Hello all, I'm usually elsewhere on these forums as my signature will identify. I recently acquired a head and cams that appear to be from a 'W' XK120 engine, was wondering if anyone could shed any further light on this?

Here are pictures, worth a lot more than words...


w 8197-8








Wasn't expecting it to be so hard to identify this, so far as I can tell the number on back of cam ears is a W engine number but the rest is hard to track down https://xks.com/files/Jaguar%20Techn...-Head-Data.pdf

Thanks for any clues!

Oliver you have that part correct. Too bad it was stripped down and left to the elements. Suspect at the time it had a flaw that can be repaired now but was too costly in the day. What else do you need to know? It is 8 to 1 compression (or the engine it came from was. It is not early as the number attest to and the plug holes are not siamesed. It also has the stud fro the top of the cam cover so not early. Still a potentially valuable part.

Thanks for the info! It was actually indoors until the day before yesterday when it was in a downpour in the back of my truck after which I took these pictures in daylight. Undercover again now and greased up! I bought it along with various series III xke parts as a job lot, not sure what my plans are for it...anyone interested in it? I am a 60's to 90's Jaguar person this is very early for me...

What was the root cause of the overheat? Were you using the green coolant the whole time or only after you replaced the waterpump?

Definitely should not use the green coolant, only orange. That may have been the issue? The expansion tank even has sticker on there to only use orange coolant.

Posted on the wrong thread, please delete.

After he replaced the water pump, as luck would have it a water hose burst.

The wrong color coolant wouldn't cause this kind of engine failure... But the lack of coolant would.

Hi Oliver,

I checked out the xkdata site and found a match! XK Data - 677052 - Jaguar XK120, XK140, XK150 information, articles, photos and register. 1953 XK120.

Looks like the original car just failed to sell on BAT: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...-head-coupe-7/.

I imagine whoever acquires the car or the curent seller would be very interested in reuniting the head with the car ($$$)!

It is not clear from the comments, but it may still have the original block. The blocks are stamped with the same number as the head.

Keep us posted on what comes of this!

Regards,
Clive.

Thanks Clive! I'll get in touch with the owner, I'd almost forgotten about that head!