Hi all,

Just did the secondary tensioners, valve cover gaskets, new battery and octopus hose in my '00 XJR. Once I had everything back together and fluids topped up I fired it up and it ran quite nicely, but... after I shut everything down and started to pat my own back I heard what initially sounded like a small hammer fall off the workbench onto the garage floor. Then I heard it again but noticed it was the engine cooling. It's not the usual "tink, tink-tink" we all know when engines cool down - this sound is the same pitch and timbre but FAR louder, and only happens in about 45 second to 1 minute intervals. It's such that a friend who heard it right after my test drive commented: "whoa, what was THAT??!?!!?!?"

Also, right after getting the engine back together but before firing it up, with the ignition in position II, I heard what I believe was the intercooler (?) in the front right of the engine bay making a faint squealing belt like noise. It did that a few times, but after firing everything up it seems to have quit.

Again, I've checked the coolant level before and after running and all seems ok there. Oil as well.

Thoughts?

 

Your description would make me think you are getting a boiling event. Did you bleed the intercooler cooling loop? Find instructions in the archives or ask. The intercoolers are the boxes on the top of the engine with writing on them. What you hear whining is probably the intercooler water circulating pump. It might whine if the loop was not filled.

 

Did you fill the intercoolers via the big 19mm hex plug on the top?


The noise you are hearing is probably the intercooler pump, do a search of the forum to bleed the cooling system, the intercoolers are linked to the main engine cooling system.

 

Thank you guys!

I checked the coolant via the hex plug and it was good. The pump "noise" subsided to a very typical sound after a few short drives (HAD to - it's my daily driver, or at least it's supposed to be).

And... I THOUGHT the unsettlingly loud "tink" might've gone away, but alas last night after a short drive it was there full force upon shut down. This time I threw the bonnet up and just laid my hands on different areas of the engine to try to feel where the sound originated, and I believe it is the supercharger/intercoolers - hard to say though, but that's where I could feel the "tink" best.

Oh... And now there's the clunky and sporadic rattle/tick/knocking from the top sometimes. Joy. This thing...

 

it sounds like the same issue that I am having now.

if you are able get a long screwdriver/or any metal stick and tap on the cooling pump over between the cooling fan and the engine pulleys more off to the right/LHR passenger side, at 8 o'clock position from the AC pump. if you feel the vibration and hear the noise coming from there. it is the intercooler pump