A couple weeks ago my 1999 XK8 sprung a leak in one of the Valley hoses. I ordered all the parts associated with removing the manifold / throttle body as researched on the forum.

A week ago completed swapping the valley hoses. One of them had an abraded area where the hose was rubbing on the intake manifold and formed a weak spot that caused the failure. The job went as expected and documented by other posters. (Its a wonderful job everyone should do once.)

After getting the car running without vacuum leaks or error codes, drove the car around for a while. Noticed that coolant was flowing onto the exhaust manifold. Closer inspection revealed that the Norco fitting/hose was leaking. Appeared that replacing the valley hose broke the seal on the Norco fitting. (Crap!)
Ordered a new Octopus line...
Just finished replacing the Octopus hose. Straight forward job, but a knuckle buster and PITA as experienced by others.
After putting things back together, Had a couple error codes. Spent another hour researching the codes and figuring out where Vacuum leak was.

All is well now. The joys of owning a 20 year old Jaguar.

 

The joys indeed.
2 years of flawless operation for the Xk8
Then in the space of 2 months
- fuel pump goes bad, resulting in the 'way too much fun' adventure releasing the fuel lines to pull the tank
- thermostat housing springs a leak, replace with aluminum one
- right hand norco on octopus starts leaking onto cat, nearly choking occupants on the sweet smell of vaporising dexcool - quick chop and rubber pipe fix
- then upper hose on throttle body leaks - replace
- then intermittent misfires - chasing bad coil for a while
- then left hand norco starts leaking
- biting the bullet and putting in a new octopus hose next weekend
Hoping that will put me in credit for at least another year....or maybe I should just replace every piece of rubber and cooked plastic in the whole thing as preventative maintenance.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

The biggest challenges for me removing the old octopus hose.
1. Getting the passenger side Norco fitting off the metal flange.
2. Cutting/breaking the tie wrap that holds the 2 crossover lines behind the electrical bulkhead. (There was no room for my hands to hold a pair of cutters that would reach the tie wrap, and couldn't position an Exacto knife to be able to cut it that way. Ended up using a small file I have with a 180 hooked end. I was able to put the hook on the tie wrap and pull it and it cut through the tie wrap.) .
3, I removed the big electrical harness harness so I could have room to push the new hose assembly down and around the electrical bulkhead assembly/bracket.

I hope you are enjoying the anticipation of swapping out the hose assembly. Such a wonderful experience, bent over the fender trying to fit your hand down into the small areas above the transmission housing with a pair of retaining clip pliers, all while trying to keep the vacuum tubes and electrical harnesses out of the way.....

 

Kudos to both of you. I have long dreaded this job. With my monster-sized hands, I have no chance of being able to do it by myself....

 

I just replaced my "norma connector" on the RH end of the octopus hose. I found some posts about where folks had replaced the connector with 3/4" heater hose, a hose connector and some clamps. I was going to replace the octopus hose, but I found it was only seeping from the connector. I know it's not going to last forever, but it seemed like a good idea at the time ! I couldn't find any way to get that connector off except to pry the little prongs up and break them off with a little screwdriver, but it wasn't very tight on the pipe from the valley hose.