

After I took everything apart, I started to clean the front of the engine. The valve cover gaskets have been leaking for a while now, so the front cover of the engine had a film of dirty, dusty oil on it. I spent the next few hours cleaning that off, bit by bit. That was extremely tedious, but I was very happy with the end result. I wanted to get it taken care off, because you don't have as much access once the belts/tensioners are put back on.

At this point, I decided to get the new water pump on. But then I realized that I did not have any gasket maker left I forgot to buy more after I did some work on my sisters car. So I had to call up my family member AGAIN, and they drove me to the local NAPA. I picked up the sealant, and was dropped off at my house. I applied the Permatex on both sides of the gasket, and lightly tightened the bolts by hand. I let it sit for an hour, then tightened them fully. I'm not entirely sure why it needs to be done that way, but that is what the instructions say to do. I then let it sit for 24 hours to fully cure. At that point, I was laying out all of the new parts on my workbench, getting them ready to install. But then I noticed that the supercharger tensioner that I bought had the wrong pulley on it (smooth, instead of grooved.) That didn't improve my mood at. I went ahead and sent an email to the eBay seller. I then called up NAPA to see if they could order it. They said it would take 3 days to get one in. So I decided that I would just re-use the old one for now, until I received a response from the seller. I should have kept installing new parts, but by that point I was tired and angry, and I had some things that I needed to do around the house. That was also the point where I decided not to do the alternator. I figured that enough had gone wrong already, and I didn't want to open up another can of worms.

Fast forward to Sunday. My family stayed over longer than I expected, so I wasn't able to start working on the car again until 6pm. I installed the new accessory tensioner and new bolt. and then I went to go put the water pump pulley on. I was standing on the drivers side of the car, using a strap wrench to hold the pulley with my left hand, so I could tighten the bolts with my right hand. The first 2 went great. But I had an issue when I went to go install the third one. Without realizing it, I had rested my left elbow on that little plastic breather/bypass hose on the left side of the radiator. As I was tightening the last bolt, the tube snapped like a dry twig right at the connector. That also didn't improve my mood. So I went online, found the correct part on PartsGeek, and then bought it. There went another $40 + shipping. And then I decided that I should buy that special tool for the Norma connectors, because I will need to remove two of them to install the new breather/bypass tube. That was another $30 (shipped.)

The rest of the assembly went smoothly. I did notice that the one idler pulley has some slop in it, so I will replace that soon. I also realized near the end of the job that the supercharger belt that I bought was different from the one that I removed. It's twice as thick, and it's double-sided. I thought that was pretty cool. But I was surprised that an OEM Jaguar part would be set up like that. After everything was put back on, including the fan assembly, I made a temporary repair to the breather/bypass tube. It will probably be at least 4 days before the new tube reaches me, and I wanted to get the car on the road. I filled the car with coolant, ran it for a while, and then started to clean up the mess that I had made in my garage. I ended up finishing around 10pm.

So even with 3 days in a row to work on the car, I was not able to check all of the tasks off of my to do list. And I actually added one more when I broke that little tube. Plus I will have to take some of the parts back off soon, so I can swap in the proper tensioner and a new idler pulley.

I also managed to spend about $250 more than I had planned to

I'm sorry that I wrote a novel guys! I just wanted to share my story. It felt good to let it all out.

 

Jonny B, sorry about your " wasted weekend". I reminds me of working on my house, a 2 hr job ends up taking days and goes completely over budget.
I hope when all the correct parts arrive, that you are able to check off all the items on your list. That's always a good feeling.

 

You are not first person to lean his hand on that plastic tube . . .

 

Replaced the LH hub assembly with a used one from ebay last night. Dark, muddy, cold, but needed to be done. Shame too - I had JUST replaced the bearing in that side two months ago, and with the last few weeks, the howling started. I normally order them from Amazon but I think that was the side that I actually picked up from the local Advanced or whatever it was. And it lasted a month, what a joke. But seeing as the original bearings made it 150k before they started acting up, I figure that replacing the whole assembly with an original off an 80k mile car, I just bought myself another 70k instead of having to swap bearings constantly.

 

I'm convinced this is the part, as you can see the backside has 2 screws & one I was having strip issues with, right now I have it out not sure what problems can arise from that lol.











Edit :

Investigating a steady clicking when I have the AC up high, so I removed the center wood. It's not the wood it's behind the fascia/vent grill, so I figured I take that off & see what I could find noise-wise. Mistake ! All the retaining screws have been screwed so tight they've fractured what they're attached to. Luckily I spotted this after the 1st screw removed.

Then re-installing my center wood the clips are so worn they will not stay in the hole to allow me to insert the wood's pegs without falling out or attaching to the peg, but not gripping the slot. Anyone know a decent solution to tighten up the center veneer while I locate some more clips. I'm just going to buy a multitude to have on hand.

Also where do I find these clips ?!

Update :

You guys think these will work for the wood ?!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-GM-Garni...-/351767948959




Update #2 :

My "decent solution" was to wrap the clips whilest on the wood's pegs in a ribbon of Gorilla Tape & press in lol. Snug as can be too !

 

Did the door check fix w/ plate supplied from Door Check Arm Plate by Motorcars Ltd part GMD1983AB.PLATE - MotorcarsLtd.com & a good quality check arm from a low mileage XJ8 salvage.

Job was completed outdoors @ 1 am EST w/ a subtle amount of expensive tequila & a massive amount of cheap LED lights, so I gather a daylight adjustment may be needed.

Door's just harder to activate now, the inside pull is harder & the push to swing open is harder, albeit I did not lube the used check arm. It does stay open now once opened, which was my pet peeve along with the dreaded groan & pop which was also remedied. I do account for the extreme loose state the door's been in since my ownership affecting my 1st impression.

I shall lube the "new to me" check arm heavily & re-check among the sun.

The to do-list grows smaller as the odyssey continues.

 

Picked up my car from the transmission shop today after having the transmission serviced and the Transgo pressure regulator valve installed.

Pic is of the original valve and spring............. and before someone says anything, the quarter is for size comparison, no it was not found in the transmission!

Costs were $60.00 for the transgo valve. $9:00 for the pan gasket, $17.80 for the trans filter, and $138.00 for 6 qts of ZF Lifeguard trans fluid. Labor was $180.00


.

 

Set of new rear boots, thanks to the interweb.

Having a set of mismatched tyres since October, I have managed to secure a set of four 255/40R18 Avon ZZ3s, which is what the car came with.
Replaced the fronts 18 months ago for a pair of ZZ3s, but when it came time to do the rears none could be found. Their replacements, ZZ5, don't come in that size anymore.

Most tyres of that size seem to be BMW spec run-flats, so I had to have Michelin SportContacts on the rear.

Now all is as it should be, a spare pair in the garage and a full set of ZZ3s with their amazing tread pattern on the car.

Kept a SportContact to be fitted on a full-size wheel (when I find one) instead of the space saver I've got in the boot.

Best part, £130 for all four, guess they're a bit niche now. Couldn't find them when I needed them, got them for a song a few months later.

 

I saturated the arm w/ an areosol lubricant similar to WD-40 overnight, it's still harder to operate. I will go w/ silicone or lithium grease next. I do like the sound though, it reminds of a mausoleum door closing(don't ask me how I know that sound lol).

 

WD40 isn't a lubricant It is a rust easer. I can highly recommend Güsol as a rust Solver and lubricant. Managed to get my totally rusted up XJ-S door lock mechanicals sorted. That was now 2014... And the car has stod outside since.

 

It wasn't WD-40 is was in a blue can like WD-40 but clearly marked "lubricant" lol.