Hi I'm James

New 2000 XJR owner. Car has 161k on it and the tensioners haven't ever been done. I found the metal tensioners on amazon just need the special tools required to do it. Anyone can steer me in the right direction to buy/borrow/or rent the tool I would greatly appreciate it.

The car idles and drives beautifully. Only quirks are the random low coolant warning, and random p0172/p0175 codes. Which I'll also be handling.

Also, I'm located in southern California if any members are local.

 

Do a search on "Zip-tie method" for changing the secondary tensioners. You don't need the special tools. If you are changing the primaries and secondaries then you will need the tools

 

The link below is to a thread that shows the kit. You can find them pretty cheap now on E-Bay
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ioners-126338/

This link has a great write up on how to do it.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ioners-126338/

When I did the tensioners on mine I used the zip tie method. The link below has some information.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ioners-126338/

If you look in the "how to" section you will find a great guide for tensioners and chains.

 

Awesome thanks.

How does one put the hood in service position? I found the how-to for the coupes but can't find it for the x308. I removed the hoodstruts from the hood to get it vertical but I cannot find anywhere that would allow me to keep the hood upright without using my free hand. Just found a massive vcg leak in the passenger side that I would like to take care of TODAY!

 

Also, these are the tensioners I found in amazon:

NEW TK10600 Secondary Upper Timing Chains & Tensioner Kit for Jaguar 4.0L 4.2L V8 AJ, BC, LC, DC, C, AJ, NC, PA, AJ33 Engine 1997-10 Ford Lincoln Land Rover

 

I would do a price check with the forum supporters SNG Barratt or Jagbits. You don't need the chains and the sponsors have oem. You will need the updated bolts, they are shorter than the ones now on the tensioners.

 

I'm ready to do my tensioners. In order to make sure I get the correct parts I wanted to know where I could find my engine number?

 

Congrats in your XJR! I hope to have one, one day! For the random coolant warning, I'd use to get those too. This may not apply to your '308, but for me I had to check the coolant each time it came on and low and behold, the coolant was low. I had to top it off once a month. Turns out, the headgasket was bad and it was evaporating the coolant, thus depleting a good amount. However, if your coolant isn't disappearing, it could be a sensor.

Have fun in your XJR!

 

if the last 6 of your vin is F41862 and numbers higher than that, then your most likely safe as long as the engine wasn't replaced with an earlier MY one. The engine numbers are located next to the base of the thermostat housing on the engine block bank 2 or D/S (LH USA). Depending on how clean or dirty your engine is, you might have grime covering the numbers up. If I'm not mistaken, I believe you are looking for 010813 or higher. That would be the year 2001 followed by the month of August (08) and the day (13).

 

I appreciate the information. My car is from 2000 so I'm not gonna have my hopes up.

 

Only doing secondaries, or are you doing primaries as well? If the primaries have never been done, it couldn't hurt, I got my XJR cheap since it needed a new primary guide. (Most of) the tools to do everything come in a kit you can get off ebay for 70 bucks or so. Cam locking bars make life a lot more certain and easier.

The only thing you won't have is a crank pulley locking tool.. there's several solutions to that, depends on your mechanical ability, budget, and so on. Some members may have one to loan out, maybe some vendors, make sure you get the longer XJR version (p/n 303-02? not sure).

You can also weld one up, or machine one yourself. I'm working on building a beefy one without welding at all, more on that after the weekend is up and shop's open again.

In the large files section, under x308 guides I believe, there's a very good PDF write up with pictures detailing the whole process.

If you're getting in there, and you have no records of the water pump and tstat being changed, I'd do those. Unless they fixed it in later years, the pumps came with plastic blades which eventually break. Metal impeller pumps are available cheap. Thermostat is also cheap, cheap insurance in case yours is original and decides to stick from old age.

Of course there's gaskets and all other loads of small maintenance things you can do while you're in there. Replace plastic belt pulleys with metal, other pulley bearings, etc etc. If you end up getting deep, I've got correct part no's for gaskets and so on squirreled away in my jag files.