Awful racket from the front of the engine this evening, initially thought it was my supercharger coupling giving out, then I figured it was a few other catastrophic things, but after poking around a hot engine a bunch and taking both belts off and back on, I noticed my accessory tensioner is bouncing around some, and the ps pulley can be seen vibrating...except the noise is clearly coming from the other side of the engine and I replaced the tensioner pulley not too long ago. I found the hidden idler pulley behind the supercharger tensioner and I'm fairly confident thats the culprit. Now the problem...finding the correct part.

I'm unable to get a good look at mine as its buried in there pretty well, but I see online three different possibilities...all are smooth, one has no edges, one has one edge and the third option has two edges that the belt slots between. I'm guessing there maybe some running changes by Jaguar and hence three different parts maybe?

Harper Jaguar sells part number C2C37064, which I would guess is my best bet, but tis spendy at $60 + shipping, this is the one with one edge in their online catalog, but if I google the part number all the images show a pulley with two edges. Will take to the weekend for it to arrive.

Amazon, rockauto and the local parts stores sell the ones that are either smooth or have two edges. Gates lists 38028 as the correct pulley for this position, this one has no edges, but bonus I can get it right away.

Because I have to take a bit of stuff out of the way, I'd prefer to just do this once, so maybe the pulley from Harper and a new belt while I'm at it.

Thoughts?

 

Hi there,
Can't tell about the idler pulley with or without edges. My '00 XJR came with a flat idler pulley (NCC7753AD) and I replaced the bearing only as the pulley surface was in perfect shape.
SKF 6303-2RSH/C3 - watch out for the correct specs: sealing lip (2RSH) and increased radial internal clearance (C3).

 

It’s possible that there could’ve been something along the lines of casting flash that dislodged itself inside or some other debris during manufacturing process. 🤷‍♂️
Diagnosing in digital space is not always the easiest way but, it’s better than nothing.

 

Opted to grab the inexpensive parts off Amazon for install tomorrow and will retain the original pulley for bearing swap at a later date, assuming the pulley is in good shape. I still have my original tensioner pulley as well, so maybe just do all 4 in the spring.

Thanks all!

 

New accessory idler pulley and serpentine belt installed. Still a bit of racket though, I'll pull both belts off at some point and see if the noise goes away. I've had my freon leak out so its possible its my compressor. Or it could be a pending catastrophe...spin the revolver and see if there's a bullet in the chamber!

 

Hi! Hopefully it’s something simple and not the compressor! Pulling the belts is a smart move to narrow it down. If the noise stops, that’ll help rule out some possibilities. If it’s the compressor, at least you'll know and can start planning for that fix. Good luck!

 

I hope it is NOT the cam timing components?

 

Reasonably confident it's not the timing chains or tensioners. On the drive home it started making more and more racket, almost sounding like a rock tumbler. Then at a stop sign it abruptly stopped making that sound. Car ran smoothly, no hiccups or anything, but I could hear what sounds like a failing power steering pump. Had to get my kid to the dr so I gambled on it, made it home fine.

Did some fiddling when I got home and the engine cooled off some. Removed the supercharger belt, started it up, still getting the moaning sound, but its definitely not the power steering pump. From the left side it's definitely coming from the other side, from the right it's coming from the left, ergo it's in the middle.

I think it's my water pump. It's right under the supercharger and thermostat housing right? A failing water pump might make the noises I've described? I hope? Honestly in 38 years of vehicle ownership, I've never had to deal with a bad water pump.

On a possibly related note, I realized I left the coolant overflow bottle cap loose last night, so I've driven about 100 miles like that. The threads were engaged, but the cap spun freely, so I'm guessing I've probably lost some coolant as well. So it's possible it's cavitation in an air.pocket. temp gauge never blipped high, engine didn't smell overly hot, but i was getting whiff of something burning that I was assuming might be my belt, but now suspect was coolant bubbling out of the cap and burning on the exhaust.

Thoughts? Any specific brand recommendations for the water pump? I see an AC Delco, Gates on the high priced end, which is maybe $70. That and a couple gallons of coolant and I'm there?

 

I'd suggest to order a water pump with the original O-ring style seal and a metal gasket if possible. Over a decade ago, I bought one that was recommended in a thread on this forum (at the time, everyone was hyping the metal impellers rather than plastic impellers) but it came with a paper gasket only and was designed such that the paper gasket was the only means of sealing. I installed it anyway because it had been recommended by more than a few on this forum. That paper gasket didn't last long and for brevity, I'll spare you the interrupted vacation story and return trip home ordeal. When I ordered another pump to replace it, I made sure to pick one with the original style o-ring and I ordered separately a metal gasket just in case it came with a paper one as that was not clear in the advert. As I recall that wound up a good move because while it came with a metal gasket, it got bent in packing or shipping in the box with the pump so I was glad to have the extra. Sorry I don't remember brand names to tell you, too long ago and may not be the same parts anymore anyway.

 

Ordered the AC Delco pump, which seems to have everything included and will be here tomorrow.

