Thanks. I will contact him on Monday.

 

Just got some more info from the PO. Here is a part of what he emailed me
"In any case, I know very little about oil pumps and engines and, to be honest, I did not inquire in much depth as to the exact problem at the end. Terry merely informed me that the car could not be saved without replacing the engine I did ask Terry what happened in general terms and I cannot say for sure but I think he explained, in general terms, that the oil pump failed...if this makes any sense. My experience was that the red oil indicator light kept flashing and I did not understand why since I had just had the car serviced with an oil change. Then one morning, driving to work, the engine suddenly began to overheat, the car started shaking violently, smoke billowed out from under the hood and I had just enough power to get the car into a Walmart parking lot a few blocks from where I work".
I have never heard of anyone on any of the Jaguar forums complain about Oil Pump failure. From what I understand they are robust and the O-rings can get hard. I got the car and it had very little oil in the engine, a 1/4 inch on the dipstick. Is it possible that they forgot to put oil back in the engine. If so, the engine bearings and crankshaft are damaged. As stated above he said "THE ENGINE SUDDENLY STARTED TO OVERHEAT, THE CAR STARTED TO SHAKE VIOLENTLY, SMOKE BILLOWED OUT FROM UNDER THE HOOD.
Your thoughts?

 

Yesterday, I put some oil in the engine and cranked it up to see what was going on. I does seem that the oil pump is shot. I hear a slapping noise from the area where the oil pump is located.
I believe it is driven by the crankshaft at the front of the engine. I removed the oil sending unit and not even a weep of oil is getting there. I removed all the spark plugs to get maximum cranking RPM. Because of the noise, I figure something is going on with the engine block. The spare engine I have turns over smoothly so I am going to start tagging and removing the electrical harness from the engine bay and pull the engine out together with the trans. Prior to pulling the engine and trans, I plan to undo the torque converter bolts while I am under there disconnecting all the things I need to disconnect to pull the engine out. As stated in an earlier post, I am going to remove the cylinder heads from the engine in the car and put them on the spare engine. However, If the car had no oil pressure, I am concerned that the camshafts and journals may be damaged. So since the spare engine has good camshafts, my plan is the swap the TAPPET BLOCKS and camshafts as a unit on to the cylinder heads I am going to use. What issues may I run into doing that with the exception of valve clearance?
Any advice is welcome.

 

You named it, clearances will change. I’ve done exactly that several times.
The one thing I’d recommend highly is do a 3 angle valve job on the seats and valves. For some reason the HE engine responds nicely to that. I think it has to do with the stalling of the air flow past the seats due to the shape of the combustion chamber. I have no proof of that but the added cost of a 3 angle over a single angle is relatively trivial.
One other thing I’d suggest. Moss Motirs has a box of shims in each size. Nothing odd more frustrating than to weight for a shipment of the correct sizes needed. And you wind up paying for overnight shipment

 

Sanchez
If the spare engine turns over nicely, why not just drop that in? These V12s are very hard to break.

 

@ Greg: I wish it were that easy. The spare engine has a dropped valve seat according to the PO. That is why I am pulling the heads.
BTW: Jack Weston responded to my email. He has the head gaskets but he has to source the other gaskets and he said that would be about 10 days out.