My stepson is visiting from Houston this weekend and I put him right to work! He helped me knock out installing the head on the block.





Brand new cylinder head bolts. Remember, there are 4 different sizes! That's the shop furman in the foreground.





The 4 different sizes





Block is ready to go!





Picture within one of the cylinder bores - brand new pistons





Cylinder head gasket installed. Remember, top side up!





Ensure the timing mark points to 0 when cylinder #1 is at top dead center. Your last chance to adjust the timing mark





I bathed the studs in anti seize paste. I have done that in 1998 when I had the same head off from the car. When I took the head off 17 years later with 100K+ since, the head just came out like a breeze. And the studs where still coated with the original anti-seize!!





Head studs installed and ready to go.





Head is prepped for installation





I will be using a Harbor Freight gantry crane since it is sitting in the shop





The gantry crane made this job soooo easy!!!





Ease it down





There we go!





Since I replaced the timing chains, the sprocket holes were aout of alignment and had to be adjusted to mate to the camshaft. Note the special tools on both the camshaft to keep them in the correct position with respect to the crankshaft





There nothing more critical than properly torquing a cylinder head. Multiple passes in the correct sequence. And I do not trust just any torque wrench. I use SnapOn for this job (not the Harbor Freight version)








Voila!

 

 

There are 6 freeze plugs on the cylinder head. Three on the top and three on the exhaust side. They are fairly easy to remove and replace. Use a flat screw drive to tap one side of the freeze plug and then use pliers to get them out.

To install the new ones, start them with a small hammer and then finish them off by putting a socket of the right size over the plug and hammer it in.

 

Putting a new engine together with rusty headers its just not right. At the same time I do not want to spend hardly any money to get them looking better. Solution is: High heat paint. You do have to cook your parts in order for this paint to take. It so happens that I do have an outdoor gas oven that the wife does not use any more so that is what I used to get the heat cycles going for this. It worked out great!







Right after sandblading them in my cabinet








After priming (2 - 3 coats)





After painting (2 - 3) coats





Painted and cooked!

 

Water rail and fuel injector rail installed. The injectors have been serviced by SD Faircloth

 

In the beginning of this thread I mentioned that I wanted to upgrade the transmission to something other than the BW66 that came with the car. Well, i had a year to think about it and decided to stick with what I have. It works and using it will save me money that I won't need to spend.

I drained the fluid and plugged all orifices with rubber plugs and had no issues with water ingress

I did clean the ***t out of it, primed it and painted it. It looks *awesome*.







Dirty





This is a homemade tool that I concocted to keep the converter inside the tranny housing.





In a dirty BW66 goes to the parts cleaner





Out a spiffy, cleaned up BW66 comes out





Two coats of self etching primer





Two coats of high gloss engine enamel

 

WOW @ transmission transformation!! (All the rest is Very nice too, but didn't have as far to come.)

What's your magic cleaning fluid? Zep again? What mix?

By the way, no sane mechanic has a shop that clean.
(';')

 

Elinor:


Sane mechanic is a non-sequitur!!!
Agree, that shop could qualify as a
"clean room".


Lagonia:


Quality work. I did not realize the intake plenum had runners that long between it and the engine. Interesting...


As to torque wrenches, my son a talented and experienced machinist, definitely prefers the simple bar and pointer ones. Hs point is that the racheting ones use a bar to measure deflection and that transferring it to a rachet, merely adds room for error. I've both kinds.


Oh, and if one prefers the "complex ones, two things are needed.
1. Zero it out after use. O'wise, the "bar' can take a set resulting in false readings.


2. It must be calibrated from time to time.


And:


A. Their use in some things is far more critical than others.
B. Wet and dry readings differ.
C: All must rely on clean male and female threads.
D. Factory manuals have tables as to fastener size.
E. A "pro" tech has a calibrated fore arm and upper arm!!
It just feels "right".


Extra;


I do remove the lug nuts from my cars an impact wrench. I install them with a torque wrench


I use anti seize a lot. Son and I disagree on it's use on lug nuts.


