Hi all, ive just recently joined the jag family again with my 98 xjr and im just trying to nut out all the little quirks this car has to offer. Im pretty sure that the tensioners havnt been done and as its sitting on 115kms i think id better get onto that fairly quickly. But as ive only had it for about 3 weeks i was a little suprised when i went too lock it tonight and got this high pitched beeping noise coming from the car??..I dont think it is a battery issue in the keypad as the only way i can lock it is manually and the noise still occurs?...

Any thoughts?

 

That simply means one or the doors, boot or bonnet is not fully closed, so it will not lock anything until the offending portion of the car's anatomy has been tended to.

 

Welcome fatjag454!

Regarding the tensioners...
As long as you don't have issues e.g. strange sounds coming from the front part of the engine or the tensioners being cracked or defective there is no need to exchange them.
To be on the safe side have a skilled and experienced machanic have a look at the condition of the tensioners. That involves some dismanteling but it's well worth it!

I had my tensioners checked thoroughly by my local Jag guy and he told me that they still look like new and I don't have to worry about them.
At least for a while. He is well experienced especially with Jags and I can 100 percent trust his judgement and his recommendation.

(1999 XJ8 4.0 104,000 km)

Regards,

David

 

I've been dealing with intermittent door latch sensor problems and that is one of the symptoms. The door doesn't know if it is open or shut. I'll be driving along and the lights will come on and the door open message appears or I'll open a door and the interior lights will not come on. I've got three doors with the problem (but they all don't do the same thing). It is making me crazy and is far to expensive to get someone else to fix it right now.

 

My XJ8 does this as well. In my case, the cause is a faulty "park" position sensor in the shifter assembly. If the computer thinks you are not in park when you turn off the ignition, you get beeped at for about 10 sec.

 

Well dont i feel stupid, i let my son grab something out of the boot yesterday and at a first glance i was sure that it was closed but when i checked it this morning it wasnt completely closed!!...So that has fixed that problem thankfully, i just went into panic mode as my old xj6 s2 had so many elec issues, the worst being a massive puff of white smoke coming up from under the steering wheel when i was driving at speed and basically smoked out the cabin i just naturally assumed the worst.. Thanks for the quick replys guys...

 

I am sorry but I totally dissagree with this. If you have original plastic bodied tensioner they almost surely have cracks down the body. Those are very hard to see, not to mention the plastic shoes can LOOK fine and crack and slide between the chain and sprocket. This can do several things. Cause the engine to jump time, either just enough to run rough or smack the valves into the pistons. Or streach the chain to which it will snap down the road. Im surprised he didnt recommend to replace them since puling the cam cover to inspect them is half the work!! Thats just something I would never let go to chance on my own car or not recommend to someone else. The cost for the gamble is TOO BIG and costly. Ive seen this happen to too many V8's of that range. Its just not a wise gamble.....

 

I agree with BRUTAL.
Back in the 80s I worked on alot of XJ-S V12s and they had a habit of 'BURNING TO THE GROUND!!!'
I looked at a customer car for fuel leaks and injector hose condition as part of normal service and a month later his car 'burned to the ground'.
A little while later Jaguar issued a RECALL on the fuel rail, hoses and sealing the distributors because the cars were catching fire at an alarming rate.

Most of them looked OK right before they caught fire.

I even had one XJ-S customer that had an engine fire with a major repair and the engine caught fire again. He pulled over and someone came running with a fire extinguisure. He told the guy that if he tried to put out the fire he would inflict bodily harm. He already had one fire and just wanted the car to burn completely this time!!!

With the history of these plastic first and second generation tensioners 'just cause it looks good don't mean it can't fail'

bob gauff

 

When I wrote my posting above I instantly knew that there will be a lot of disagreement to it.
I agree that it is some gambling involved, but chances to get notice of defective tensioners before severe engine damage occurs are quite good though.

See the 2nd video on this site.
This is how it sounds when the tensioners have gone bad.
http://www.floridabiketrail.com/1999XJ8.html
(Engine is still running, no further damage done.)

To get an idea of how bad tensioners and timing chain guides can look like and how extensive and expensive the job of replacing them is see this write-up:
http://jaguar.blackonyx.net/tech/timingchain.htm

In the end it's up to you fatjag454.
In my case I'll keep an open eye (and ear) and will stick with my original 2nd generation tensioners as long as I don't detect any abnormal behaviour or noises.

David

 

My dad is a mechanic and when I said I wanted to replace the 2nd tensioners he thought I was crazy spending money and fixing something not broken. But, when he went to remove one of the tensioners for me it fell apart in his hands. The best money I have spent so far. If nothing else a little piece of mind!

 

It's easy to check the secondary tensioners. Remove the valve covers, the plastic ones are redish color. The new ones are metal. I no you may not want to, but if you know somebody, or you may have to go to the dealer, but you can look at the Alarm Triggers on IDS(jaguar/ford diagnosis equipment). The Alarm triggers will tell you the last door,trunk,hood adjar etc..that may have set the alarm off, even if you haven't set off your alarm, somebody had to of before you own it. That's what I would look for. The most common things on those are trunk latches, but I would check the Alarm triggers.

 

@DavidN - to turn a blind eye to plastic tensioners is Russian Roulette.....for the sake of your engine, get them done asap.
I recently looked at a friends XJR 2001, it had the plastic tensioners and looked in good shape until I removed one, a great big crack on the backside that you don't see until it's out of the engine, and the same on the other side, needless to say we changed them out that day.
If you plan on Autobahn'ing the car, it would make a spectacular detonation at the speeds you go, rather like Vettel's engine failure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_sz1...eature=related

 

Okay, okay,
You all got me convinced...

The more I read about it the more I get uncomfortable running the old tensioners.

As soon as the weather has warmed up a bit I'm gonna change the tensioners for heaven's sake.

But I still plan on keeping all the chains, the guides and the primary tensioners.
I'll just change the secondary tensioners using the "easy" method by lifting the exhaust cams.

@SeanB
Can you verify which of the following cam cover seal sets would be the correct one?
My MY 99 engine has the following engine #: LC9811051131

There are two different sets of cam cover seals:
Set #1 comprises of cam gaskets NCA2515AE & NCA2516AE (red & grey) plus 4 spark plug seals NCA2578BB
Set #2 contains cam gaskets AJ88285 & AJ88400 (black) plus 8 spark plug seals AJ87206

Your help would be highly appreciated!
Thanks!

David

 

Yes, a wise move. My tensioners looked okay after removing the cam covers, but when I got them out they both had splits in the body and one of them came apart in my hands. I tried to attach a photo. The plastic body had a split in it in both cases. I did the easy replace method and just did the tensioners (with new bolts), the gaskets and seals and the spark plugs. Didn't cost much and since I take very good care of my engine, I think I'm good to go now for a long time. Oh yeah, I did the water pump and thermostat also, which wasn't a bad job either. I guess that might be a couple of reasons why I was able to get a beautiful, powerful european saloon car for basically a handful of peanuts.

 

AJ27 (1999MY NA 4.0 onwards) needs the black cam cover seals and individual spark plug seals.

The AJ26 are the red/orange and grey cover seals with the double spark plug seals.

bob gauff