Today I used blaydes99's guide to replacing the knock sensor and it was absolutely invaluable. https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ted-how-62847/
But there were still a few places I was lost and spent a lot of time bashing my head. I wanted to add to his excellent guide with my own experience I took photos along the way so I'd be able to put everything back - I'll attach them below in case someone needs help.

First thing I want to add is to make sure you have replacement coolant on hand as you will be draining about 3/4 of a jug of coolant when you drain the radiator. This is a good time to do a coolant flush anyways.

Second thing I want to add is more detail on what to disconnect and what to leave attached to the intake manifold and fuel rail. I ended up only lifting the intake manifold and fuel rail on the passenger side and leaving everything connected on the driver side, except disconnecting the 2 electronic connectors on the intake manifold on the driver side. All the tubing and cold air intake tubing remained on using this method (unless stated below).




Remove this box



Disconnect this tube at the silver connector by pinching the tabs with pliers





At the back of the intake manifold, there are 2 bolts holding a wiring loom that need to be loosened. The loom's connectors are slotted and can be slid off without fully unscrewing the bolts.







Intake manifold propped up for access to fuel rail and ultimately the knock sensor

At this point, the fuel rail comes off pretty easy. There is a bracket that needs to come off to allow the rail to be lifted.




unclip this cable from the post




unbolt and remove this bracket.

This should allow you to lift the fuel rail enough to access the water pipes and the knock sensor.

Here lies the real struggle, accessing the sensor. I could not remove the pipe as blaydes99 did, one of the bolt heads on the water pump side stripped, leaving me only the option to lever it to the side. hopefully I didnt cause any damage. I will see if there are any leaks when I fill the coolant tomorrow.

By removing the easily accessible bolt, the pipe can be carefully pushed aside enough to unscrew the bolt holding the knock sensor.




remove this bolt



levering the pipe to the side to access the knock sensor

Success!

More images of which bolts/screws go where for reassembly:





























these 4 bolts are the same holding the lower intake manifold.




4 bolts need to be removed (one is hidden behind the blue bar in this picture). The other exposed bolts need to be unscrewed but can remain attached to the lower intake manifold.

 

Nicely done.
The finger pointing and preciseness of description is a great way for future posters to go.
Thanks!

 

Nice post! Just so readers know, is this a US or British car? Makes a difference for what is the passenger and driver sides.

 

thanks! this is a US car.

 

Wow, you get an A+ for this post. Extremely well done. Thank you

 

Thank you Kl3VR for your definitive guide to replacing the knock sensor. Well written, concise and clear, it convinced me of one thing: not to do it.
I have a bad knock sensor, which offends my sense of symmetry on the dashboard with little, oddly placed, lights but which otherwise doesn't affect the car's performance very much. In the interest of science (and because I've done this to other cars with similar problems) I am going to unplug the bad sensor, plug in a new one, and screw it to a valve cover, intake manifold, bell-housing, or other hard-chined surface on the engine. The location of the sensor shouldn't make too much difference as long as it's out of heat and humidity channels, and can "feel" engine vibrations. It should work properly and, should it not, I will return suitably chastened and report to the forum. Cheers,
Zaphod

 

Where have you buy knock sensor, and what type it is?

 

Got it from autozone on Ebay, generic microphone type from China: $35.

 

Can you give me link please? In my country knock sensor for 2.5 cost 120$

 

Fosquate:

I can send you the one I just got I don't need it. I'll let you know the postage, but the sensor is $32.00. Where are you? Send me your mailing address, when I tell you the postage (around $15.00 I think) you can paypal me the money.

Cheers,
P.Havas

 

I chose the Phavas method. I bought a sensor from amazon part number KS305 It has a wide white stripe on it like the original and the correct connector for the 2007 3.0L. The OBDII code was for " bank 2" which turned out to be on top of the engine. I did NOT take the intake air box etc. etc. etc. off the car. I found the connector on the wire with the wide white stripe and with pair of long needle nose pliers was able to hold it while disconnecting. Then I plugged the new sensor into the connector on the loom side and bolted the new sensor into a threaded hole on the firewall side head with a single metric bolt and washer. (see pic).

Car runs better than ever which tells me the KS sensor may have been failing and retarding the spark to some degree for a long time..

 

Hello,
I know this has been posted for a while, but I will try my luck. I'm trying to find exactly where the new sensor has been screwed in. Could you give me some more clues? I'm looking to do it this way. Any additional info will be much appreciated.

 

Locate the head on the driver side nearest the firewall. There is an empty threaded hole there, forget what mm size but it fits a bolt that fits through the knock sensor. The attached picture shows the sensor mounted in that hole with one bolt. It absolutely works and save a ton of risky work to get to the original sensor.

 

Hell
Thanks for this post, I am going to have a shot at doing this too.

That position you chose should also be good enough to hear any knocking in the engine also yeah?

Thanks!

 

Hello

How did you go fitting your knock sensor in that location??

Did it fix the issue?

Thanks!

 

Hello

How did you go fitting your knock sensor in that location??

Did it fix the issue?

Thanks!

 

Hi Phavas,

Where did you end up screwing your knock sensor into?

I have the 2.1V6 and cant see anywhere to screw this into