I'm having fun but am I crazy deciding to get a British Racing Green 98 - XK8 as a usable/hobby car.

I read this forum and advice carefully, chose a southern CA car that had been fully serviced, very clean, Tensioners changed at 56,000 miles, a couple of issues, but everything was working.

After getting the car did some work to get the car to a position where I was happy with it. These service items included:

• Front Brakes and Rotors
• Water Pump
• Small leak on Oil Pan
• Wheel Alignment
• New front Pirelli P-Zero's
• Repaired Seats
• Professional re-spray of rear quarter and trunk
• Repair of Rattle on tents in dash

Everything beautiful and running well, or so I thought.


Then after 2 months, I now had the ABS, Electronic Stability Control issue. (also saw the brake light coming on once or twice and speedo malfunction). The garage found the following codes:

• P1637 - ABS Control Module / CAN Failure
• P1642 - CAN Link Circuit Malfunction
• ABS code B1342 - ABS control module failure
• ABS codes C1233 and C1234 - LF and RF speed sensor failures

I have performed the following tasks:

• Checked and Cleaned Wheel Speed Sensors.
• Checked Brake switch.
• Opened ABS system, repaired joints, not as bad as some of the joints i saw on the web but could see they were cracked.

Put everything back together and it worked for three trips and the fault mode has come back again.

So at this time I have purchased a used (they say working) ABS controller and will see if this cures the issue. So if it does or doesn't we will let you know.

At this time, is this fun, I don't know.

Welcome to the forum

welcome to the forum -you will find a wealth of info and support here - enjoy!!

A very warm welcome Nobby. Sounds like you are going in the right direction to getting your car sorted.

With a car of that age, check ground points as well as connectors and keep your battery fully charged, it will help.

+1, a weak battery can also cause ABS faults even though the battery has more than enough power to crank the engine.

Welcome to the forum

Welcome to Jaguar Forums Nobby,

Good to have you with us.
Enjoy the forum.

If you haven't done so already you should add your car details to your signature to help others to help you.
If you need help with getting around and using the forum follow this link for some help Forum Help

Thanks for the advice.

I did check the battery/voltage and its an new interstate battery and has a manufacture date of December 2013. I know the people i purchased the car from had just changed this.

If anybody has any specific grounding points that should be checked, that would be a good PM I could do as well.

The recycled ABS Control Module came yesterday. FYI, I purchased the complete module: controller, manifold and pump from a working vehicle (LNC2210BD). Then just used the control module. (This is the same module for the XJ6, XJ8 and XK8). The reason I purchased the used part was to have a spare in hand and one to sent to a module rebuilder if needed.

As I have done this a few days, I changed this over in around 20mins (took multiple hours the first time) and got no new errors, all lights went straight out. A good start. Brakes seem fine, but will bleed then at the weekend to make sure.

I will have to keep monitoring, but no errors after a 50 mile test drive.

Probably useful to know OBD II Diagnostic Tool I purchases to monitor the car was a Innova 3030f, this worked fine. was able to read the ABS Control module failure codes (P-Codes) and the wheel sensor (C-codes). I was actually surprised as it gave me every code the Jag Garage gave me.

Welcome Nobby
it took me all winter to get mine sorted out. lots of little things go wrong with a 16 year old car, but spent mostly time not money getting her just right. I am pleased to say I haven't had an issue in 8,000 miles. (knock on veneer) yours will get there too,

As an update on my XK8 Project.

The good news is the car is running fine. The stability control module replacement has fixed the issue.

The bad thing is the alternator failed, and as this should be such a easy item to replace I had to write-up how difficult it was to replace.

I posted this at XK8 Alternator Replacement.

I hope this helps anybody who try's this themselves.


The Audio system was pretty nasty so started to see if their was anything I could do and, found out it didn’t have premium sound. To update this I purchased the dash Tweeters from ebay, to discover they were not wired in the center console. You can find multiple threads on Jaguar forums how to re-wire this. Once I added these the sound is a lot better a worthwhile job. If anybody wants to do this.

In addition I Damaged my hood while doing the alternator repair. Which was a bad thing. Luckily I found a company that removed the ding (from the hood falling on the wrench, that was on the serpentine belt tensioner). The guy I found in the san Diego area was fantastic. If anybody has this issue the guy I found was fantastic.

The next jobs are the suspension and new seats.