I found my upper control arm ball joint seals are severely rotted away and I have a knock over bumps coming from the right side.
I read the threads here and found out how to get hold of genuine replacement upper control arms, sourced them and other parts. I prepared and read the Jaguar service manual (60.35.42 & 60.30.04) on removing control arms and shock absorbers. I searched the forum and other sources looking for help or videos showing how this task is done, but only found in-depth information for XK8, not New XK.
With faith, I thought "how hard can it be?"

It might seem simple to replace the upper control arms, but the key is that the removal of the shocks is necessary to allow the two bolts to be withdrawn completely through the control arm bushings. This is more complex than other Jag models (That I can see). Following the Jag service bulletins, it looks clear, but I got stuck at the point of being able to get the shock enough clearance to be removed. It seems I need about two more inches without compression. I've stopped short at removing the lower control arm - That's just not in the instructions from Jag and would mean that I would have removed everything to achieve the goal.

Has anyone actually done this or can point me in a good direction?

Thanks guys

 

A few of us had had to remove the front shocks/struts. I do recall it was a bit of a pain wrangling it out of there. Make sure the sucker is pushed back up as high as it will go (has a tendency to drop lower once the top 4 nuts have been removed), and then either swing the bottom forward of the lower arm, or towards the rear, I don't recall which. You may have to push down on the lower arm to get the necessary clearance.

 

Yes, the shock has dropped from the upper mount. I'll try again to put it back up and push the lower arm down.
Thanks for the response and I just love the color of your XK :-)

 

Success - It just takes a buddy (son) to help out.


I think I'll add info to this thread for future ref of others.

Thank you so much.

 

For access to the upper control arm bolts: is it necessary to totally remove the front strut from the car; or is it sufficient just to remove the top four nuts at the top of the strut while leaving the bottom of the strut attached to the lower control arm? My thought is to have a floor jack supporting the bottom of the lower control arm when the four nuts at the top of the strut are removed, then slightly lower the floor jack to let the top of the strut detach from the inner fender.

 

The side bolts that fixes the upper control arm to the body is quite long. When you try to remove the bolts without removing / moving the strut to one side the bolt will hit the spring and you can't go any further. At this point you can either remove the strut or cut the bolt.

 

Hi Patrick,
There is no way around it ... I'm afraid the whole strut has to come out so the bolts can be withdrawn.
There is also a little difficulty on the bolt closest to the driver. The ECM under the cover has to be removed so you can access and wrench on the nut.
On the right side I remember you also have to remove the coolant tank.

 

Coolant tank... yes. Use a turkey baster or pump to suck out everything in the tank, then you don't have to drain the whole system.

ECM... no. You can move the fuse box and harness aside and get a wrench on the nut.

 

I guess you can get away with just moving the fuse box. It just depends on your tooling and how (or if) you intend to properly torque the bolt.