My cars been making a ticking noise for as long as I can remember. Recently it had gotten worse and I thought it was the tensioners so I replaced them and it wasn't it. Car runs great, the chain was tight, the noise is pretty steady with rpm, hear it at lower rpm mostly. Gets a little quieter when the engine is hot but still pretty loud. I've always given the car top tier fuels as well as fuel treatment twice a year and full synthetic oil. Just saw a clip of another XJR with valve noise and it sounds exactly like mine! I hope it's easy to adjust, boy I'd be happy if it is. Only valves I've ever adjusted were on a Honda, so not familiar with the shim type, any help/pics would be appreciated, thanks!

 

Adjusting valves is a major undertaking. First check the clearance. I believe it's .008" intake, .010" exhaust. The clearance is adjusted by changing the shims under the cam follower caps. There are other things that tick, even injectors.

 

It's not a pulse like ticking injectors would have, don't get any lean codes, and always use good fuel, so doubt it's injectors. What's the procedure to adjusting the clearance on the XJR's?

 

Check the gaps. make some notes on gaps. and then pull the cams to check the shim size and change shims, I am in the process of rebuilding the heads and it took 2 days 10 new shims at $9.30 each to get the gaps correct. It is not an easy job.
Question is why do you have a incorrect valve clearance problem. If the engine has not been worked on I would question why you suspect valve clearance.

 

THO....before you go tearing things apart.

I think it would be prudent to isolate and identify said ticking noise first.
Use an engineers stethoscope or a long screw driver with handle held to ear to trace the sound.
These being an all alloy engine, noise can move around and be amplified very easily.

As these engines use a bucket and shim method of valve clearences....just like most modern motorcycles, they are normally set up for the life of the engine and it is rare to have to do a valve re-shimming job unless the engine has been thrashed or poor quality oil used and not changed often enough.

This is an involved job and with four valves per cyclinder is no mean task.
It's not necessary to remove cams to alter adjustments as long as you have the correct tool to compress the bucket.
The bucket rides on the valve tip and the various clearence shims are housed in the top of the bucket and ride against the cam lobe.

I have seen various tools on line, mostly to do motorcycles which can be modified or used for car use.
Usually designed to compress one valve at a time but you can modify them to compress two at a time....either way, it's a long involved job as others have found out.

 

a loose Bosch sparkplug was found to make the same kind of noise a week ago on here after suspect valve clearance, I'd be checking the plugs first.
Let us know what you find with these?

 

+1 on eliminating other suspects before going for valve clearances.

After very high mileage or poor lubrication, the shims (item 1) do wear:



They develop a corresponding indentation to the top of the valve stem (arrowed in red in the pic):



This increases the gap and leads to valve clatter.

Unusual to come across this nowadays.

Graham

 

Thanks for the info guys, the pics really helped as well! It has 121k on the clock, never overheated, regular 5k OCI's, I like to hear the supercharger whine so it does get wound up a bit haha. I'll check the plugs first before I do anything, if all are snug I'll start checking clearances, any other recommendations? Thanks again everyone!

 

Remove the accessory belt and S/C belt to see if the tick remains. After going through the process, I really don't think that under normal circumstances (original valves) it is warranted. The valve train is pretty resilient.

 

Mine makes a clacking ticking noises when starting cold at low rpms. If it were any other vehicle I would be concerned, but that is just how they sound imo. My mother has had an 04 and currently owns an 05 XJR that made/make this same clacking noise when cold at low rpms, both had/have less than 60k miles on them. Heck I remember the 05 XJR clacking when it only had 30k miles on it 3 years ago lol. Both were/are very well maintained too.

Checking the gaps is a good thing to do, its cheap, but a little labor intensive. I snapped an exhaust camshaft on mine while doing tensioner work (don't ask how) and replaced it with a used one. It went in perfectly and did not require shimming.

 

Just a thought, I get the same type of click..clack noise from time to time when cold and warming up. What I found was revving the engine some a click was heard which was the Variable valve timing device. Ussually it will cure itself after warm up or again revving engine and noise goes away. Good luck. Also thought it was valve noise but not so.

 

The 'clack' noise you hear from the VVT is not intermitant....it happens regularly at idle about every four minutes which is energising the solenoid valve to allow lubrication of the VVT mechanism.
When you accelarate, the valve will open allowing the valve timing to the advanced position, then closes again when you decelerate.
Don't confuse this noise with other sounds like worn tensioners which is a half speed sound.
The injectors will 'tick' all the time.
Loose valve clearences will make a 'tap,tap' sound at half engine speed.
You learn to 'tune in' to the various sounds these engines make....which in all honesty is very quiet for an engine of this type.

 

Homeless,

I will probably have to do this in the next month or so as well, so if you could post pictures of the process as you do it, it would be very helpful. I looked at the tools needed, and frankly aside from the measuring of the clearance it looks like a relatively simple operation. The tools do not look expensive either.

 

Hey THEhomelessONE I am an first time jag owner. I have a 98 xjr sc. I need to swap my old plastic tensioners out for metal ones and swap all the other related parts also. Could you give me the specs on the timing marks and the ft-lb torque needed to set the bolts back at a safe torque, especially the cam bolts. If you could help me out I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Welcome to the forum1stone. You may find it advantageous to start a new thread with questions on your project. If you only plan on changing the secondaries the zip tie method will work well, and requires no special tools. Below is a thread which contains the experiences of some of the members.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ics-how-52653/

Here are torque settings I used:
Ignition Coil 36 lb/in
Cam Cover 80 "
Tensioner Bolts 124 "
Cam Caps 80 "

 

I did the valve clearance adjustment on my old straight six XJ6. On that, the shims were under the buckets. So you would measure each clearance (twice) and write them down. Then you had to pull the cam and buckets and see what shims were on each valve and shuffle them around to get the right clearance or buy new ones if you didn't have one that works. The shims had letters on them, like A-J that corresponded with the thickness. Of course there were only 12 valves as opposed to 32. But it is nice to see that you don't need to remove the cams on the AJ26-27 engines to replace the shims. Now that would be a job.