Carl

 

I used my aqueous spray wash cabinet - high pressure, heated water with AlumaKleen spray wash detergent - for 1.5 hours. Anything you throw at it it will clean it.

 

I have been doing some work the last couple of weeks. I mated the transmission with the engine and moved the combo to my engine test stand. I have been slowly but methodically hooking up coolant hoses, electrical etc, etc. My plan is to start and run the engine on the test stand.

I have obtained a body harness and engine / fuel injector harness from ebay as well as a spare ECU. My intent is to hook all that up and see if I can get her running. I do have a picoscope setup in case I need to do some troubleshooting...

Now the spare harnesses and the ECU I got are federal spec but the engine came out of a Sovereign which was gray market import car from Belgium. I do not know what exactly was done to those cars to make them legal in the US so I have this variable to content with....

All the harnesses, the ones in the car and the spare ones I got, just suck. They just suck. I would not mind spending some money and getting some new ones if those can be had.

I am probably a couple of weeks away from starting the engine but when it does (if it does) and if does run and stays running, I will post a video. If anyone has done this and has any tips/suggestions, I am all ears!!!

For now enjoy these pics:

 

Major bummer. After filling the radiator with coolant I noticed seeping coolant from the head gasket between the block and the head. That is without putting any pressure on the cooling system. I loosened and re-torqued the head but that did not help. Next step is to drain coolant and remove head nuts and to see what is going on with the studs. If I do not find anything obvious, I will probably mothball this project and try to clear the queue on other projects that I have stacked. What a DOA.

I won't be far from Jaguars. Just in a different forum. My '04 XJR needs timing cover gasket replacement and a pair of front air shocks. Now, this car, even for a DIYer is quite expensive to keep on the road.

 

What a Bummer, and how disheartening.
Did I mention, Bummer!!
(';')

 

Oh dear...dear...here's hoping you find a way to go forward with this as this as a good thread.......best of luck!

 

You should NEVER run coolant in a motor with a new headgasket, until it has been heat cycled and the gasket has set, reason behind this is that coolant can seep through and cause this exact issue, I wouldn't have it would be this bad, maybe you've done something wrong, that or it needs a heat cycle and retorque to seat the gasket

 

Well, with my experience, I really can not challenge Stoney.


I've fired them dry and fired them wet. No head gasket issues.
but, never an XK!!!


On at least some critters, a cam run in of several minutes at 2K
RPM or so with the right oil is vital, so I hear.


How can one run an engine dry for any time and not score stuff
from heat !!!


Carl

 

Don't loosen head bolts to retorque. Bolts stretch just so much. Run til warm and torque. Loosening can unseal head gasket. As Stoney and Carl point out obvious factors, just retorque to specs. Might have torque wrench recalibrated.

 

My first attempt was re-torque and that did not work

Second attempt is essentially getting all the studs out, re-inserting them and torquing to spec. That did not work.

I have done a number of cylinder head gaskets in the past, all successful, including the same XK engine with and without visits to the machine shop but never ran them dry as suggested here. That's something new to me.

The torque wrench is practically brand new! It was bought for this engine rebuild.

I think a tear down and a machine shop visit is inevitable at this point.

 

Hmm..... I took Stoney to mean just water rather than anti-freeze mix, which is quite slick and slippery. I wouldn't even want to guess how long before a bore was scored running it dry.
(';')

 

Great read! Was very interesting seeing the XK Engine in pieces and all the work you've done to it!

Keep it up!

 

Interesting complexities.


I read Stoney's comments opposite from Eleanor.
No coolant, water or mix!!!!


So, is "antifreeze/water" more likely to leak on a fresh
build than just water??? I don't know..


I do recall old adds from Xerex, a glycol product. It
came in gallon "tin: cans then. The demonstrator used
an ancient tool, an ice pick, and punched a hole in the
flat of the can. Green juice squirted out. but, then slowed
to a seep, then closed completely !!!


Real science or just sales pitch ???


Carl