Today I finished installing timing chains , complete with guides and tensioners for both primary's and secondary's on my wife's 2000 XJ8. I as well as countless others I'm sure, relied on the extremely detailed and well illustrated procedure laid out in black onyx senior member from this site. A huge thank you for your willingness to format that for the benefit of us all.
I post today because of the apprehension I am feeling after installing the timing cover on my way to completing this job.
It's nessasary to install the secondary chains in such a manner that the exhaust sprocket and the intake sprocket are 1/2 tooth out of sync. I spent considerable time interpolating this arrangement but came away less than 100% sure.
I plan to rotate the crank via the crank pulley bolt prior to total assembly and cranking with the starter. Trying to avoid doing any damage if I didn't have the relationship of those sprockets right. Any thoughts?

 

What do you mean they are out of sync. Both set of cams should be flat with the crankshaft locked at the flywheel.

 

That was all as it was supposed to be. But to put new chains the sprockets need to be removed from the cams and new chains installed and it's at this point that the relationship of the exhaust and intake sprockets may have inadvertently changed.

 

How did you lock down cams and crankshaft? Do you have the lock down kit? Did you loosen the sprocket head bolt at the end of each cam?

 

Yes on both accounts

 

Before you tighten the cams did you use the tool to put counterclockwise pressure on sprockets and VTT. This takes the slack out of the chain.

 

Yes. I had both cams as well as the crank locked and the cam tensioner applying counter force as I tightened the sprocket bolts.
I'm comfortable with how the whole process went, even using supplied shims to take the slack out of the drive side of the chains before tightening the sprocket bolts. It took some time to acquire all the nessasary tools and parts so I want to be as sure as I can be that I haven't overlooked anything.

 

Rotate the crank manually with a 24mm socket for at least 2 rotations. The reinstall the crankshaft locking tool on the flywheel. Then take one of your camshaft locking bars and it should slide over the cam flats on both sides. If it doesn't it is not timed correctly and I would reset the cams again. I had to redo mine once because after rotating the crank the bar didn't slide over the cam flats. It was only of a little but you want it set correctly so you have maximum performance.

 

Outstanding! Mahalo for your advice. It makes perfect sense to verify as you propose. Thanks again for chiming in.

 

I also saw that remark in the directions about having the sprockets 1/2 tooth off. I struggled with the meaning of that and also struggled regarding whether or not I accomplished it. I could not think of any logical reason for it as long as the timing was correct, but I still wanted to do the job "perfect" so I tried to line the sprockets up as directed.

In the end I never had a good feeling that I did indeed get them 1/2 tooth off, but like RobRoy said I just made darn sure the timing was right by rotating the engine. In my case I turned it about 10 times! It purred perfectly immediately upon start-up, and I drove it about 12,000 miles from that point until I sold the car, so all was well.

 

More comfort food. Thanks

 

The 1/2 tooth just refers to the gears on the crank. They can be positioned so that the teeth of both are the same, or by flipping one over, the tooth of one aligns with with the valley of the other. Does not matter which way If you then used the cam locking to set the flats.

 

So I followed your advice and rotated the crank a couple of times and reset the crank locking tool and reinstalled the left bank cam locking tool and was completely satisfied, however the right side was less than perfect.
Initially I kept the cam locking tool in place on the right bank while I lossened the cam sprocket bolts thinking the cams would align themselves but I didn't want to use the locking to gain that last little bit so I removed the CLT and that's when the exhaust cam seemed to turn out of alignment

 

So what I'm not sure of is, it seems the exhaust cam lobes want to engage the valves so is there a tool that turns the cam to the point the CLT can be installed on the flats or am I missing something entirely?

 

I used vice grips CAREFULLY on the cam and tightened the holding tool while turning until it was aligned. If you have the gears still in place and tight you can probably use the allen bolts holding the cam gears on to turn them while you tighten the CLT.

Make sure you have the other side's CLT in place and tight so you keep the other cams in time while you correct the bad side.

 

Been pretty busy with my day job and just now saw your advice. Tomorrow which will be Saturday on the Big Island I'm hoping to finish her up. I'm close
Mahalo for your thoughts.

 

Must be missing something. Crank lock in place:check/Cam lock on both banks installed:check. But after tightening both sprockets and rotating the crank by hand a few times the right bank continues to come up out of sync. After several attempts the cam tensioning tool cracked at one of the pins. Couldn't have been more cheaply made.
The teeth on both crank sprockets are in phase with one another. Could that be the problem? I read that it didn't matter as long as the flats were aligned on both cams.

 

Give us a couple of photos of the timing chains and the cam lobes.

 

 

I certainly appreciate all the help. Not all that computer savvy sending pics so I'm not sure if they are to large or even helpful. Last photo with solenoids installed was before I rotated the crank a few times and found right bank exhaust and intake lobes (flats) no longer aligned.