As promised, a separate thread on removing the engine which was necessitated by a blown coolant hose.
The car is a right-hand drive XF SV8, I've been saying it is a 2010 model as that's what I bought it as, but I've noted as I've done this job that the major components were built in March 2008 so I guess I'd better start calling it a 2008 model until I want to sell it. The car has been running faultlessly but had a 'low coolant' alarm come on and by applying some compressed air at the bleeder hose I identified the leak at the dreaded hose that goes under the supercharger; it has a small split underneath just where it is connected to the coolant manifold / thermostat housing.
I made a start at removing the supercharger, referring to the manual, some online videos and threads on this forum. All of the info I could find related to slightly different situations- either the same engine in the Range Rover where you could almost walk around behind the engine; the same engine in the S-type R model which appears to have slightly more room behind the engine than the XF; and particularly no info showing R/H drive cars- the S-type in particular has access to the EGR bolts by removing the cabin air filter cover. No such luck on this car and it would be on the wrong side anyway.
I'll outline some of the steps involved in removing the engine / transmission / subframe assembly with the intention of providing an additional resource for anyone ese tackling this job. I'm not an expert- I spent the first few years of my working life in the motor trade but that was 35 years ago, since then I have worked on a wide variety of vehicles and machinery as an amateur mostly doing my own maintenance- my trade knowledge is very out of date. I have a relatively well-equipped home workshop. This job was all done with hand tools and no hoist. There was a helluva lot of stuff to disconnect but none of it particularly difficult; anyone who has removed an engine from any car no matter how unsophisticated will know the principle involved- first disconnect everything that is connected to both the engine and the body, then unbolt everything holding them together.
Anywhere I refer to fastener sizes here will be in reference to the tool size needed to undo it- it's all very well to know that the bolt is M6 but given that there are M6 bolts on this car with 8mm, 10mm and 11mm heads, spanner size is more helpful. Anywhere I reference left-hand or right-hand, it is in relation to the driving position.

Before deciding that the engine would have to come out, I had already spent significant time removing components to access the back of the engine, including the windscreen wipers and scuttle panel, the lateral frame strut, coolant manifold, intake horn and throttle body. I'm pretty sure those would all have had to come out first anyway so not much wasted time there. Starting at the right-hand air filter, removing that and working back towards the bulkhead removing the trim panels along the inside of the engine bay.


I'm undecided whether these would need to come out to remove the engine; I'll make an assessment as to whether they can be reinstalled before the engine goes back in, as the fasteners were moderately awkward to access. All 10mm.
Under the scuttle panel all the way across to the left-hand side there's a plastic panel that covers the ECU and it's harness connector. Another major harness connector just behind the left-hand shock absorber tower is held together by a 10mm bolt.

These two major connectors essentially isolate the entire power unit from the body.

The car was propped up off the floor just enough to enable access underneath

Before removing the front exhaust pipes I decided to take the oxygen sensors out to prevent damaging them whilst wriggling the pipes. Two sensors on each side, all 22mm hex.



I found I had to unhook the exhaust system from it's rubber hangers all the way to the rear end in order to get enough movement to take the front pipes and catalytic converters out. I didn't need to remove the cross members under the rear though. With a little free movement of the exhaust system I was able to wiggle the front pipes out. Flange nuts are 15mm and will be getting some anti-seize on reassembly.

The three propshaft bolts were a little awkward but not horribly so; I had parked the vehicle up with the trans in neutral and the parkbrake off so that I could push it around if necessary, but for reasons unknown to me I was still unable to rotate the propshaft with one rear wheel jacked up- would have been easier to get to all 3 bolts if they could be rotated to the bottom position but I managed anyhow. The three bolts have a mystery red coating on them, presumably to protect the rubber coupling. Bolt head is 17mm, nut 18mm.

I took the front two bolts out of the transmission crossmember (13mm) and unscrewed the rear two enough so that the transmission could pivot there when the front of the engine was lowered.

Main power cables to the starter...the red plastic cover is hinged so that it flips open for access to the connection (13mm iirc). The red cover can be left on the starter but the insulating cloth tape has to be cut to free the cable.




The steering shaft universal joint held a pleasant surprise; I was anticipating some trial-and-error in reinstallation to get the splines aligned so that the steering wheel is centered in the straight-ahead position. Happily the splined coupling had a flat so it can't be misaligned.

Before undoing the steering coupling I measured how far the universal joint was down on the pinion shaft as this looked like it would cause problems for the universal joint alignment if not put back in the same place. The thickness of the end of my 10mm open-end spanner proved to be the correct feeler gauge. Handy as the two bolts are 10mm.

