My-

Well, I finally found the time today to swing by my mechanic and work together with him to change the transfer case oil. When we opened the TC, the plug was already extremely loose and zero fluid came out! I was instantly glad that we found this before I drove the car into the ground. UPDATE: 2002 X-type has 98,500 miles on it, and I noticed a good/bad thing. I saw a 5 digit serial number written on the bottom of the TC, the kind of thing that you see wrecking yards put on parts that they've pulled from cars. This makes me believe that the TC case was changed at some point before I bought the car. Perhaps they forgot to refill it? I didn't notice any leakage at all around the TC, so I'm not sure where the oil went if it did leak out.

TC Oil used: Mobil 1 synthetic 75w140 ($18 a quart! Arg!)

To fill it, we ground down the edges of a rubber hose so that they were tapered enough to make a tight fit into the drain hole of the TC. We then used a cheap pump from o-reilly auto parts to pump about 600 ml into the TC. Some fluid leaked out when we quickly put the plug back in, but not much.

(see attached pic)

Engine oil used: 5W30 synthetic

We then move on and changed the motor oil, which was very dirty and almost pitch black. We filled the engine until the dipstick was reading at a good level (7 qts. of the new oil) and of course changed the oil filter.

We then used a grease gun with a grease needle to grease the propshaft, as described here on the forums (thanks Dennis, whereever you are: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...?t=9853&page=2). Used a synthetic grease and followed the method described in the link.

Well, after firing the cat up, I began to drive around and immediately noticed a huge difference in performance. The car seems to take off faster from a stop and is much more responsive than it used to be. It's a lot more fun to drive now. Before, it was almost as if there was a delay between pressing the gas pedal and the car going forward (I thought the transmission needed service), but after this, the car gives an immediate response and quick acceleration off the line.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to any comments or questions on what we did.

 

NO NO NO Blaydes.......great write up of what you did, how you did it and how the cars performance was changed for the better, but, NO PICS???

Seriously though, thanks for sharing.....any info such as this posted more often will only help to encourage more new owners to attempt this procedure and prolong their cats life.....surely a good thing

Maybe add to your post your mileage on the car to date etc and keep us updated on how she goes from here!

Cheers

 

Haha, sorry for no pics Jim! I didn't have a camera with me... I'll at least draw up a quick picture of the hose we used for the TC case. I tried to make the kit like other members, but it just wouldn't fit up in there. The "thing" immediately to the left of the TC (looking towards the front of the car) seemed to be cast a little differently than some other pics I've seen. Look at the attached pic to see what I'm talking about.

I STRONGLY encourage evey x-type owner to check the TC oil if they haven't.

(pic is from bojangles TC guide, I edited it to show the difference)

 

Blaydes, thanks for outlining the procedure you followed. Do you remember the diameter of the rubber tubing you used? Also, did it require two of you to do the swap quickly to not lose much oil? It's an interesting approach. I might try your approach first, before trying to build a fitting to do mine.

Thanks again!

 

Does the dealer perform this maintnence or do I need to request them to. I have 121,000 miles on my 2002 x-type and have never done this fix myself. I truly hope the dealer has done this maintenance since i do all the regular service checks.

 

What we did when switching the tube back for the magnetic plug just took one person. My mechanic put his finger in the end of the tube to keep the fluid in, and held the plug in his other hand. Once he got the tube out of the TC, he quickly got the plug back in and hand tightened it to stop the flow. We finished it off with the ratchet.

We lost some oil, but nothing compared to the amount that we put in.