What year did Jag start putting the better timing chain tensioners and steel cylinder liners in J8's? I am lookig at a 2002. Is that new enough?

 

The newest metal body tensioners were not introduced for service until early 2005. They were apparently installed in production sometime late in 2003 for 2004 model 4.2L engines. That means mid-year production.

The lined cylinders began in mid August 2000 production which put them in mid 2001 model year cars and later.

Hope that helps.

 

The long term belief is that the first metal tensioners were installed beginning in August '01 at the engine factory. That has been confirmed by an owner with a August 14, '01 engine manufacture date. The later chains began in February '02.

Careful! My '02, manufactured in June of '01, came with the plastic tensioners.

 

...

 

I will have to dispute the owners claim, based on my own experience. I think the inference comes from the Bulletin announcing the revised metal tensioners. It lists "ending VIN's" of A24195 and F41862 for X100 and X308 models respectively. I've never had that ending VIN set explained to me, seems arbitrary. Vehicle assembly is kind of a jumble. For instance, X100 A24195 is an '01 model; A24196 is an '02 model. But by engine number, the '02 car got an engine built five days BEFORE the the car one digit earlier.

I think someone saw the VIN range end listed in the Bulletin, and ASSUMED that meant the end of the earlier non-metal bodied tensioners. I personally have replaced numerous sets of tensioners on '02 and '03 cars and have never found the metal ones in any 4.0L car.

This is all opinion and personal experience, I haven't yet found anything official or in print to concretely back it up.

Cheers,

 

Check the parts catalogue, there you also find the change over from August 13th, including the use of the morse primary chain.

And there have been many that reported having the new tensioners in their car. I know of at least 1 that was a 1st owner and knew his where never changed.

 

Just a detail they are not steel liners they are either a ductile iron or a cast "grey" iron liner very few engines acually came with acual steel liners one such engine is the saturn motors they little durable motor.

 

Well, I'm not sure what you feel that is telling you. That date is for sure the date of the change-over to the new timing chains, etc. That's verifiable. The secondary tensioner thing isn't. All the secondary tensioners, no matter what year supersede to the latest C2A1511, C2A1512 part numbers. I have asked and been told by Jaguar people that the FIRST metal bodied tensioners were the AJ87693, AJ87694 parts, as listed in the 2005 Bulletin. The parts catalogue shows that is the SECOND superseding part number for engines after the August 13th date.

I'm sort of a nut in that I try to check part date codes [if available] for parts I remove or install. As of yet, I have not seen a date code on a metal bodied tensioner prior to 2003.

Like I said before, I'm open to verifiable evidence to the contrary; but so far the evidence tells me no 4.0L was ever originally produced with metal secondary tensioners.

Cheers,

 

My gut wants to agree with you......... but Jaguar themselves call them steel lined cylinders.

Another "grey" area, no doubt!

Cheers,

 

I've 2 XJR engines with steel liners and metal timing parts including the morse chains and crank cog, plus the oil pump with nozzles. These are the last 4.0 engines built post midnight Aug 13th 2001. (cars built in Oct 01' and March 02')

All XJR 100 and XKR 100 have these 'evo' engines before Jaguar went to 4.2 - a matter of months for the UK MY 2003 XK.

Many people in the UK mistakenly think buying a UK MY 01' (or USA MY 02') is safe from plastic, this is not so, to be absolutely sure there's a need to confirm by engine number.

The general rule is the later the better

 

@xjrguy
In the nikasil bulletin, jaguar does clearly mention the solution which was to implement cast iron sleeves. Don't have the bulletin member with me but I am sure you know which one.

I actually may have tensioners with a 2001 date stamp, I'll check later.

 

Found them:

 

Looks like this is one of those "everybody's right" kind of things. The more I dig, the more places I find each term; steel and cast iron in references to the cylinders for V8's.

Strangely, on the V6 it seems to be steel or "dry steel" when describing that engine.

Lookin' forward to the early date stamp, I've sure never found one.


Cheers,

 

Well isn't that a kick!! Now, somebody, somewhere, knows the real story here. I wonder how long it's gonna take to find 'em.

So much for getting "accurate" information from some technical people within Jaguar.......


Nice job, avos! [I love this Forum.........]