So yesterday I finally have some slack time in the shop to tackle a few issues with my VDP. Number 1 was a slight misfire at idle and just off idle that comes and goes (though more coming than going lately) So I started with the EVAP smoke generator and discovered the oil separator was cracked (a common problem) I knew I had a few oil seeps in that area so I was not surprised. Upon removing the air cleaner I also found rodents had been inside (lots of sunflower seeds) and some detritus had found it's way onto the MAF screen. I also found a bit of oil and such in the bellows to the throttle body. I decided that since I was this far I might as well do the valve cover gasket and that's where I hit a snag. Not only do I have a lot of corrosion in the spark plug wells on the VC but also discovered there isn't a baffle in the valve cover for the breather outlet. The damage from corrosion is bad enough that I actually have a few pin holes in the wells. So I am currently in the need for a valve/cam cover. For now I am going to try repairing the old one and am open to suggestions. I have a couple of ideas, one is to make a reamer for the wells to slightly clean them up and machine or form inserts inserts to bond into the wells. The other is to clean and epoxy the wells (not the best solution in my opinion) I did inspect the coils, all are original and all are cracked.

 

Get QYL brand coils, 80 bucks on amazon. If you had some spare time I bet you could adapt the old AJ6 cam cover onto it.

 

Way ahead of you lol

 

Excellent choice, though I suggest wrapping the body in some heatshrink before you fit them in as they will crack eventually too(thats what causing 'corrosion' in your cam cover) and eventually misfires). Heatshrink should hopefully prevent arcing into cam cover. Re pin holes I would jb weld them(or use epoxy) if you actually have pin holes in there, if not then just clean up will be enough. Misfire will of course be caused by coils, oil in TB is normal, although your oil can catches majority of it.
If you can do all the work yourself on the cam cover and dont mind spending a fair amount of time on inserts I suppose this would work, but used cam covers should be readily available and relatively cheap.

 

How much? Odds? I might want in on that action.....

seriously, it has been attempted and there are threads in here, somewhere....Y'know how when you are drilling an 1/8" hole to align a couple of parts....it's far better to miss by a couple inches than to miss by 1/16"? Yeah, it's kinda like that...but they look so similar.....My recollection is vague, but IIRC, finding a way to fix the coils onto it is the least of your challenges.....think one or more mounting bosses aligns with some major "Don't drill here!" area(s) of the AJ16 head.

OP, by "no baffle" are you missing the metal plate and everything? or just the course, oil-encrusted sponge-like pads that are stuffed under it?

 

Cheap if you have a junkyard around you. Cam covers and exhaust manifolds go quickly, otherwise it's usually $100 for one in average condition.

 

Here are the pictures of the VC, no baffle nor "fibre sponge" and a fair picture of the worst plug well

VC as removed, no sign of "baffle" ever installed

Hard to see, but corrosion is significant.

 

If only it were that easy. I knew the VC was on it's last leg about a year ago when I did a spark plug replacement. Thus far I have had no luck in finding a "reasonably" priced used one. Most I have found have been in the $300-$500 - used and not in very good shape.

 

If you want I’ll go get one out of the junkyard and sell it to you at a much more reasonable price...if it’s still there

 

That I would be very interested in, as long as the baffle is in place of course lol. As I mentioned back when I first introduced my self, I acquired my VDP from a customer who had owned it many years. I called him to see if he had the VC replaced prior to my taking over the maintenance and repairs. He found some notes from the owner (1st) he acquired it from where the VC was replaced right before he sold it.

 

The VDP has been a wonderful car for both the last owner and my self so considering the age none of these issues surprise me. There is one thing about the VC I found odd compared to other vehicles with COP ignition system. That is a lack of a ground cable from the VC to ground point to help eliminate RF noise.

A few other issues that have popped up in the last few months are the radio quit working, fuses checked OK. Another is just recently the cruise also quit suddenly. I have checked the vacuume pump, and dump valve, hoses and diaphram, all are OK and hold steady. Although I have not checked the brake switch (being 6'3" and a not so great back) I have yet to muster the desire to crawl under the dash and check the brake switch.

 

I was able to swap out at the salvage yard a much better condition valve cover at a good price

This left the salvage car with a running engine which made him happy

The speed for the cruise control as well as the speedometer comes from the single signal coming out from the single left rear wheel speed sensor

Although this single signal may be good enough in quality to not effect the speedometer or as the all 4 wheel sensors usage anti - lock/ traction control function it may not be good enough in the cruise control module seeing it

Has the left rear wheel speed sensor been cleaned at both the connector and importantly the sensors front face ?

There are 2 different part numbers on the left rear sensor during X300 production and left side does not swap with the right from my understanding and reading

Don't try too hard in removing the speed sensor from the hub as the plastic sensor can too easily break and are rare and expensive

 

So far I have not had any luck finding a salvage yard that has one they will part with but I will also say it has not been high on my priority list until today.

As for the cruise, this car has for years had an issue with right license plate light and the traction control system where it will disable after being put on a lift. Without fail it will turn off after a couple of test drives and the license plate light will eventually come on. This did not concern the PO but I always found it annoying. I will say that the cruise would still work when that happens.

The day the cruise failed I had pulled into a wayside to stretch my legs and such. Upon returning to the drive the cruise had ceased to function. It has been a while since I last took it on a drive so my memory escapes me on whether or not the LED in the cruise switch panel lights up.

