So I thought it would be nice to document the installation process of the smaller supercharger and larger crank pulleys on the 4.2L X150 XKR, I couldn't find anyone who had posted a similar experience in detail.

I bought the Eurotoys crank pulley kit, plus one of the upper pulley tools that they sell.

Let me start off by saying, if you are going to do the upper and lower pulleys, then you really MUST take the opportunity to replace a number of other items at the same time, since you have to disassemble so much of the car to get access to change the pulleys, you should change as much of the consumables in that area at the same time, because it's not a job you ever want to repeat.

The crank pulley kit from Eurotoys includes;

- Crank pulley / harmonic balancer assembly
- New OEM crank pulley bolt
- An oil filter block that has been ground down to clear the bigger crank pulley
- Longer single sided belt from Gates
- Replacement idler pulley (smooth version, as the Gates belt is single sided)

What you should purchase in addition to this;

- Water pump - AJ88912
- Accessory drive belt - C2C37063
- Accessory drive idler pulley - C2C37064
- Accessory drive belt tensioner assembly - C2C36146
- Supercharger drive belt tensioner assembly - C2C37057
- Thermostat assembly - AJ811788
- Damper to crankshalf seal - XR81139
- Front crankshaft oil seal - AJ83698

That's right, change the lot, because you have the opportunity, and believe me you will never want to pull the car apart again to change one of these items on that list down the track, it's a hell of a job...

At the same time I am replacing the stock intercooler pump with the bigger Bosch/AMG 010 version, same like every does, there is a bit of extra work involved in that too...

One special tool you will need is a Harmonic Balancer Puller, I got a generic one and then had to buy some different longer bolts to fit the balancer, being a double-pulley, it's deeper than the average one it seems.

Further to this, there is the upper pulley for the supercharger snout, if you are doing this as well, then you really must buy or rent the puller tool.

First of all, these are not small "takes a couple of hours" jobs, there is a huge amount of disassembly required, way more than on a 4.2L XJR, STR or XF SV8, because of the bonnet opening up from the front, and literally EVERYTHING being in the way.

I spent the afternoon of the first day pulling the nose of the car apart.



And this was as far as I could get on my own from the top, I needed another pair of hands to get the bonnet off. You need to remove the front wheels, front half of the wheel arch liners, the engine undertray, the undertray of the nosecone, then the nosecone itself, headlights, then the radiator cover panel, and after that the bonnet and radiator support panel.

From the bottom, you need to drain the engine oil, drain the coolant, if you’re doing the intercooler pump as well then drain that by removing the rubber hose elbow from the pump to the bottom of the intercooler heat exchanger radiator.

The oil filter block needs to be changed if you go for the bigger crank pulley. This is a job in itself to remove. There are two lines which run to/from the engine oil coolers in the nose of the car, these are held in with single bolts and o-ringed fittings. Then there are three bolts that hold the oil filter block onto the engine, when you crack those three oil will come out be ready to catch it!

You also need to unplug the oil filter switch.

Getting the block out requires a bit of twisting and turning, and of course one bolt is blocked by the crossmember, after a bit of fiddling it does eventually come out, and you can finally see the crank pulley from below;





That’s about as much as you can do from below.

With the bonnet off it was amazing how much better the access was to the front of the engine. Getting the radiator fan assembly out required disconnecting some wiring which is clipped on to the right front air filter box, so that had to come out as well.

With the fan assembly out you have much better access to the drive belts, I cannot see how you could change the belts without pulling out the fan.



vs.



From there it was possible to remove the supercharger belt tensioner, and the accessory drive belt tensioner. But the idler pulleys are still blocked by the steel EGR tubing… it’s not possible to remove just the supercharger idler pulley, as the EGR tubing blocks you from getting it out. That pulley is on a bracket which has three bolts, you can get two of them out but the third is blocked by the pulley itself, which you cannot directly remove. The accessory drive idler pulley comes off OK, but you cannot turn the bracket for the supercharger idler while it still has that last bolt in it loose, because it hits the crank pulley.

Eventually everything is off;






So for re-assembly, the order is; supercharger belt idler pulley onto the bracket with 1 bolt in the bracket, put that on the engine, and then mount the crank pulley.

To get the puller tool on the supercharger pulley you need to remove the thermostat housing and water crossover manifold, there’s a couple of hidden hoses attached to this. Again once you crack the bolts coolant will run everywhere, it’s held up in this housing and never fully drains.

At this time I also pulled out the water pump, again coolant will come out everywhere, this car is going to stink for a while…

Puller tool on the supercharger pulley.



It's actually a pretty good tool in the end, if only it was a bit shorter... it's funny you really have to lean on it, nothing seems to be happening it's just getting tighter and tighter then POP! and then it just comes off easily.



New pulley goes on with the same tool.



And that’s where I’m up to for now



Waiting for the new water pump to arrive. From here on it’s a matter of “reverse the procedure” anyhow.

So while fitting the pulley’s themselves is a relatively quick task, disassembling everything to get access to them takes a lot of effort. I’d expect a shop to charge you for at least 20 hours labour on this, if not more… so changing out as much as you can while you’re in there in preventatively should save you some trouble in the long run.