Lets assume the old pump is kaput and maybe even has plastic impellers. Is there any additional cleanup I need to be concerned with if the old pump's impellers shredded? Like are there going to be chunks of plastic wedged in there?

I'll pick up a couple gallons of premixed dexcool. Process seems pretty straightforward. Drain coolant, loosen pulley bolts, remove belt, unbolt old pump, wiggle it out, make sure the block surface is clean, insert new pump with gasket and o-ring, then pulley, then belt...maybe pull the cooling fans to make some room. Fill cooling system from the expansion tank, burp the radiator hoses to get the bulk of the air out and then run it to circulate coolant and the rest of the air should work its way out through the expansion tank, right? Or do I need to fiddle with the big hex bolt on top of the intercoolers? If so, what size is it?

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

 

Jaguar issued a TSB for noises,

 

Only a concern for trapped air bubbles. I have went to a vacuum filler and after one use I was convinced. All modern car's have complicated and convoluted cooling systems and people have spent days,weeks and months trying to burp the air out.

Vacuum fillers are not too expensive and can be used on any car so not limited to just your Jaguar.

Or you can fight with it doing it the old way.
.
.
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Thanks Bob. I've recently replaced the PS pump and it seems to be secure, but I'll check that the bolts are torqued to the spec in the TSB.

 

You will need to remove the hex nut on the supercharger, I can't remember the size sadly (think someone used a wheel nut.......) , but I think the dowry washer is M30.
I am attaching the bleed sequence form the workshop manual.

Gook Luck,
Peter

 

I just measured mine as I'm thinking of rebleeding my cooling system, it's 19mm for the hex plug on top of the supercharger. Which is handy as the hex key I've got for bike spindles fits.

 

To update the above. The spindle key did fit & I found 1/3" air gap under the plug, on a car that's run for about 3 years since I changed the coolant. So it's deffo worth bleeding properly. At the time I didn't know about the plug so I'd poured coolant into one of the hoses to fill the intercoolers as far as I could, but that obviously left a bit of air trapped.

 

Well I was lucky enough to have a long weekend and made the time to get the new water pump installed. Old pump was a plastic impeller one piece housing. New Delco unit installed, put in a bit over 1.5 gallons of Dexcool, which is a bit more than I took out, which makes sense as the overflow tank cap was loose and wet, so I know I lost coolant there. Job was fairly straightforward except I didn't recheck the pulley bolts after running it in the garage to circulate the coolant and make sure nothing new was broken. All 3 bolts worked their way out while I was on the highway headed to work this morning and my temp gauge spiked. Pulled over, shut it down and opened to hood, plenty of steam coming out so I may have popped a line somewhere as well, hopefully not. I can see the pulley wedged down under the AC compressor pulley. Called for a tow, which cost $180 to take it off the highway to the nearest exit and now I have to either rent a trailer or have someone else tow it home for me. Thought briefly about just getting new pulley bolts and fixing it in the parking lot tonight, but if I did rupture another line I'll have to trailer it anyway...still might try it, just for the fun of it.

Dump mistake, not the first and not the last. Hope I didn't overheat it and now have a head gasket issue. Oh well, onward and upward! On the upside though, the horrible noise the old pump was making is now gone.

 

I don't remember having much trouble with the water pump. It was
replaced several years go with a RockAuto ACDelco unit. It was a very
straightforward type of job and is still doing the job.

 

Yeah, I'm chalking this up to my own error.

 

Well it turns out I might not be so thing as I dumb I am.

Figured since the pulley fell off, maybe I could just replace the bolts and drive it home, so I just drove to where it is, about 15 minutes from home in a Home Depot parking lot. Grabbed the pulley from where it was lodged under the AC compressor and was going to bolt it on when I noticed one of the original bolts sticking out of the holes on the pump. Closer examination shows that all 3 bolts have left remnants of themselves in all three holes and as it turns out the pump itself is seized up tight, it must have happened pretty suddenly and the force of the nice, new belt I put on just kept the pulley going and it sheared all three bolts right off, which is probably a designed in circuit breaker of sorts to keep the belt from shredding and possibly damaging significantly more expensive things than the water pump.

So I'll trailer it home tomorrow, get the new pump off when I can and see what happened. It must have either been a defective pump (or pump bearings) or there's something floating around in there and it lodged inside the vanes, which I think is probably a lot less likely. No real way to put it on wrong is there? It has a rubber gasket around the impeller and a metal gasket that only fits on one way. I tightened the mounting bolts in a star pattern to 8NM which I found here in another old thread, pulley bolts torqued to 12NM. I test drove the car yesterday on a pizza run, about 8-10 miles round trip, so it definitely got up to temperature and circulated all the new coolant. Only thing I didn't do yesterday was bleed the hex bolt at the intercoolers as I did not have the right size hex for it, but a set should be here tomorrow. I bled it pretty thoroughly at the overflow bottle a bunch of times including jacking up the front left corner to make sure that the overflow was well above the height of the intercooler bleeder. Even if there was a quart of air floating around in there, it seems unlikely to have caused this...it has to just be a bad pump. Maybe a different brand this time.

Sigh.