2000 XJ8 L

So the valve cover gasket on the driver's side started leaking a little, but was causing some smoking / burning. So I decided it would be a good time to go ahead and bite the bullet to do the primary / secondary tensioner update. I don't know much about the car's maintenance history in this regard.

I bought the complete kit from Christopher's Jaguar Parts and all of the tools needed (crank pulley remover, VVT / cam tools, breaker bar, etc...). I also purchased a USB borescope.

Surprise #1 when I removed the valve cover




Then I inserted the borescope into the front cover and found this:







My question now is, are these metal guides?












Looks like part number 96JV 6L266 AB...for the love of God I hope they're metal lol. Why would someone replace the primary tensioners but not replace the plastic guides while they're in there?

 

Pianoman, you can sigh a sigh of relief, those are the upgraded metal tensioner guides, and part # 96JV 6L266 AB indicates they are genuine OEM Jaguar parts.

Original guides are brown plastic and look like this..........................

 

Thank God lol...just saved myself a bunch of time!

 

Now that I've had a minute to chew on everything, I'm pretty sure the guides are still plastic. I've googled the part number and not seeing a lot of reassuring things. The part seems old.

Looked a bit more with the borescope and pretty sure these are cracks.









I'm this far along, I may as well pull the cover. I could just swap in the new guides and leave the metal secondaries / primaries...hopefully I can avoid removing the entire chain / cam sprockets / VVT.

Which gets me thinking, this is the metal guide in the kit (Metal Guides) It still has plastic. Will this suffer a similar fate over time as the original plastic guides?

 

The upgraded guides are of a different design to the originals, yes they are "plastic" where the chain runs on them, with an aluminum main support, but they are of a design and material that will not crack with age as the originals do. As with anything they will wear with use and age as the chains run directly across them, but their lifetime is significant.

The main design flaw was with the secondary (upper) tensioners, which would deteriorate with age/use and allow the upper cam chain to jump a tooth-or two causing catastrophic damage. The primary tensioners also suffer from this deterioration, with less catastrophic consequences, as do the old design plastic guides, but deterioration of the plastic guides does mean that the broken parts fall into the oil supply, potentially causing real damage.

As for your 96JV 6L266 AB guides, because they are a OEM Jaguar part #, and are NOT visually the same as the original OEM plastic guides we are all familiar with, I have to believe they are the upgraded metal guides supplied by Jaguar. Other forum members with more direct experience may have more info on this.

Pic of typical deterioration of original guides....................

 

Thanks for the info!

I ended up pulling the front cover today and visually inspected the guides. I used the Jaguar crank pulley removal tool with a 2 foot breaker bar and honestly, it was very smooth getting the bolt out and damper off. Well worth the $50.

The guides are definitely are metal and I saw no cracks, even looking with a close up camera. The cam flats lined up very well and the chain looked new. At this time, my plan is to button everything back up with new seals. I don't see a reason to replace any of these things at this point. Now I have peace of mind and can sleep sound lol

Here are a few pics of the guides:

 

Pianoman, just as an FYI, the pics below show what the "Christopher guides" look like installed, I know you have purchased the kit and can see them for yourself, but they do look to be a different design to the 96JV 6L266 AB guides currently on your car. The 96JV 6L266 AB guides look to be the same design as the old original guides, i.e. plastic shroud runners encasing a metal inner support, and i wonder if they will be subject to eventual cracking just like the original guides, whereas the "Christopher guides" are a thick molded guide runner on an aluminum support.

I don't want to introduce indecision but I think I'd be in two minds as to whether to swap out the current guides for the modified Chris versions you have?

 

Thanks for the pics..those are the exact pieces that I have on the garage floor right now....ugh lol. Guess I could easily swap the new guides at this point without too much fuss, may even do the new primary tensioners but leave the secondaries and chains as is.

 

So now I'm stuck...I have replaced the primary tensioner and guides on the driver's side without an issue.

The passenger's side is giving me a problem. I do not have enough slack on the chain to insert both the primary tensioner and guide. There is a lot of slack however on the top part of the chain. The tensioner pin is still in place and I have not removed it. I'm trying to make sense of it. Here are some pics where I am pushing as hard as I can.