The supercharger drive belt is scheduled at 160’000kms / 100’000miles, the main drive belt is much later like 240’000kms or so, but I have heard of water pumps and the bearings in the pulleys going much earlier than that.

 

Great writeup! Thanks for convincing me to not try doing this myself.

 

Wow! It must be much simpler on the 5.0 cars, right?

 

Without a 5.0L here to look at I cannot say for sure.

But looking at pictures of the engine bay of a 5.0L XKR it would appear that the radiator support is blocking access to the supercharger pulley in a similar way. You can remove just that support without removing the bonnet actually, but the bonnet would still block you from getting the radiator fan out.

The 5.0L crank pulley is a different design in that you don't have to remove the complete harmonic balancer assembly, it's just the pulley itself which unbolts from the balancer, you swap it over.

But I have a feeling that access to the crank pulley will have similar issues from below on a 5.0L XKR.

Seems that the access on the F-Type is much better than the XKR...

You should probably ask Eurotoys or VelocityAP about how it goes on a 5.0L XKR...

 

Great write up!
I'm glad I have the N/A 4.2 or else I would have been eager to go you're route but it's a big task so happy just reading about it!:-D

 

...Or keep an eye on my thread in the coming month or so. The upper pulley gets partially cut and then pulled off with a three jaw puller; there's room for it without taking anything else off. The lower pulley unbolts like you said, but I suspect that access will be easier from underneath. The kit came with a new tensioner pulley, but you have to remove the original to get the belt off anyway.

The pulley side of it on the five liters is much less involved than what you have going on there, even disregarding the "while you're in there" parts you're doing. However, the heat exchanger swap will be much the same.

 

I never take off the bonnet, just put it into the service position (4.2, or 5.0). I take out that XKR upper radiator support bar (about 10 minutes) and do not touch the cooling fans on either. I would only take off the front bumper for a 4.2 intercooler radiator, would not for a 5.0L.


Make sure you install the split cone washer and torque the lower crank bolt with a torque wrench. I have had many people either forget to put that washer in, or not torque. I usually blow out the crank bolt threads to remove the old lock-tite dust.


Mike

 

Good times. Probably ought to do the T stat as well since the coolant is drained. Mine crapped out shortly after doing the water pump.

Also I was able to remove the front brace and leave the bonnet in place. Felt it was easier versus fight the bonnet alignment going back together.

Kind of crazy that they just French locked the up sized pulley onto a stock balancer.

Oh yeah, with the ground oil filter mount, is it for clearance or to be able to replace the belt later?

 

There was an S type R thread a while ago where a member picked up a car cheap that had the crank pulley slip. Fastener torque was some unGodly high number.

 

No need to remove XKR/XKR-S bumper for the heat exchanger on a 5.0.

 

Sometimes what you have to remove can be a matter of hand size.

For working on cars, it is one of those cases of smaller is better.

 

Most of those parts are larger than my big hands. The top brace has to come off to work on the front dress. It's pretty much impossible to get the spring clamps off the hoses with it in the way. Ain't doing that work with your little fingertips.

 

Well it's all back together, almost, just need Steve_K to stop by to help me put the bonnet back on.



You probably could do the pulleys without removing the nosecone but since I changed the intercooler pump as well it had to come off anyway.

It's obvious now why the oil filter block has to be modified.



Just barely enough gap to get the belts through.

The upper pulley on its own could be done with just removing the radiator support beam (or whatever it's called) and the thermostat housing, but no way I'd want to do the water pump and the tensioners, idlers and crank pulley with the bonnet and fans still in place.



Mike if you can do it all with the bonnet and fan still in place you've got infinitely more patience than me and i'd guess 5ft long arms with three elbows and double-jointed wrists too.

EDIT

Oh and for the crank front seal, I could use the U part of the supercharger pulley tool along with the old crank bolt to press it in, sorry forgot to get a picture!

 

Nicely done!

I'm eagerly waiting for you to take it to the track to see how the performance compares to your previous 12.64 @ 113.97.

 

Nice to see the car back together. It's definitely a pain to work on them over the fender, but I make it work. Looks like you have a nice shop Cambo.








Mike

 

Did you manage to take the XKR back to the track after the pulley changes Cambo? Quite interested in seeing how the impact on these later 4.2 engines with VVT/ better intake is compared to on the older set up where it actually decreased trap speeds by using a 3lb pulley.

 

Not long after I got everything back together the supercharger belt developed a nasty screech, which I believe I've pinned down to the supercharger idler pulley. The belt is walking a little on the smooth surface of the pulley, whereas the OEM pulley is ribbed and flanged to keep the belt in line.

Have been in close contact with Mike @ Eurotoys and i'm just waiting on delivery of a different design of idler pulley which should hopefully fix the noise problem, and then I can get on with getting on with it. It's a pain in the ****, but that's cars for you...

 

Oh sorry to hear that, but as you say fixing bugs is part and parcel of tuning. Sounds like a ribbed and flanged pulley will definitely help there then, especially now the SC speed is higher. Looking forward to seeing your car sorted soon and with more power hopefully. Would be pretty amazing if a Eaton powered 4.2 car did 115mph, which I'm sure you'll see soon.

 

Nice work and great write-up.

My original cooler pump failed last year so I swapped it out. Can't understand how the workshop manual doesn't tell you to take the nose cone off, they must just have forgotten that step.