Front wheels off, inner guards out, brake calipers off and hung in a handy location (bolts are 15mm). ABS sensors out. Upper suspension wishbones disconnected at the ball joints (18mm nut and the only spot where I used a rattle gun, I still had to grip the hub of the ball joint with multi-grips. One of the boots is torn- I'm hoping the boot is available separately as the ball joint feels fine.
There's a little splash guard behind the right-hand inner guard that will need to be freed from the subframe by removing the two trim clips

The aircon had to be discharged; this pipe that disappears into the left-hand inner guard has a connector inside the wheel arch and I disconnected it there and let the gas escape.


About the only thing in the whole job that requires specialised equipment, you can get the gas out without it but hard to get it back in. The A/C pipe connection at the bottom left of the condenser has to be disconnected too, easy after the bumper is off.

The bumper is surprisingly easy to remove, two 8mm screws and a trim clip that you can see when you lift the bonnet, two more 8mm screws accessed from above near the headlamps. After that it seems to just stay there by agreement. This must be why outback roads like the Tanami Track are littered with front bumpers. There's a cable connector for the parking sensors behind the left hand end of the bumper, it would have been easier with an assistant to hold one end of the bumper whilst disconnecting this.


I removed these two plastic brackets to allow more height for the shock absorbers to clear when being wheeled out. Three 10mm bolts- the one visible in the hole can stay there.

I must find out what the hell this thing is, can this car really have FOUR coolant pumps?? The hose underneath it had to be disconnected.



I left the oil coolers and pipes all connected to the engine. The cross pipe can be sat up in these hook thingamajigs

The air ducts to the coolers are held on by two10mm bolts. To drop the oil coolers off their brackets I undid the four 10mm nuts on top of the rubber mounts. The right-hand oil cooler will then wiggle free but the left-hand one has to have the outer bracket removed to let it come out.


The two receiver antennas for the TPMS are attached in a seemingly haphazard manner to the oil cooler mounts.



The top of the shock absorbers are unbolted from above, Three 10mm bolts to lift the fuse box out of the way on the right hand side and the coolant reservoir has to come out to get to the left. The cable for the active suspension control is unplugged. I syringed the fluid out of the power steering reservoir before disconnecting the hoses and removing the reservoir.
There's a height sensor on the right-hand front lower suspension arm that has to have the cable disconnected.

This bundle of connectors on the right-hand side front all have to be disconnected and unclipped from their mounts.


The fuel supply and return lines have to be disconnected; the return line is easy enough but the pressure connector had me a bit stumped, There's a circular coil spring inside the coupler that grips like a sphincter. I'm going to call it the Sphincter Spring. There's a special tool shown in the workshop manual for releasing the Sphincter Spring. I do not have this. I made a simple device from a piece of plastic tube that I split and shaved until it fit around the 16mm tube, and chamfered the end so it would sneak into the Sphincter and spread it. Worked like a charm.


That was pretty much everything disconnected ready to lower the whole assembly by the subframe. I recommend cracking the four subframe bolts before getting your supports in place- I needed a big breaker bar to get them started. The front two are 18mm- can't recall what size the rear two are but of course they are different so you have to keep swapping sockets as you gradually back them out.
I used two trolley jacks under the subframe, located near the suspension control arms but with blocks of wood arrange so as not to be putting weight through the control arm bushes. A third trolley jack for the rear end of the transmission would be helpful.

I gradually lowered the two jacks, checking frequently to ensure there were no forgotten cables being stretched. Once the front of the assembly is lowered somewhat, this cable and bracket on the transmission can be easily removed; two 8mm bolts. There are no other wires / cables etc attached to the transmission that need to be disconnected- a major advantage of 'drive-by-wire'-, nothing in the interior of the car had to be removed for this job.

I lowered the whole shebang onto a little trolley arrangement and used a pair of car jacks to raise the body enough to get the engine clear of the front frame member. I didn't want to unnecessarily remove the front frame member but i'm sure it could come out easily enough and would provide heaps more height to roll the engine out. A 2-post hoist would be soooo good for this job....


The entire engine and transmission, radiator and intercooler etc, subframe and front suspension can be wheeled out from under the vehicle.




Taking into account those items that were removed prior to making the decision to pull the engine, I would say this took a total of two full days for one man working alone at a leisurely pace with hand tools. There was nothing particularly difficult, just lots of it. I put every set of fasteners in a separate baggie and labeled them all so that there are not too many mysteries if too much time passes before I put it back together- also lots of photos to show orientation of components. Looking at the rear of the engine, i'm glad I went this route rathe than struggling on with it insitu- I've seen pictures of people cutting part of the bulkhead away to access components which is just criminal and totally unnecessary. Everything on the engine is sooo accessible now.

 

Great work! I don't see a lot of 4.2-related guides on here so appreciate you providing the resource for others

 

Impressive and helpful! Thanks for documenting.

