OK, so I just changed the trans fluid on my car and while this is a well documented procedure I thought I'd share a few tips that made my life easier...


As I don't have 3 hands I had to find a way to work the pump, hold the fill hose in the transmission and hold the hose in the trans fluid container all at the same time. So as you can see I tie wrapped my pump to the car and used duct tape to hold the hose in the trans fill opening. Worked great, hardly a drop spilled until it started to leak back out of the fill hole.


A lot has been discussed about the correct tool to remove the fill plug. Well I found this combination of 8mm hex socket, two adapters and my 3/8 drive ratchet to be the perfect length to work. I used a large box wrench on the ratchet handle as a cheater bar and the fill plug came out without any issues. With a 8mm ratcheting box wrench as shown you can then easily control the plug and remove and insert it. I used a leather glove on one hand to keep from getting my hand and arm burnt by the exhaust pipe.

I recovered all fluid with a large open drip pan so I could measure and compare against what came out.

Exactly 150 oz's came out with an overnight drip and capping the fill hole at 47 C ,measured with an IR thermometer on the bottom of the pan, exactly 154 oz's went in.

I was not having any issues other than the random squawk common to the car and a little very slight bump when the car went into 6th gear at a steady speed. Now it's very smooth all around and I have not heard the squawk yet! Car has 91K on it and the trans fluid was changed by a dealer under the PO care around 48K due to a complaint about the squawk issue.

Used Mercon SP trans Oil and did not replace the pan and filter.

Simple procedure..
Be sure car is level
Warm up car
Drain Fluid, let sit for awhile
With car cold,Pump in fluid until it starts to drip out, about 2 qts.
insert fill plug
Start car and shift through all gears leaving in each for at least 3 seconds.
With car running, remove fill plug and pump in more fluid until it starts to run out
Measure temperature of trans pan with IR Thermometer, play around and find the hottest spot, there is a flat area just in front of the drain plug that worked best for me. I had no luck getting a good reading on the fluid as it dripped out.
When you get to 40 C start working on getting the fill plug back in. It takes a little fiddling around so don't wait as if you take to long and the temp goes over 50 C you have to start over.

Hope this helps.....

 

Thanks, love the tie wrap pump idea. tough to hold under the chin :-)

 

Good job, especially doing it all by yourself. That squawk will remain silent for many, many miles now. Welcome to the ZF ATF Refresh Club....

 

+1 on the cable tie the pump tip.

Dropping the pan and changing the filter is very straightforward if you are under the car in any case (assuming no seized bolts on the pan). There was quite a bit of metallic sludge accumulated on the pan magnets on my vehicle which I was glad to get out of the system.

Next time I do it, I am going to swap out all the pan bolts for new ones - they are just standard T27 cap-head screws on my car; no need to fork out for the Jaguar parts.

There's a ZF YouTube video for the fluid change on a 5HP24 gearbox which I found useful.

 

Tie wraps are a good idea. Great suggestion. I had suspended the battery powered pump with a coat hanger. Yes - three hands would be awfully helpful. (Anyone read "The Mote in God's Eye" lately?)

 

Nice job! Did any of the bolts break or give you trouble? What size torx head is on that year car? I heard they switched from T27 to T40 at some point to prevent easy stripping.

 

I didn't change the pan/filter

 

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This was started to reply to Transmission fluid topic but then I added a few other items. Moderator please move as needed!
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Hi all! I've been on here many, many times, however this is the first time I am posting. Hopefully these fwe pointers will help. Over my years of ownership of a 2005 XJ8 L (x350), I have found the following:

1: Air shocks suck! I have changed all 4 of them... and 3 of them twice in just the last 3 years! Finally I decided to change all using Arnott's conversion kit... and now I never, ever walk out to my car with that dreaded feeling of wondering if it is sitting on the ground! No more worries about changing the air pump, the o rings, hissing sounds or morning blues finding the car sitting on the ground!

The kit runs around $1100 (2016 prices) if you shop carefully and make sure you buy the one that comes with the electric box that turns off the dashboard warning light! It is a piece of cake to install. A garage, decent jack and jack stands, breaker bars and a teenaged child (boy or girl... I had my 15 year old daughter help me) comes in super handy and took me about 4 hours for the entire job. Figure another $100 at Pep Boys for a 5 year alignment job.

As far as the new shocks go, in my humble opinion they ride far, far better than the air shocks. When I used to come around a curve with the air shocks, even at around 35 mph, hitting a manhole cover would cause the car to jump sideways. With the kit shocks, the car rides like my Mercedes. Solid, flat thunk over man hole covers (or potholes) with no judder, shimmy or sideways slip. Absolutely awesome!

