A few weeks ago, I noticed that my left front shock was leaking oil. Quite badly too. Now I have the electronically controlled dampers. SNG Barrrett here in the Netherlands quotes Euro 500 plus shipping cost for a replacement. Luckily I managed to source a decent second hand one, from somebody I trust. My XJR has done about 175.000 miles. And I know the front right one was replaced when I bought the car, whilst still living in Kansas City, in September 2009.





That job was carried out by Jaguar Ashville, NC, at the time. (August 2009) I have checked the invoice and it showed $ 424,80 excluding VAT and labour. So the good news is that 13 years later this part is still roughly the same price. A totally and utterly ridiculous price, but still.

So I swapped out the old for the second hand shock. However, when I was doing so, I noticed that the Gaiter was badly torn. So I had to order those from SNG. Also, I noticed a lot of “rubber” dust around the rubbers inside the mounting plate. Seems the rubbers had perished, or at least on their way out.

When I lowered my car on the jack, I also noticed that the washer at the very top moved some 6-7mm upwards. So it looked like the mounting needed replacing too. If you think the price of the shock is ridiculous, wait till you look up the price for these shock mounts: Euro 400, excluding shipping!! That is just plain ridiculous. But even at that ridiculous price they are not to be had. Sold out, out of stock, nobody knows if and when new stock would arrive.

These mounting plates come in four versions. LH/RH and also SC/NA. I needed a pair (left/right) LH SC. In the end all I could find was a Meyle aftermarket LH NA. I spoke to several people and checked a few things. The only difference between the SC and the NA version appears that the hole inside the bushing that accommodate the shock is larger. That I can fix myself.

All in all a pretty straightforward job. So this (Saturday) morning I got all ready to tackle this job





First thing undo the plug on top of the damper. Squeeze gently and pry it away. Note the perished rubber and debris.




I lifted the car with a jack, removed the wheel. Put another jack underneath the shock and pushed it upwards, so it is not hanging from the retainer nut. Next put an Allen key inside the retainer nut and remove the nut. If you fail to use the Allen key you might damage the internal wiring of the shock. At least that is my understanding. Better safe than sorry.




Next, I lowered the jack underneath the shock. The top (thread) of the shock disappears into the bushing inside the mount.
The mounting plate is held in place with five small bolts. Once you undo them you can remove the mounting place. On the left side I had to loosed the power steering reservoir a bit to get at one of the little bolts. You might want to remove the shock altogether. Easy peasy, just undo the flanged head bolt at the bottom. You can retrieve the shock completely and have better acces for mounting the gaitor etc.

Here you can also see the “perished” rubber




Next I drilled out the bushings on the new mounts. I have recently bought a nice mini mill. Comes in very handy!!




These bushing appears to be made out of aluminium, so very easy to drill through. I had to open up the existing 10mm hole, to 12mm. *** big deal.

Here is another interesting detail of the gaitor and spring assister. (Not sure why the call it a spring assister?). Anyway, this assembly just gets pushed up against the top mounting plate underneath. Nothing holds it in place other then friction it seems?




I spend most of my time on one bolt/nut of the shock mounting plate. The nuts are welded to the chassis inside the wheel well. Jaguar screwed up on one. It was not alligned with the hole in the wheel well. Was tricky to get the bolt out.




So I had to take my little Dremel drill to it. Also ran a tap through it for good measure.




Bolted everything back together. When I lowered the car this time nothing moved, so a big improvement over the sloppiness I experienced with the old mounts.

I ended up replacing both left and right hand side. Took the car for a quick spin. In all honesty, I did not feel anything different from before. But I’m pretty sure, if I had left these mounts any longer, they would have started to make a clonking noise soon.

Jeroen

 

Thanks for the write up and photos Jeroen. I’ve done the job on my 2001 na VdP but it doesn’t have the adaptive dampers. I like your garage setup also!

 

Thanks John,
It is a very straight forward job. I was quite surprised to see that the mounts are held in place with only these 5 tiny bolts! You would think a shock needs some proper securing, but apparently this works!

Jeroen

 

fun job for sure