i have the 4.0 supercharge engine which has done a head gasket and after several people promising to repair it and one wanting to buy it i have been let down by everyone!

So i am now thinking about repairing it myself. I am not a mechanic but pretty handy with the spanners and have built a fair few old aircooled vw motors. I know this is a lot more involved but am more than happy to have a blast at it.

So do you have any tips or tricks or pics for me to get started. I am hoping to do it with the engine in situ and just trying to get a bit of first hand help to get me going, so just looking for what is necessary to come off if you would be able to help at all.

I have done a lot of searching and have got hold of the engine repair course booklet from here and also the XK cylinder head LH booklet too, so thats good reference to get stuck into.

thanks to all.

 

Look up my headgasket tread

 

Well, I bit the bullet today and had the car recovered to my workshop to start the strip down. After a lot of tea drinking and reading on here I got stuck in. I have got as far as removing supercharger, charge coolers, throttle body, thermostat housing and all top radiator hoses, fan assenly and both drive belts.
Will do some more tomorrow, but so far so good, nothing has broken and it all seems to have come apart relatively easily. I have photographs of everything and written down everything I have done in sequence so far.



How it looked at the start.





How it looks now!

 

I have been reading through your great thread thanks, that's what has given me the incentive to do it myself and just get stuck in, it's only nuts & bolts after all!

 

Hi again, so I have stripped off some more today. I have just ordered my harmonic balancer puller kit to get the crankshaft pulley off which should be here tomorrow.

I have removed the camshaft covers and can see the top tensioners. They look in good condition, but with the different types available can anyone tell me which series of tensioner these are please?

 

Those are the Second Generation Tensioners so you will need to get the metal body ones when you go back together.

bob gauff

 

Thats a quick service, cheers Bob. I love this helpful forum, so much knowledge :-)

is this the type i need:

JAGUAR XK8 S-TYPE XJ8 V8 TIMING CHAIN TOP TENSIONERS LEFT RIGHT C2A1511 C2A1512 | eBay

 

Hi,

Yes, these are the right tensioners. Ask the seller, whether the bolts are included or not, since the bolts for the metal tensioners are shorter. Otherwise you will probably ruin the thread.

Some sources mention to put some loctite on them, as you tighten them. Even though the Jaguar repair manual doesn't provide any info to do it. Same for the cam cap bolts. As you breake them loose, you'll feel and smell that they're loctited.

Cheers, Alexander

 

Go to rockauto dot com and order a kit # TK4162. You get both upper and lower tensioners, both new chains, all guides and you get new bolts with it too. You will not find it cheaper. I've done my homework.

For the balancer I used a normal autozone style puller.
Dorman/OE Solutions harmonic balancer puller 594-999 - Read Reviews on Dorman #594-999
Not the same one but just like that. It fit perfectly inside the balancer. The hard part is stopping the engine from spinning which you can do by using a prybar on one of the torqe converter bolts through the inspection window. Factory manual specifically says not to use the timing blocking peg tool. Get ready for a fight as 3 times I did the harmonic removal th bolt put up a pretty good fight. One more tip would be to have metric tap so you can chase the threads in the balancer. They will be corroded and the last thing you want is to cross thread the puller bolts into the balancer as it's hard to see into it ( I used a mirror). Also watch how deep you screw them in so you don't damage the timing cover.

If you haven't already order this kit so you can set timing and loosen the cam bolts, you really cannot go wrong with the price and it's a solid toolkit.
Jaguar Land Rover Range Rover V8 Timing Tool Kit V8 | eBay

 

Hi Adam, that's some great info thanks mate, and that kit is excellently priced, will deffo get one of those and the cam chain tool set is £100 cheaper than I have found online so massive thanks for that.

 

Rockauto also has aome decent pricing on MLS headgasket kits and coolant hoses. I ended up getting MLS gaskets from ebay and a euroaspare complete kit. (I will just use MLS gaskets and sell the other). I would've went with rockauto but they were out of stock and I didn't want to wait.

 

Be aware that the Timing Chains/Tensioners for the 3.9 LS/Thunderbird are the same BUT the MLS head gaskets ARE NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jaguar Head Gaskets are required for replacement on the 4.0 engines.

I have a set of FelPro LS 3.9 gaskets if anyone needs them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just Sayin'

bob

 

Good to see that you have dugg in the v8. Good luck with the project.
I've made the tool to pull the harmaonic damper myself. Its a very simple puller to make if you have some tools to make that soort of stuff.

Cheers

 

Cheers for all of the replies and tips guys, very kind of you. What would you suggest is the best method of locking the crankshaft so I can undo the bolt, I don't have the correct tool to do this so would be improvising. Is it going to be sticking something through the inspection hatch of the gearbox to lock it as suggested and if so where is the said inspection hatch! Do I need to Jack the car up to get at it?

I have already ordered the head gasket set and new tensioners etc, just standard ones for the jaguar 4.0 so they should go straight on I'm guessing.

Removed some more yesterday, got the fuel rails undone and removed and also took the waterpump off to check it as it was supposedly replaced recently and sure enough it is date stamped for 2014 and it appears all good with the plastic blades all intact etc. Can't do much more now until I get the crank pulley off.

Also noticed with the charge coolers removed that the O/S head is full of water around the valves that I can see, the N/S appears fine. I have turned the engine over by hand on the crank pulley and it sounds like water pouring down a drain coming from the O/S head!

Here it is now:

 

I would suggest getting the correct tool which connects to the inner hub of the two part front damper and allows you to "reach" througt it to get to the bolt.

 

Thanks for that, I have seen those online at £60, was hoping not to spend that as it would be a one time use tool I bet. But in sure it would be the most straight forward to use so guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and add it to the list of parts.

Cheers mate.

 

This is the part I have found:

http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/111821210116

 

You need to jack up the car to get to the sensor by the bellhousing. The inspection window is right next to it. Just put a prybar up agains one of the bolts on the flywheel/torque converter.

 

cheers again, thats probably what i shall end up doing as any saving i can make on tools means i can buy a shiney new bit for the engine:-)

Can i also just ask, did you set the engine to TDC before removing the chains and is it essential to do so? What is the best method of removing the said chains? Im sure it will become clear once i have the cover off, but at the minute i am curious as to how to proceed with doing this bit as this is the only part of the engine that scares me!! got this bit wrong and all my hard work would have been for nothing!

 

VW, do you have a good 1/2" drive air impact gun and a thick wall 24mm socket? If so, you don't need to lock anything down prior to breaking the balancer nut free. Be warned that if you don't, you need to have a stout breaker bar, a long pipe or full size jack handle and a chain wrench. That bolt has factory thread sealer and it is SAE threads going into a metric threaded hole.

Two more things:
First, I'd advise you to replace the coolant hoses laying on top of the intake along with the plastic 3 way tee fitting on the side where the expansion tank is. They are prone to failure and I'm sure you don't want to pull the S/C back off to replace them.

Second, you don't worry about having #1 on TDC. It's the 'flats' of all 4 camshafts being level with each other on both sides. Remove the crank sensor and black rubber piece. With a small mirror, there should be a window straight down the crank sensor hole that's slightly different from most of the other windows. That particular window straight down the hole and the 4 flats lined up is your timing marks.