Hi,
First time I've posted anything on line but thought I would share my 'FIX ' regarding my 1997 XK8..I really love the car but it has sat on my drive for months as it would constantly go into 'gearbox fault 'mode nearly every time I moved the shifter........ I have adjusted the shift cable several times and cleaned the micro switches but to no avail.....
If ignition was turned off and then on again,it would temporay clear the fault,so it occured to me that maybe if the Transmission Control Module could be interupted,it may have the desired effect !!!!
I simply removed fuse 1 ( 10 amp ) left hand side engine bay and ran some two core cable (with in line 10amp fuse ) to inside the centre console...Here,I fitted a push button switch (normally closed/open when pressed)
RESULT !!!!!!! It resets the fault without having to keep turnig the engine off and no longer get that sinking feeling eveytime the little orange light comes on !!!
I know this is probably only a temporary fix and dont recommend doing it without first checking with your Jaguar garage !!
Hope you found this interesting..........Rich

 

Welcome to the fourum..
A true bodge in Pistnbroke style.
Why not fit a timer relay ...Contacts close after say 3 seconds and re set your tranny.
Please put your location in the information top right so we know if you are £ or $ deg C or F . Do not go near a Jaguar Garage or you will not longer be Rich and with a car of that age they wont touch it anyway. DIY all the way

 

Welcome to the forum, Dragstar.
This is quite interesting in that I had a similar problem 10 years ago. Although I have commented from time to time, this is my reccommendation in a nutshell.
My culprit was very near that FUSE #1 ( 10 amp ) left hand side engine bay by being a poor electrical connection on the bottom side of that fusebox.
For the price of some contact cleaner, I would go ahead and pull and clean all the fuse blades/ connections, but more importantly, on the bottom side, CAREFULLY disconnect and clean those bottom connectors. I have not had this problem since. Good luck.

 

Because I have a similar problem, I'm going to follow Dr. D's advice and try cleaning Fuse #1.

And forgive me for discussing non XK8 matters, but the concept of bodging in a relay to reset a trouble light reminds me of a story I just heard.

It seems a US military pilot was practicing night landings in a then new V22 Osprey. That's the propeller plane that takes off and lands like a helicopter.
Anyway, as he was landing, a big orange trouble light appeared on his instrument panel.
As it was a supposedly non-critical light, but highly distracting, he simply hit the lighted button to extinguish the light.
Of course the light reappeared in intervals of a few seconds, but the pilot, not wishing to be distracted, hit the button every time it lit up.
What the pilot didn't know, was that every time he reset the button, the aircraft would lose several feet of altitude by design.
This story does not have a happy ending.

Though I am the worst person in the world to be telling this story, because I drive my '97 XK8 with the dash lit up like a Christmas tree, the warning is still relevant. Don't ignore your trouble lights, as least not for too long.

 

.... Especially when you happen to be flying one of the most dangerous aircraft in U.S. military history....

 

TG
Understand that in my case. the culprit was the corresponding connector / #10 fuse pin on the underside of that fuse box.That intermittent poor connection was robbing the TCM of getting full 12volt B+. (To my embarrassment, I had first front probed instead of back probing the voltage at the TCM thus a false and labor consuming 12v reading-You tube has many vids on back probing)
Eventually, that connection robbed enough voltage from the TCM to become permanent. Of course, any poor connection along that circuit could produce the same results.

 

The Osprey has had its share of prominent fatal crashes, but as military aircraft go, it's not terribly unsafe. Flying military aircraft is not a relatively safe occupation. Apparently you can slice up the accident data a number of ways. I won't attempt it.

I may have misinterpreted the military safety briefing I watched on YouTube (I'm not a military man or pilot, but like machinery), but it's my understanding the V-22 can't auto rotate (float down safely to the ground) when its engines fail. One of the problems early on, was that the pilots could drive the things down to the ground way faster than the engineers specified. Problem was, it couldn't stop in the event something went wrong...And some things went wrong. It's still a bunch more capable than a helicopter, even with the pilots flying it as the engineers designed it.

The aircraft can bring 24 marines to battle five times as far and twice as fast as the CH 46 Sea Knight it replaced.

...And back to Jaguars.