Hi, all, this is my first post,

Well, after years of hunting for a X350, the right one finally popped up and I took possession about 4 weeks ago. Gray '05 with black leather interior. I purchased it with a known, though unidentified, cooling issue of some sort -- it had overheated on the prior owner and there was no apparent external leak. Mileage is approaching 150k miles, but the car spent most of its life in TX. The condition of the subframes, nuts and bolds (b/c the rest of the car is of course mostly aluminum) is great with barely any surface rust.

This is my first Jaguar. While I am familiar with the AJ V8 engine -- last year I brought an overheating 2006 LR3 -- which uses a bored-out AJ V8 -- back to life, there is a lot for me to learn.

So far I have:

1. Confirmed there is a coolant leak -- on a pressure test, the cooling system will lose about 1 psi over 5 minutes. It's not a severe leak, but there's a leak.
2. Changed out the plugs and looked for signs of head gasket failure with an endoscope -- pistons looked fine, and spark plugs were old but fine as well (wow, that cylinder 8 spark plug is not fun....)
3. Added UV dye to the cooling system and... found a slow drip from the back of the engine. This was a Eureka! moment, and I immediately assumed I was dealing with a valley hose failure.
4. Pulled the cooling system apart, removed the crossover pipe, and got about 2/3'rds the way into the excellent "Journey into the Valley" post on replacing the valley hose on the forum.
5. Found my first leak - the rear heating hose at the vary back of the engine is leaking coolant. I thought about replacing that short length of hose, but decided to replace the entire HVAC engine-bay heating pipe / hose assembly. In general I plan on replacing all the coolant and vacuum lines in the engine bay, at least the hard to reach ones, now.

As for my current plans, I want to resolve the cooling issue, replace the supercharger snout with a serviced unit and smaller pulley (I have one ready to be swapped in), add a Mina Gallery intake pipe, and add a water temp and boost gauge (probably in the A pillar, there doesn't seem to be a lot of natural gauge-mounting locations other than the clock and I like the clock). Once I'm happy with that setup.... probably this summer... in will go the Quaife LSD (not yet ordered, and I need to fine a solution to the 1,000 British pound shipping quote I received).

Anyway, this forum has been a great resource and is much appreciated. I'm taking pictures as a go and will post a thread when I'm farther along.
Cheers,
- scooter

 

Welcome to Jaguar Forums Scooter,
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

 

welcome to the forum - enjoy!!!!

 

Hello, Scooter,
Congratulations on your First Jaguar!
It looks like you're already well into the Bonding Period. Good Job on all the repairs you have already successfully finished.
You'll Really enjoy your car when you get it all sorted, and then you can DRIVE THE WHEELS OFF!!

Welcome to the forums from ElinorB.
(';')

 

Welcome aboard Scooter.

 

Welcome to the forums.

 

Welcome to the forums scooter,

Good to have you with us.

If you haven't already found the relevant model forum, follow this link https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-x350-x358-28/ to the X350 forum for help, advice and information. The 'HOW TO' thread at the top is a good place to start for information on regular issues. You can also use the US Northeast Region forum by following this link https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/us-northeast-35/ to find other members in your region.

Please add vehicle details to your Signature to help others to give relevant advice. Go to the User CP button on the left of the top menu bar, then Settings & Options under Your Control Panel. Select Edit Signature and enter the details.

Enjoy the forums.

Graham

 

Welcome to the Forums.

Good luck.

 

Thanks, everyone for the warm welcome. So I spent two hours this weekend wrestling with the supercharger intake elbow which covers and blocks access to the all-important 'back bolt' holding the supercharger to the block. After finally figuring out how to access the bracket bolts on the intake elbow, I removed it to find.... the dreaded back bolt had been left uninstalled by a prior owner!

With the valley hose now revealed, I do believe the leak I've been hunting is the HVAC heater hose leak I found. The valley hose looked swollen but had not ruptured and didn't have any dried coolant on it. Tomorrow I'll replace the supercharger snout and start tracking down part numbers for new vacuum hoses.

I took a ton of pictures including best ways to access the bracket bolts on the intake elbow so I'll post something in the X350 forum area. Cheers,
- scooter