Did a secondary timing tensioners swap from plastic to aluminum upgraded tensioners today.

This was MUCH easier than I expected. I'm posting this video to show how laughably easy this is. Reading about it on this board and internet was much scarier than actually doing it. We did not need to drain the radiator, or remove the hood, or anything like that. Just removed the intake tube and valve covers and fans, nothing else. You do not have to remove the fans, but it gives a little more precious space to work with. I found it worth removing the fans. Your results may vary.

Removing the radiator fans allowed easy access to get a ratchet on the lower crank pulley to turn the engine over so none of the cam lobes were pushing on anything, so there was no stress on the cam when we lifted it up and put it back down. It is important to un torque and re torque the cam cap bolts evenly 1/4 turn at a time. This was a surprisingly easy procedure.

The video is of the hardest/scariest part of lifting the cam to slip out the old and slip in the new tensioner. It was really, really easy. If anyone in the SF bay area would like help doing theirs, I would be happy to help.

This was done on a Super Charged engine, but is the same for the XJ8, XJR, XKR, and SuperV8s 1998-2002.

Here is the video

We did pre oil/fill the tensioners and used 2 zip ties to secure the chain to the sprocket for cheap insurance.

 

Did another set of tensioners yesterday on my NEW 2000 black pearl over Ivory xjr and my buddy Buck discovered a good tip.

When you rotate the cams to relieve any stress/pushing on the lifters, if you are in the correct position, you can reach in with your finger and spin each lifter to confirm no pressure is being applied to them from the cam lobes, then you know you can safely remove the cam caps.