The two bolts that hold the 'Gear Cable Control' onto the ZF6 speed on the underside of the vehicle decided to come loose.
One completely dropped off and the other was holding onto dear life. Must be a common problem. Not sure why there's no lock washer on these bolts? Probably lack of room.
Was a lot of fun when this occurred and cased the gear selector in the cabin to have no effect on vehicle movement.. And I was blocking a road, luckily a small street and close to my home!
I popped the transmission selector wood trim off and managed to manually shift the gear cable from inside the vehicle with a long screwdriver. As one of the underside bolts was still hanging on to the cable plate underneath, it was able to give me movement to drive and neutral and I was able to then drive the vehicle.
I'm mostly set up for imperial size bolts in my garage but managed to find one only (standard profile head, not flanged head) 10mm head, M6 x 16mm bolt in my kit.
With this bolt, I managed to bolt in and tighten the selector bracket where the factory missing bolt sat. Had to place a machine washer on this bolt as it's not flanged like the factory bolt.
The two flanged factory bolts holding this cable plate/bracket must be both 8mm heads, M6x16mm high tensile. Can't find these anywhere. Jaguar Land Rover Classic has what appears to be the right sketched bolt but the part number is wrong for my X200 S Type R.
The wrong part number listed is C2P11837. A search of this number reveals a torx drive bolt..
I've easily found standard flanged M6x16mm bolts but they're 10mm heads; I don't like it because these are easily overtightened..
Anyone have the right part number for these bolts?

Also I ordered a unadulterated 'Gear Change Control', with a proper working solenoid. The one I bought from fleabay years ago the seller had simply ground away the plastic locking plate under the illuminated gear letters enabling the selector to leave the 'Park' position with a dud solenoid.
A dirty trick that I failed to notice at the time, so beware of this before you buy a used one. Good to know if you need to still use the car I suppose.

 

Yes, common. Lots of threads about it. Add thread lock. (Or check whenever under the car e.g. oil changes.)

 

Thanks JagV8. Yes, you're right, there's been lots of threads about this issue. My mistake to forget them all over the years and not bother checking the tightness of both bolts with each oil change or applying some thread lock.
I couldn't find the correct bolt's part number. They must both be the same; with 8mm heads. Closest I found is a Land Rover part : FS106166. Which appears to be the same as Jaguar item. Will see when it arrives.

https://britcar.com/product.php/117199/0/


Photo from 'Britcar' site showing Land Rover bolt. Does appear to be the same item.



Photo below from one of the boys from the XJ Forum page:


ZF 6 speed two bolts. Photo above is from XJ but S Type looks the same. Located on vehicles LH side.

 

Do you live in a bad neighborhood? Afflicted by roving gangs of hooligan mechanics, crawling under low-slung cars to randomly over-tighten various bolts?

If not, I'd say you could safely install said bolts with Loctite, carefully torque them to your satisfaction, and be done with it. The odds of a stranger coming in after you, armed with a 10mm wrench? Not impossible, but statistically I'd say very slim.

 

Thanks Karl, you gave me a good laugh mate!
Safe neighbourhood thank goodness.
A few points of note here old boy; my OCD (I'd starve as a motor mechanic) and not trusting myself in many years time when I go back in there with shaky and wrinkly hands, a frail grey matter and overtighten and strip said bolt. It's happened to me before..

 

OCD? Ha, that’s nothing! Try living with CDO. It’s like OCD, but is alphabetized the way it should be.

(Pause for laughter to die down)

On a more practical note: Put a small dab of paint or RTV as a witness mark between the bolt head and bracket. You’d only have to reinspect the witness marks and leave your wrench behind.

Or get a paint pen and prominently mark the torque value in a conspicuous spot near the bolts.

 

If you want to NEVER worry about those bolts again:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/115626506763






Safety wire the bolt heads together and you can move on to bigger things to worry about.

Plenty of vendors selling similar bolts. Search for “M6 bolt drilled head” or similar.

Not positive if that particular listing is correct. It’s 15mm long. Keep searching if it must be 16, or get the next longer size and cut them.

 

red loctite

problem resolved

 

Jaguar addressed this issue in 2005.
Please read all TSBs related to yor car.
If we called Jaguar Tech line for a related issue AFTER a TSB was issued we would find them NOT VERY HELPFUL and hesitant to help in the future. (read the TSB and stop calling us would be the unspoken message)

 

Many thanks for all your replies Gents!
That's too funny, motorcarman! The Tech blokes sound like they were a grumpy lot!
Good TSB bulletin, wonder if it happened with all the other brands that had this same transmission?

 

The TECH blokes were not grumpy but................ if you had to answer questions about a known issue that was already addressed and mechanics too stupid or too lazy to read the TSBs, you deserve to be put on a $h!T list.

 

Hey at least Jaguar DID put the bolt part number in that TSB!
The two shift cable bolts are Jaguar C2C2045 if anyone is looking for them.
.
.
.