 

The fault light does not always come on in " real time " at the precise moment of failure

Some of the fault lights have a delay in " showing " and there is also a delay in exstinguishing the light until a couple of usage cycles , this is also the case with some engine CEL lights .

In the case of the anti - lock the light will not exstinguish until reaching the speed of 12.5 MPH

The anti - lock and cruise control are related to each other as the left rear speed signal passes though the anti - lock / traction control module on the way to the cruise control module under the dash

This is different then the other command the anti - lock / traction control module command telling the cruise control tor relax words words words

Editing

On the licences plate light there is no relation to the cruise control at all

the common issue is worn wiring bundle in the cars right side trunk hinge underneath a cover going around the curve

I thing I recall some postings on the light base assembly having issues

With the missing oil vapor screen this was a under par factory design that was addressed in a TSB of a factory solution and a different private company 2nd solution

http://www.jagrepair.com/images/TSB/...d%20Engine.pdf

 

Kapton high temp electrical tape has been used by others

 

Perhaps I should clarify, the traction/ABS lights come on after 12.5 MPH during a test drive after the car had been raised on the lift. It will repeat this through 3 to 4 key/drive cycles at which point the TCS/ABS system will return to normal function. The cruise always functioned even when this issue was active. And yes without fail the right license plate light will not light and a bulb outage warning will show up if the lights are turned on after the car has been removed from the lift. This takes anywhere from 1 to 5 drive cycles to correct itself. These problems have existed for years, and although the PO was not concerned I did at one point after I purchased the VDP dive into it after I decided to replace all the light bulbs after a couple died during a road trip. I went to great lengths to inspect the wiring for damage with no luck.

This car has over the years had some interesting "quirks" which made for some interesting diagnostics. Like the time the rear sub woofer just decided to burst into flames with the radio off as the PO was sitting in the car. Pulled the amp and sent it off to be inspected, no problems found other than needing re capped due to age. Inspected the wiring, no problems found. Replaced the speaker and cleaned the grill. You can still see the scorch marks in the grill. As of this evening I might add the radio now works, turned out it was a faulty power knob that broke and was bottoming out before it could turn on. Although the display on the radio has not worked in years tonight it now has a display of all segments.

 

Update on the VDP....

For now the cam cover is back on, some of the corrosion was rather deep and in places thru. A little cleaning and epoxy has addressed the leaks for now but will be diligently searching for a replacement. In the interim I contacted a friend who has a laser profiling machine to see about doing a digital file of it and perhaps in the future machine a new billet or fabricated cover. He has in the past made a few one off VC's for me and I must say the craftsmanship was spectacular.

As for the oil vapor separator, cleaned, heat shrink and RTV to help with leaks from the cracks. I also drafted some plans to build a replacement for the separator from aluminum that will do a better job of separating the oil from the vapor and will be able to use more commonly available (less expensive) breather hoses yet fit in the same location.

As for the slight misfire, it is almost completely gone now. I did replace the coils with QYL replacements, All were original with 5 date coded 2594 and one 2894. All were cracked

 

You might find a bit of interest in the XJS forum for a remanufactured camcover out of any material other than magnesium!

I had mine powdercoated by some place that apparently specializes in magnesium? I had the shield rivets and shield, with sponge, removed so it could be done. The shop also filled in the rivet holes, so I ended up tapping 13 new holes with screws and locktite to keep the shield in place. You need that to prevent oil from splashing into the breather hose coming out of the camcover. I ditched that sponge.

That was a few years ago. My gasket has given up, so I'm popping that thing off soon. Will take a look. Always order OEM gaskets. The aftermarket, Eurospare, are way too long! I'm planning on replacing the screws with screws that I can run a safety wire through. I doubt the threadlocker will do much, since that cover gets HOT! I'll see if anything managed to get loose.

 

By chance, would you happen to have a link that would direct me to that topic in the XJS forum?

Secondly, I have dealt with powder coating problems back in my Boss Hoss motorcycle days (worked for a dealer) The biggest problems I have with powder coating are #1 - Oils trapped under the metal surface eventually will lift the coating off. #2 - Damage to the powder coating creates a place to trap corrosion causing elements that eventually cause it to peel. We went to great lengths to prevent these issues as much as possible but that required multiple removal, cleaning and re coating of a part over time to reduce the likely hood.

And yes, I concur that some of the after market VC gaskets are a bit too long and quite annoying. As for thread locker, the break down temperature of them are a bit higher than that area would normally get. If by chance the temp should get that high it is quite likely the head would have been overheated to the point of cracking/melting in the valve seat area

 

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...thread-163891/

Not sure if this is what you thought it would be, but there’s always discussions on deteriorating camcovers.

There were rumors of compatible Aston Martin camcovers, early aluminum covers and so forth.

I discovered a PDU in the UK that I purchased and since it was being shipped over, I also snagged a cheap camcover and had them ship it to a “magnesium powder coating specialist”, as I mentioned earlier.

TPCS Magnesium and Alloy Refurbishing

So far, so good, however my camcover gasket appears to have taken a dump, so I’ll know more next week, when I take it off and replace it.

If you’re serious about having someone create a new camcover out of a new material, then you really ought to advertise that on both the x300, x27 and I’d include the x81 forums. As long as you are ready to talk about price too. I think the right product, at the right price, would be very popular.