 

This has been like peeling an onion; there's always one more layer you can take off- I have peeled it down as far as the injectors and have just dropped them in to a place with the ultrasonic cleaning rig. That is as far as I intend to strip things down as I don't think there's anything else that is likely to need servicing that is only accessible with everything dismantled to this extent. Thankfully the cam covers are not leaking and the spark plug holes are all dry so no need to be removing those- they would be a pain with the engine insitu but do-able anyway. I'm waiting on a pile of parts from 2 separate UK suppliers, got the box of genuine hoses, gaskets etc from the dealer and a blower coupling etc from a specialist supplier. Bought the Bosch intercooler pump from amazon and have just ordered the necessary wiring components from a Merc dealer. The bigger cooler pump is the only modification I plan to make- I have decided against smaller blower pulley etc. Might even start putting things back together next week.

 

Quote:

A 2-post hoist would be soooo good for this job...

I can highly recommend a Maxjax, made my life so much easier (mine is a 5.0L) see here

 

The engine work is finished and ready to go back in at last; haven't added up yet what I've spent on parts since starting this job but it's a significant spend, glad I'm not up for a labor bill as well. It all looks a little cleaner and tidier than when it came out.


I needed to take the engine out of the shed to drain the coolant dregs and wash it down- a pair of lengths of RHS bolted to the subframe enabled me to lift it with my tractor and get it outside the workshop door.



I'm waiting on a thermostat to arrive from the UK; if that doesn't arrive this week it won't be difficult to install with the engine back in the vehicle. Apparently this is a common failure on these engines too:

There was no sign of misbehaviour as far as warm-up is concerned but a glance down the outlet pipe showed the misplaced seal, the dealer wanted over a hundred bucks so it was just one more shipment from England. Front flexible brake hoses will be in the same parcel; I dropped one of the calipers when I was removing it and I didn't like the sudden jerk on the hose that resulted so figured I might as well replace those as well. also from England as the dealer had a list price of about $600 for one of them.

Speaking of dealer prices, this had me stumped. This hose assembly had a dealer price of $1,241.00


and this one had a dealer price of $20.00


Of course there is no rule that says it has to make sense. The twentybuck hose I got from the dealer; the magabuck one I got from the UK for about half the dealer price- still a scam.

These engines seem to be constructed entirely of coolant hoses, with some metal components to hold the hoses in the correct orientation.


Jobs I've undertaken whilst the engine has been out include
Fuel injectors- ultrasonic clean, new baskets and O-rings;
Supercharger- new snout bearings, seal and coupler;
Charge cooler pump- renewed with the upsized Bosch unit;
Intercoolers cleaned out;
Replaced the IAT sensor in the plenum- totally inaccessible with the engine in place so might as well;
Spark plugs replaced;
All coolant hoses replaced.
Wrapped the engine looms with cloth tape- the old insulating tape had become brittle and broken away in a lot of places and I like the look of the cloth tape.

This pic will annoy anyone who has laboured with a file / sandpaper / whatever to reduce the diameter of their blower snout to fit a tiny pulley:


I seriously considered putting it in the lathe and turning the end down in case I decide to fit a small pulley at some future time, if the bearing was further down inside the snout I would probably have done this but the area that has to be turned down is right where the bearing is seated and there is not much meat there to start with. I am keeping this vehicle entirely stock (it's proven unreliable enough already!) and I just can't see the sense in weakening the blower snout. Good luck to those that do this- hell, send me your snout and I'll turn it down for you- but I won't be doing it to mine.

Finally, if anyone can identify where this mystery bracket goes I would appreciate it. It was sitting loose at the rear of the engine when I jacked the body up, I can't figure where it comes from. Key fob for scale.


Planning on putting the engine back in next weekend. Kansanbrit, if I PM you my address will you loan me your maxjacks?
I'm annoyed that I'm going to have to take it somewhere to get the aircon re-gassed and a new desiccant cartridge put in. Just hoping it doesn't throw up a heap of fault codes as soon as I start it up.

 

Would bring it right over but it's occupied right now ! Good luck, hope it goes smoothly.

 

its holder of wiring loom

 

Wow. Impressive work. That photo of all the plastic cooling pipes is crazy!

 

Thanks for that- any further tips on where exactly? I'm going to make a proper effort to find a home for it tomorrow but I haven't so far seen any obvious location for it.

 

Bracket mystery solved. Unfortunately the only M14/1.5 bolt I could find in my stash is too long and I don't have a thread die in that size so have to make a trip into town just for this...


The other mystery that I mentioned earlier- the pump behind the left end of the bumper- in the unlikely event that anyone else finds themselves wondering what it is, following the pipes reveals it to be the air pump for the air injection system (part of the emissions system that assists combustion of hydrocarbons in the exhaust headers). But of course you all knew that..

