Greetings fellow forum members !

As the title states I'm having overheating troubles with my 2005 S-Type 4.2L V8 (non-supercharged). There's actually a fairly long story on how it started.

I was in North Dakota about two weeks ago I was driving home basically through a blizzard, I hit a snow drift in the middle of the road late at night and I had to abandon my S-Type on the spot. Blizzard continued for a few days and I didn't bother recovering it.
One day it cleared up and I got it winched out. I started the car let it warm up a bit and went on my way...a few miles out there was smoke coming out of the vents which smelt like coolant, I got a cruise control not available message and car slowly overheated so I pulled over. I checked the engine bay and a hose that I believe runs from the radiator to engine came loose. So I put it back and tightened the hose clamp (it was a b**** doing it at -30F).

I refilled the reservoir and started the car after it had cooled. Cruise control message went away but my heater just blew cold air, and my temperature gauge stopped working as well at the time.

Currently the car drives and the temperature gauge started working again but still overheats very slowly. When it starts to overheat i shut it off right away and the radiator fan continues to run for awhile.

I'd greatly appreciate any input on diagnosing my little issue here...before I take it to a shop and get conned because it's a Jaguar lol

 

Start with replacing the thermostat.

Thermostats don't last forever, and 10-odd years is a good time for them to start failing.

 

+1
Well worth doing.

 

Sorry to hear that.

All seriousness aside, a bit more info, please. Did the engine stop immediately when you hit the snowbank? How hard did you hit? I'm wondering if the engine shook violently on the mounts, enough to perhaps break one loose. That in turn may have tugged on the radiator hose and maybe got some wires in the process, too. Others have suggested a thermostat, but since the problem started immediately after the impact, I'd suggest the problem lies elsewhere.

After you fixed the leak and refilled the coolant, how did you bleed the system? These cars are very persnickety about bleeding the air from the cooling system. If not done properly, symptoms include a lack of heat, gurgling noise from the heater core, and the potential to overheat.

The service manual includes a very specific bleeding process. I'm lazy and have always done the unapproved alternate version, which is to fill and drive, keep an eye on the temp gauge and put up with the erratic heater and gurgling for a day or so. After that, I top off the reservoir and repeat the process and it always straightens up. Keep in mind, my car is an '02 V6, so your V8 may not respond as well to the lazy man's bleeding method.

Also, how have you driven the car since then? Assuming rotten booger-freezing upper Midwest weather and slick roads, you may not have got the car working very hard. High RPM is part of the lazy man's bleed, so if you've just been putzing around at slow speed, you may still be dealing with air in the cooling system.

This thread may be of some interest to you, dealing with no heat on a V8 car, with info about the aux coolant pump, bleeding, etc. There's a lot of long-winded nonsense by some KR something or other guy, but you can skip all that and just get to the good stuff:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...-works-172453/


As far as the cruise control message, I wonder if that is caused by a marginal battery. Since the car sat buried for a few days in freezing weather, that may have been a death blow to the battery. At the very least, I'd get it on a charger for a while and then load test it. Be prepared to replace it if it doesn't test in top condition.

 

One more thought: Have you checked for snow packed between the grill and radiator? Unless the car has been parked in a heated garage, you may have some snow blocking the airflow through the radiator.

 

Hi everyone !

i have a new thermostat and housing on order and will try that first.

As for when I hit the drift I wasn't going fast at all 20MPH or less...car kept running normally I just couldn't moving due to being stuck in 2 ft of snow.

As for bleeding the system I didn't bother doing it at the time.

Just after I had recovered the car, heater & everything worked fine for a few miles then when I tried to speed up a bit everything went to hell. I highly believe there was ice/snow blocking the radiator fan at the time which I didn't know about. Yesterday I checked the area and I found some ice/snow & cleared that out.

At the moment the car runs and drives but will slowly start to overheat & heater blows cold air. I'm not currently using it as I don't want to cause further damage.

i might as well add the other little bit of story to this post. The towing company that moved the car after it overheated broke my tow hook somehow tore my whole front bumper cover off, and I believe they stole my leaper too as it's missing. I wasn't there when I had it towed out nor was I there when they dropped it off at my location...what upset me is they didn't bother telling me. I got on their *** as soon as I found out and am currently letting my insurance company deal with them.

 

Now there,s cold weather thinking for you.

Is there air flow, no snow, obstructing the rad.

 

Update on my situation. I got my thermostat and housing deliver today and tried to install but I ran into another issue .

One of the 3 bolts that bolt down the housing won't "thread" in. There's two type of bolts that I've never seen and one regular bolt. The weird one won't tighten down (one on left of photo). If anyone knows the part numbers to these I'd greatly appreciate it ! I looked everywhere and nothing !

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but all three bolts are the same as the one on the right. The two on the left look funky because the threaded inserts pulled out with those bolts. The inserts should have stayed behind (like the one on the right) when the bolts were unthreaded. The inserts were originally pressed in and aren't supposed to come out. The inserts are what provide the female threads for the bolts to grip.

Your best course of action would be to replace the entire piece from where the inserts pulled out.

 

I just found that out ! Thanks though !