Ok, so me and my step-son have been working on his car when we can, he blew the headgasket a while ago, we just got everything back together yesterday, we put on new timing chain rails since the plastic was busting off all over the place.

The waterpump had a leak as well so we replaced that too.

The only part that totally sucked was starting the car and seeing white smoke coming out of the left tailpipe (looking from the front), I thought well maybe it was the residual water, or the oil in the cylinder when putting it back together, but the car was running a little rough.

I still let the car heat up a bit, about midway on the temp gauge and then shut it off.

I figured if it was a leak it would push the water into the cylinders and I could check that the next day. I took the spark plugs out and all were light tan (not soaked like before the gasket replacement).

I did a compression check on all plugs and here's what I got after gasket replacement:
(front of engine) --- anyone know what these should be?
162 169
170 172
168 169<-- original leak here / this side still white smokes in exhaust
158 163

BTW -- Oil looked clean, prior to replacement but was HIGH, my stepson said, uhhhh I might have added too much oil....so in the back of my mind I was thinking...

I sure hope all the anti-freeze isnt sitting at the bottom of the pan...So...after running the engine after the gasket replacement, oil is a nice orange color...neet huh!!

So I get to drain the oil tomorrow.

If water were in the oil and the engine heated up would that go through the pcv valve and out to produce the white smoke, or am I just dreaming here?

I guess I need to check for coolant loss to determine if there is a leak going on...Still changing the oil though since it has water in it, basically looks like its mixed with dexcool which was previously in it, or some other orange anti-freeze.

Thanks!

 

Compressions look fine, drop the oil to see what's there.

 

dropped the oil, nice and milky, looked orange. Replaced the oil, found that one of the ignition coils was bad, replaced and the "reduced performance" light went away. Car still burns anti-freeze... can smell and see it from the tailpipe. Even with the compression looking good, I am going to have to go back in and torque all the bolts down just a bit more. If it still leaks after that, we will try some head gasket fix and if that doesnt work, then its remove the left head and take it to the shop to get it milled, what we should have done in the first place but my step-son was too impatient... me I really don't mind bolting on the car over and over. Taking thinks apart will be just that much quicker. I did fix the coolant leak by replacing the water pump and putting epoxy in the coolant low indicator and then shoving the sensor in. I looked at the sensor, its a friggin reed switch, so inside the tank that plastic float that goes up and down must have a magnet in it. Ok well i'm off to the house to try re-torquing the bolts. Compression was good so, yea wth!

 

Ok so we tore it down again, and gave each of the head bolts another 90' on the bad side, didn't bother with the good side. Re-sealed everything, back in business, no leak. My son's been driving it for a week, oil = clean, coolant = proper level. Cross fingers that it holds together for another couple weeks and then I'll feel confident that the fix will last. The limited performance went away too after replacing the bad ignition coil.

 

My Step-son learned a lot through this whole process, thanks to all the people on here that had the necessary info "engine assembly pdf" etc. They were a great help. The Jag is still driving great, as he uses it to go back and forth to college every day. It is summer time here and all is still well. The only thing I dont like is that the plastic hose was replaced with a big rubber hose and looks like crap, but the step-son is happy with that, as he doesnt want to spend the $120 it costs for the new hose. It's his ride....One last thing about taking the camshafts off, we marked the timing chains by using an awl and scratching the camshafts and crank, this way we didnt have to do anything other than align the chains again. We did buy new timing chain guides as the plastic was all wearing down and some of the pieces were brittle and broke. Also, when replacing the valve covers, the rubber insert gaskets sucked and didnt seal well, so it was leaking like a sieve after startup. We ordered a different manufacture of them and scraped all the old gasket material off and it took this time. No more valve cover leaks -- royal pain though, we even steam cleaned the covers to make sure the gasket material would stick good. $$$ saved - ~ $3500.

 

Thanks for the update. Glad to hear everything is good with the Jag.

 

Welcome back.

It's always nice to see followups and confirmation that the traditional methods apply just as well to a Jaguar as a Chevy.

 

My step-son and I replaced the headgasket about a year or more ago, everything is still running great. He now has an alternator problem, but ill get to that in another post. Just wanted to say thanks to all for the help, the PDF helped the most, having the torque settings and all, wow though, the way you tighten down the head bolts, that "ting ting ting" as you are doing the 90 degree turns on each bolt makes you think its going to snap off at anytime. Cheers and have a merry