 

I spent about 9 hours on the engine reinstallation yesterday then about another hour this morning had the engine running.....badly!
I have the 'limited performance' message on the screen, very slow idle and a misfire. Frustrating thing is I don't have any diagnostic equipment for this vehicle- I spent several hundred $ on a code reader / resetter etc for my Land Rover a few years ago but that is vehicle specific so no use to me here. I'm going over in my mind all the possibilities, which are many after such a lot of work. I've checked that all the coil-on-plug unit connectors are snug. One of my big concerns is the possibility of something stupid like an injector harness connector not pushed all the way home- it would really suck to have to pull the engine again for something like that. I think I'm going to start by blowing out all the accessible electrical connectors with compressed air in case there is a drop of coolant somewhere causing a short. Also anticipating going cap-in-hand to my mechanic to run a diagnostic after doing the work myself.

 

Worst nightmare. Did you check fuel pressure? I would be concerned you may have upset some injectors somehow. I don't think coolant on the connectors is your problem.

 

Probably vacuum leak, doesn't take much for any of those flimsy hoses to suck unmetered air. Any cheap bluetooth OBD2 adapter with an app will show fuel trim being too far from zero.

 

It lives.
I pulled the coil-on-plug units and blew out all the connectors and the plug wells, then I found that with my el-cheapo inspection camera I could get it in to all the injector connectors and give them all a little push home with the camera wand head. Charged the battery and repaired a broken secondary wire on the positive battery terminal. The car now runs as it should, and the check-engine light and 'restricted performance' message have disappeared after a lock / unlock cycle. I am a happy camper once again.
One thing still leads to another though; the right-hand engine mount is leaking oil. Probably flexed it too much during the subframe reinstall. I had to do some research, as I had never heard of 'active engine mounts'. When I went to school, an engine mount was a piece of rubber with a piece of steel bonded to each side. Things have got complicated.
I have it booked in on Thursday for an aircon recharge, need to make sure the guy has a dessicant pack for it or I'll need to find one before then.

 

Ok, it 'kinda' lives. Still having a few problems. The car is very slow to start- cranks for around 7 seconds before firing. Also has a 'CATS fault' message and the suspension is hard as a rock. I think I'm going to have to acquire a code reader so I can get an idea where the starting problem is. The dampers were obviously disconnected during the work, I guess this has triggered a fault in the CATS so I need to do some troubleshooting there. Any tips welcome.

 

Did you remember to reconnect the ride height sensors?

 

Yes, thanks for asking, there's only one- on the right hand side- and I connected it. I suspect that the suspension fault is secondary to the starting issue, funnily enough; because the engine is cranking for up to around 10 seconds, the voltage is dropping and this seems to trigger the CATS fault mode. It cleared yesterday and then reappeared after a difficult start. I've avoided driving it more than a couple of short runs so far, the a/c is getting regassed tomorrow. I suspect it is most likely getting unmetered air somewhere as suggested earlier, need to investigate this but won't get a chance for a few days.

 

I got the aircon re-gassed on Thursday and have been driving the car since. It is now driving perfectly but remains difficult to start. On some occasions it will crank long enough to make the battery struggle before firing and on those occasions it will throw a 'CATS SYSTEM ERROR' message on the display screen and the dampers are fixed in rock-hard mode. However I think the CATS fault is a red herring simply caused by the difficult starting.
I got away from work a bit early today and swung past my mechanic and had a chat with him about it. He read the fault codes- there were 4 injector faults, all on the right bank, and we agreed this would have been caused by me unplugging and reconnecting the right-hand injector harness when I was troubleshooting initially. Other codes are secondary to the difficult starting but not giving any clues.

Here's where it gets frustrating: he suggested that the injectors may be leaking down into the engine, thus causing loss of fuel pressure that takes several seconds to build when starting. He can't book it in for a fuel pressure test until after Easter. I mused on it and suggested that if it is leaking down fuel into the cylinders, then if I start it after sitting for around a half hour or so, there would be black smoke from the fuel sitting in the cylinder, as well as the start delay from lack of pressure. He agreed that would be so.
When I got home, I left the car sit for around 40 minutes, then started it. Sure enough, it cranked for about 8 seconds before firing, and there was black smoke and a strong petrol smell.

Of all the work just done, there were only 2 things done by someone other than myself in my own shed: regassing the a/c, and cleaning / servicing the injectors. And they are the most deeply-buried component that was touched. I am faced with the high likelihood of having to repeat the entire job to access injectors that were working perfectly before I gave them to a third party to service.

 

I had a flooding injector today, produced clouds and clouds of white smoke not black. This photo was taken after engine turned off but look at color at tailpipe.15L had to drained out of sump. Black smoke on start up is more likely to be leaky valve stem seals in my opinion.