I found a yr 2000 xjr for 2,500 who will trade for my 83 240d Mercedes and 400$ ;good news is the car looks immaculate, bad news is it hasn’t run since 09 and since the owner now bought it from auction he doesn’t know the story. So my two theory’s are either some old dude owned it and couldn’t drive it anymore and it sat for a decade or the engine blew back in 09 and the owner didn’t have the money to fix it the problem with option two is that I would think the car would be worth enough in 2009 to justify a new engine. So what are your thoughts and how would one check for a blown engine

 

Check for broken timing tensioners via the valve covers.

 

Howza'bout putting your location in your data block.

 

It sounds as if you already "bought" the XJR and if that's the case you might as well dive in. I'd want to spin the engine over by hand at the crank pulley (with a wrench) to make sure there's nothing like an already broken tensioner causing it to have jumped time. I'd certainly want to pull the valve covers and check the tensioner status out as they could be failing but the cams could still be in time.
Personally I wouldn't run any of the 10 year old gas thru the system. You should be able to rig up the pumps to empty the tank and check their function as well. One of mine was bad when I got my 99 and I know I've seen others here that have had both fail on them. It might be smart to at least plan on cleaning the injectors and changing the fuel filter.
I'd also want to change the oil (& filter) and coolant and I'd be surprised if you could just charge a 10 year old battery and have it hold so I guess it would be good to plan for a new one of those.
If you get that far and you determine it's ok to start the old girl you may get hit with some codes but anything that comes up might clean up with a few miles or a fuel system cleaning.
Look the old girl over for rodent related issues as well. Mine gets lived in just sitting for our 9 month long winters here in upstate NY...

 

well .. the good news is a non running Jaguar is still faster than your old 240D ...


We had one (4 speed) ..and I do believe it was slower than our DL Volvo auto.

 

Slow doesn’t even begin to describe this car it only had 52 horsepower new and that was 40 years ago paired with a auto gearbox this thing struggles to make it up my driveway it’s the sort of car that you have to plan your route in advance

 

Thanks, yeah I’m going to look at it in about a week to make sure it’s even a viable project since this isn’t my first rodeo with abandon former luxury cars (you would not believe how hard it is to finding why your ac won’t turn off in a Porsche 928)when checking the vin what month did the old cylinder walls change to the new ones

 

Someone with more knowledge of these things will have the numbers or engine dates to use as mileposts but if it's a 2000 it should be well beyond the cylinder wall issues but unfortunately it will also be well into the plastic tensioner body era...

 

 

Separation of the wood isn’t good but expected after 10 years in the Texas sun or a humid garage

 

We have seen this rig before: where in Texas? Near Dallas, there are a capable of guys, from this forum who are really knowing.

 

It’s in Houston I decided to pass on it in favor of s 1979 sl450 and fix my own xj8 which today had a major suspension failure

 

Boy that Texas sun! The hood clear coat and cracked dash look very familiar as my 99 came up from the Houston area. Good news is it probably looks pretty nice underneath, except for the deteriorated rubber parts, ask me how I know about that! Good luck with the Merc...