My 2001 XJR, 100k miles, is having coolant issues. I did two stupid things to my Jag:
a) put radiator leak fix in reservoir tank
b) added nondistilled water and Prestone antifreeze into system that already had some Jaguar coolant in it
I noticed I had no heat about two months ago but living in St. Petersburg, Florida it was not really an issue. About 2 weeks ago, I was getting a "Low Coolant" warning after adding antifreeze a few times I noticed my upper radiator hose?, near the thermostat, was soft and when I pushed on it with a screwdriver it split. I replaced that and everything seemed okay (still no heat) until yesterday. It appears my heater hose, on the passenger side by the firewall simply blew apart at the T. I believe this is part of the Octopus hose. This hose is difficult to get to though I have read some previous posts on how to get to it. My question is, can I flush my heater and just reattach it or do I have to buy the entire Octopus section? I would then thoughly flush the entire system and change the thermostat. Please don't yell at me dumb for things I did. Hopefully, others might learn from my mistakes. Also, how do I insert a picture of my car next to my name?
Thanks,
Jan

 

There are several different Prestone coolants. Which one did you use?

 

I take that back... it was 'PEAK Long Life'.

 

At this point it is time to replace all the hoses, back flush the heater core, flush the whole cooling system, and refill with the coolant your car requires. I believe you will find that information on the header tank. Change the water pump and thermostat and housing, also the crossover pipe.
The last thing you need is to have a hose fail while you are driving. The temperature gauge will not give sufficient warning before you cook the engine.
Installing the the Realgauge or a OBD connected device like Ultragauge or a wireless connected phone app would also be wise.

 

Due to expense, what is the minimum I can do? Can I just replace the indicated hose, flush heater and cooling system and replace the therostat? My thought is that if this does'nt work I can do the water pump, all hoses etc at that point. At this time I really don't have the money to do all that was previously suggested.

 

Peak long life seems to be a next generation organic acid coolant, sort of an improved version of Dexcool, which would be fine in the Jag. I do think it would be best to flush the system, and then start with new coolant, but if you are on a budget I can't see anything wrong with using that stuff. Prestone yellow is a similar product.

 

Can I just reattach the hose that blew apart?

 

What do you mean when you say "it blew apart?" If it just blew off its coupling, reattach it; if it came apart mid way, somewhere, in the hose, buy a new one. Easy enough to back flush and probably a good idea. But you might want to explore what caused the hose to detach . . . .

 

It blew apart from the coupler. I was not sure if I could reattach it or it came as a one unit piece (all hoses permanatley fixed). I did not want to dig into it if I could'nt reattach it. I am pretty sure the heater is colgged and perhaps the thermostat is stuck. So after reattaching the hose I will do both those tasks as well as completely flush the system.

 

Working, as I could find the time, over the last few weeks I finally removed my 'Octopus" hose. I decided to try and repair the current hose and had to purchase a water hose VALVE-NON RETURN MJA6732CA and a CONNECTOR-3 WAY NNE3944BA. The plastic T portion of the octopus hose also is snapped. Can I use a copper 1/2" T pipe from Home Depot or will introducing copper into the cooling system cause problems?
Thanks too all for any help.
Jan

 

I think the copper tee will work just fine. (it is just a car!). But Advanced Auto Parts has a section for small parts, our local has three or four plastic tee sizes in stock.

Do you believe the octopus hose was the cause of the original leak that sent you to Bars Stop Leak?

 

Does anyone know where in the octopus hose does the float or stopper belong? When I took the hose off I heard a loose piece floating in the hoses somewhere and now putting it back together the round plastic stopper fell out and I don't know where it belongs nor which direction it sits.

 

I just figured that the piece floating around in my octopus hose was the flap that is supposed to be attached to the non-return valve. I'm thinking that might be what caused the original problem. No heat and pressure build up. I'm assembling now and keeping my fingers crossed.