The car has 44K on it and has been serviced by Jag the entire time 1998 XJ8 VDP. I read alot on the upper tensioners on the forum. The car makes a scraping noise for like 4 secs then stops only at startup. Once warmed up you never hear it again. Listen closely to the video clip and you will hear it start then stop. It happens at 5 and 12 secods in the video

Here is a link to my photo bucket http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...psfe76d894.mp4

Thanks

 

We don't know what year car you have. If you go to the USER CP at the top of the page you can add your signature and list your cars to your posts.

I couldn't hear chain rattle on your video, but that means nothing. If the car is pre '03 it is worth taking the valve covers off and inspecting the tensioners and guides. In many instances the early types will lose a plastic guide (shoe) and the chain will be riding on the metal substrate. That happened on my car, but I caught it before there was significant wear on the chain. However, a good size plastic was sitting on the end acm cap, and if it had gotten into the sprocket could have caused a disaster.

 

Ok made the changes to my profile. The car is a 1998 VDP

 

OK, so unless someone replaced the tensioners already you need to do that.

 

So could I get away with doing the top ones or are the bottoms also necessary at 44k miles

 

Take the valve covers off first and have a look. When I took my covers off I was shocked to see what I found. Both tensioners had cracks, one was missing its cap, so the chain was riding metal on metal. I looked at the guides as best I could and I could see they were cracked down below. I opted to do the whole system for piece of mind.

Being yours only has 44k miles on it, you could probably get away with doing just the secondaries on top.

 

Sound advice from Rj237 and Jagscott. The best place to start is to pull the valve covers and check the secondary tensioners. I would not start the engine again until you check them - that is not a noise you want to hear from the engine.

There are many threads that list the Ford part numbers for the 3rd gen. tensioners and the shorter bolts that you will need. They are much less expensive than the Jag OEM parts.