This is more of a rant than anything

1997. xj6L. It痴 been years since I致e posted here. In a true loser痴 life, nothing changes

And indeed nothing has changed for me. I知 30 years old now, still can稚 work on my own damn car. She痴 been so good to me, guys. Had her for over 10 years. I recently took a cross country trip, living in the car for a month, and at the end, as expected, many issues arose.

I知 so angry at myself for having a doll of a car, and not having the know how to work on her. So angry that there are no easy to read Haynes manuals for this model. So angry that every mechanic visit is close to a thousand dollars at least.

At the end of my trip she finally gave up. Took it to a mobile mechanic, got screwed for 600 dollars and he told me to take it somewhere else. Took it to a real shop and they charged 400, i think they said it was the crank shaft motor? or sensor?

Once back home she would start, but it was such a rough start, and she sounded ready to shut off. Rumbling and shaking, idling high. The shop told me I would make it back home but to change the pcv hose as soon as possible. finally feeling like a man i changed it myself and now she won稚 start at all.

There was some component in the hose, a plastic ball with 3 holes for the hoses. seemed so unnecessary, and damaged. i connected the new psv hose without it. Anyone know what I知 talking about?

I wish i had the knowledge, the inclination, the years of hands on work, that it takes to confidently work on this poor girl of mine. Thanks for reading, fellas.

PS, just realized i can attach an image. this is that plastic component i mentioned

 

Plastic ball sounds like a check valve. Lets air move one way but not the other. It *is* important.

And your crank position sensor is an easy fix, just difficult to see. I've found working on these cars is often done blind. Don't beat yourself up too much, they are very difficult cars to work on and diagnose.

I feel your money pain though. All 3 dealerships around me wont touch my 96 XJR. None of the European "specialists" will either. I have to drive an hour and a half north to the one shop I've found that will work on it. And boy, do they KNOW they're the last shop in town. $$$

 

The ball valve you see maybe the smog ( secondary air ) pump check valve that is hidden from view under the intake pipes on the cars left aft of the smog pump up front , it is positive fresh air feeding into the very aft edge rear of the rear exhaust manifold pair, it is the flex about 3/4 th inch hose with a sharp bend before hitting the rear engine firewall


It will feed the exhaust gasses fresh 02 rich air for 60 seconds only on engine start , this helps cheat the emissions test to pass the final exhaust gas emissions blend

What can go bad is.............................................

as a crack lets in fresh air at idle after the 60 seconds........................

If the ball still rattles .................A good sign

This information for the smog pump itself not supplying that positive pressure fresh air

There is also an electrical solenoid valve inside the smog pump motor

There are a couple of fuses , a relay , and the short pigtail wire connected to the pump has been found to have the wires burnt inside the taped up conduit covering , there is also a diode in this short pigtail with an easy meter read

See page 94

Important : not like your pic

801S TITLE

 

There is a customer modification to satisfy a factory TSB that addresses the breather gasses ( the oil compontent ) gucking up the intake manifold and sensor readings effecting your engine regulation

There is the factory parts modification , or the consumers own solution with unknown parts

The small fitting is for liquid oil in the breather gasses going to a " catch " can or the small fitting will go back into engine oil system

 

You can go back to original air / oil separator already under the valve cover on the inside ( inferior design ) and put the original about 1 inch rubber hose between the top of the valve cover and the original intake manifold fitting ( should still be there )

This so you take the suspected part out of the equation but still have to deal with that parts after effects like cleaning sensors

You can clean the face of the crankshaft position sensor , this is different than the connector clean

a good CKPS will read 1300 ohms as a basic meter reading , no adjustment on the sensor mount

The CKPS is check engine light code P0335 but rarely shows even though the CKPS is not functioning fully

The CKPS will give a enable to the fuel pump running as well as ignition and fuel injector timing , any can be bad as a sample drawn ( slit in the ECU shell ) from the sensor's single wire even though you may have a good accurate instrument RPM indication

What is your starter rotation speed ? 300 ?

 

Don't be so hard on yourself...you've come to the right place. The people here will help you get this sorted out, but let's make sure we get good detailed information.

Now what you are showing us is an oil separator. All it does is separate the oil that make it out of the top of your engine while driving, from reaching your throttle body, and gumming that up. It does that job rather poorly and is prone to coming apart at the middle seam. Yours looks like it's in good shape! It most likely has nothing to do with the problems you are experiencing, so let's put that back on the car. I'm not sure how you put everything back together without it, but you likely introduced a severe vacuum leak, so unmetered air is making its way to the engine, without going through the MAF.

Next. Let's start by explaining what the problem is, and we'll go from there. It might take some time, but we'll get there. Also, can you tell us if you have a Check Engine light on?