The cams are locked, crank has not moved. I marked the chains too before starting.

 

Whatever the reason for the misalignment, you anyway have to go through the cam timing procedure again. Loosen all four cam sprocket centre bolts, make sure the crank and the cams are locked correctly and follow the procedures in the attached file. As to the final torque of the cam sprocket centre bolts, there is a confusion (as you will notice) on the attached pages from the Service Manual - it shows 115-125 Nm at the drawings, even 115-185 on one of them (totally wrong) and it shows 20 Nm + 90 deg. in the text. There was a revision of these torques by Jaguar but I do not have it. I am sure someone will provide the info on the correct torques.

 

OK so maybe I've screwed up. Hopefully I haven't done anything irreversible yet. I've got plenty of time to sort this out.

I tried to lock the crank with the crank locking tool, but could not for the life of me get the CPS removed. The sensor is on the front bottom of the transmission (facing the front of the car) and is obscured by the steering rack. I can't even get an allen wrench in there, certainly not a 1/4" or 3/8". Shame on me, I know.

Before moving any of the chains, guides or tensioners, I had rotated the crank so that the cam tops were all flat. I applied the cam locking tools on both heads.

I zip tied the primary chains and marked them with white out so that they didn't shift. I removed the long passenger side long guide and replaced it immediately. I then removed the driver side tensioner / curved guide and replaced them immediately. I kept the tensioner pin in place and did not pull it. I removed the driver side long guide and replaced it. No issues with the driver side. The primary chains never moved position.

Upon trying to replaced the passenger curved guide and tensioner, I ran into the problem as mentioned in the above post, where it was slack on top and tight on bottom. I did not loosen any of the cam sprockets at all for this because I thought the guides / primary tensioners would be a simple swap. Guess not lol

So my guess right now is that I need to:
1) remove the cam locks
2) rotate the crank and lock it properly with the crank tool (I'm assuming the passenger side cams will rotate as well with the crank since the chain is in place?)
3) lock the cams flat on both sides
4) then follow the pdf / jag instructions from start including removal of cam sprockets / secondary tensioner / primary and secondary chains to be safe with regard to timing?

Thanks for the help!

 

Do not remove the cam locks as, at their locked position, the crankshaft is very close to its lock position. Probably just a few millimetres off. Just remove the crank sensor, see where the oval hole on the flywheel is and rotate the crank a bit until the hole is centered well for the lock pin. What I did was - when I could see the oval hole being very close to the lock position, I inserted the lock pin (still not fully in due to a small misalignment with the oval hole) and used a longer bolt with a spring on it to apply some spring preload on the pin. Then I rotated the crank very slowly until I heard the "click" of the pin engaging the hole.

 

Yes, the earlier AJ26 two-position VVT had solid retaining bolts and were to be torqued to 115-125Nm (85-92ftlb), but the later AJ27 variable position VVT had hollow bolts and are to be tightened in a two stage procedure, initially to 30-40Nm (22-29ft lbs) then finally to 85-90Nm (62-66ft lbs)

 

You really have to remove the CPS, yes that small retaining bolt is difficult to get to, I think I loosened mine using small vice grips. When I replaced the CPS I replaced the retaining bolt with a hex head so that it is easier to undo in the future.

 

 

Thanks guys, about to try again today and see if I can’t make some progress.

So the CPS bolt is a torx then, not a hex? I may try to find a low profile tool like the one above before I get started.

 

To be honest I don't remember if the CPS bolt is allen or torx, (torx I think)............when I said I replaced it with a hex I meant I replaced it with a regular hex-headed bolt, one that can be undone with a regular 10mm wrench.

 

Thanks guys, so I bought a right angle bit drive and was able to successfully pin the crank (ended up being a small torx). As Stojanovic said, it was very close and only needed a half turn or so of the crank. I left the cams locked.



After locking the crank, the passenger chain felt much more normal again. I was able to easily install the last guide. I checked my prior marks and the chain has not moved. I wonder if it was binding a bit since the crank wasn't exactly where it needed to be?

 

EXCELLENT!

 

Wise to replace the crankshaft seal, also there is a very thin seal that goes in the harmonic balancer.....................both seals should be in the Christopher kit.

Also might be a good time to replace the plastic thermostat housing.