 

" Next. Let's start by explaining what the problem is, and we'll go from there. It might take some time, but we'll get there. Also, can you tell us if you have a Check Engine light on? "

We'll be on station and operationally ready , just ask questions

I learned a lot from Vee and others

 

Let's start with idle with no driving and build your observations / descriptions from there

Put back together or place your thumbs or a secure cap on the fittings on top of the valve cover and where the original rubber hose fits on the top of the intake pipes on the car's left ( you can do this with the cut off fingers of a dish washing glove )

This can be done with a common hose that comes by the foot at the local auto parts store

Take your device in your pic to get hose size , just need 1 foot lenght , no clamps it just slips on your engine

Starter rotation RPMs ? this test the CKPS

Start easy ?

Take your hand on the top of the throttle body and where the cable ends twist the vertical shaft ( hidden ) as it is mounted through the half moon shaped bellcrank

This mechanically moves the throttle butterfly to closed overcoming any oil gucking / sticking ( inside throttle body ) preventing it to do so

New idle speed RPMs ? 700 ish ?

 

Vee is right, its an extra oil separator and ain't looking bad really, might just need a clean and just make sure its not cracked anywhere and put it back as it was, without it you probably have free hanging hoses and air leak unless you plugged in the hoses? Crank sensor is easy to swap and I'd always have a spare in the boot along with a spare coil, both can cause random issues and are super easy to replace.
Regarding a manual, if you want to know how the car is built and all, read Haynes for the XJ40, its a very similar car, has different ignition system but the engine and a lot of things are the same.

 

Looking at your oiled up device it has 3 different size hose fittings

To run the straight original plain hose , both ends of a single ( as original ) hose will be the same size as it fits on the top of valve cover fitting

The CKPS is 10 mm socket and no mounting adjustment so a plug and play , clean the face of your original CKPS for a first try

You can look ( or with your finger feel all the way around 360 degrees ) at the large ring gear at the very front of the engine and ensure there is only 1 tooth that is missing around the 360 degrees , this 1 missing tooth is how the sensor physically works and someone in a rare instance had 2 missing teeth causing very erratic CKPS signal confusing the engine

You don't have to remove belts , this is a good pic of it from Al as he put white stripes on it fo another thing

For other readers :

A slipping harmonic balancer related to the ring gear being out of position or floating ?

 

Thank you for the replies, gentlemen. I wanted to provide better photos

in this photo I wanted to show the new hose and the old. They look identical to me other than the old one is obviously more malleable and twisted, and more importantly, is in two parts to accommodate that plastic component

I thought it strange that you would buy a hose and have to cut it yourself for it to work properly

 

In the following 2 photos just wanted to show why I thought this piece was damaged. I can disconnect it from the middle, but it seems sturdy enough once put together

In the third photo, I wanted to show you how I believe the hose was attached before I bravely replaced it with the single hose. I have it above the engine just for the sake of clarity, but of course it would lay underneath that metal bar.

The last photo shows how I tried connecting the new hose, which is just as the old one was only without the plastic bit. As you can see, it fits each of the 3 open holes perfectly.

 

Now here is the confusing part, and it痴 a lesson for me to learn, which is to take photos before you screw around so you know how to put it back if you have to

This plastic bit has 3 ports. the white arrow is pointing to the bit that connects to top part. red arrow is the part that connects to the long end. But the yellow bit I can稚 figure what it connects to. In the second photo is a piece of hose that I know goes somewhere in this whole puzzle piece.

I hope this is clear. it seems confusing to even me

 

First of all, I was wrong. That egg shaped part is probably damaged beyond easy repair. It seems that it was allowing unmetered air to the engine. That would certainly produce rough/high idle problems.

Secondly, here is the TSB explaining it. Go to TSB 17-11 below
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...t-s-b-s-27319/

So l lastly, we need to make sure your setup allows no unmetered air to the engine. The best way to do this is to (1) detach the MAF and cover one end with plastic, then reattach with the plastic in place. Now detach that hose you're messing with from the engine camcover and blow into it. You should be able to blow a few times, but then it should be full of air and you should not be able to blow anymore air in. You should be able to blow enough in there, then cover the hose with your thumb and see if the pressure dissipates or not. If it does, or you are not sure, start blowing cigar smoke in there so you could possible find the leak. Cigar smoke is a good way to find a leak, but it isn't foolproof, but a start nevertheless.

Report back and tell us what happens.

 

Pizza

 

Let me look at mine again as the original factory and further reading your text

2nd round of pizza

 

The original hooks at point 1 and the point 2 small hose hooks up at the aft fitting of a metal Y pipe

This metal Y pipe has to do with the EGR valve and I believe there was some changes to that , probably the supercharged factory version and a parts change on later supercharged production runs

Mine on the normally aspirated is more of a distint perfect Y than what I can see in your picture

The blue line is all you need to go back to factory , eventually it tucks under long for to aft rail that contains the wires

The long hose wrapped over the windshield wiper motor is probably the egg device small fitting to a can that the oil dumps into

 

See middle pic on page 96

801S TITLE

The hose fitting that points to page right goes to the valve cover vent hose , the fitting that points car fwd goes the engine coolant line hooked into the water pump housing

 

This might help you as well, in the future.

 

Vee, did that photo come from some manual? If so, is it available?