2: Transmission: I've changed my ZF's fluid with Mercon SP and no more squalk! Mercon SP is around $80 bucks for 12 quarts on Amazon... and Amazon will give you $50 towards the purchase if you sign up for their card, (No annual fee and you have the option of closing the card after the fluid shows up...)

My suggestion: Buy a $10 1 gallon pressurized hand sprayer from Home Depot. Remove the spray pattern nozzle for the end of the wand and attach a 16" clear plastic tube. Put the gallon of Mercon into the sprayer, pump it up... and use the sprayer trigger to EASILY, QUICKLY and CLEANLY fill through the (unbelievably, stupidly positioned) fill hole. (The position of the fill hole on the ZF 6HP26 must be Germany's revenge on the Allies for WWII!)

3: Radiator: Even on EBay/Amazon an aftermarket or OEM radiator is around $300 to $500 for the XJ8 (x350).

But guess what?!? The radiator of the S Type of same year ranges from $99 to $135... shipping included. And IT PERFECTLY MATCHES THE radiator on the XJ8's 4.2. I bought the following on EBay:

"13148 RADIATOR FOR JAGUAR FITS S TYPE 3.0 4.2 V6 6CYL V8 8CYL **WITH T.O.C" for $135.00 including shipping, and it was an IDENTICAL unit. Make sure you buy the one with the TOC (Transmission oil cooler attached!)

HOWEVER: The problem is you MUST open the air conditioner line going to the condenser to be able to change the radiator. This means you must buy a set of o rings ($5.00), Rent a vacuum pump from Autozone ($0.00) and buy at least 3 cans of R-134A (around 26 oz needed) to close, seal, evacuate and recharge the system after changing the radiator.

Plus a gallon of the undiluted orange coolant (similar to DEX COOL) for $20. Total time / labor in your garage: 4 hours plus 1 hour of your teenager's time when you are actually removing and reinstalling the radiator.

Sliding panel on headliner:
1: Remove the plastic finger catch from the sliding portion of the panel by pushing down from top.
2: Drop headliner panel as explained in Jaguar Factory manual.
3: Once down, slide the moving panel fully to the rear and you will notice two plastic clips at the far rear end of the rails which stop the panel from sliding back further. Remove these two clips (carefully without breaking) and the sliding panel can be removed from the headliner tracks.
4: Remove and recover moving panel.
5: Return newly covered panel to headliner.
6: Reinstall headliner
7: Reinstall/glue in the plastic finger catch.

Voila! But if you need to recover the entire headliner... then you're stuck with having to remove the glass on the XJ8 or struggling with removal through the rear door on the XJ8 L.

Just a few suggestions on repairs I have performed myself and tips which I know will work!

 

just a couple of things, its much easier with a pressurised garden sprayer, just press the trigger and in it goes. Tool for the fill plug,just a long series allen key with the business end shortened just a tad to get it past the exhaust is perfect. As for the temperature, yes I read the official procedure, watched the videos and so on. In the end I just filled it cold , let the engine run for 5 minutes and topped up. I've had no issues and lets face it, if it was that critical the box would stop working on an incline or going round a corner so I'm convinced there is no need to be so **** about the temperature. The use of an IR thermometer is questionable anyway, they are an indication at best and I bet few if anyone changes the emissivity setting on them to match the surface being measured?

 

Welcome to the forum sonnydas,

Please follow this link New Member Area - Intro a MUST - Jaguar Forums - Jaguar Enthusiasts Forum to the New Member Area - Intro a MUST forum and post some info about yourself and your vehicle for all members to see. In return you'll get a proper welcome and some useful advice about posting to the forum.

Graham

 

Your tips are great!
I thought I'd share a nasty accident that was totally my own doing - I was jacking the car up from the front central position along that beam below the radiator - I must have been a little too far forward when placing the jack as it slid forward off that beam before I had the chance to place my axle stands (yes she was that high up!)
The head of the jack bent the trans cooler and oil cooler lines to an almost 45 degree angle. Tore a 100mm or so circular hole in the splash shield too. Thankfully no real damage appears to have been caused as no leaks or temp variations are visible (yet that is).
Any prospective buyer would be put off seeing this damage so I really need to get it repaired.
The car dropped around a foot I suppose and I'm actually worried those bends in the lines might cause some wearing in something that isn't visible and something will fail on me.
I'm thinking maybe I should get a body shop to pull it all back down somehow. I'm worried in doing that they may actually cause real damage to the lines and/or the radiators doing the reverse procedure and stressing the joints etc, so I'm wondering if they do damage the coolers radiators what I should do. I found one being wrecked online but it's a 1997 XK8 and mine's a 2004 model. I can't find any info on if the coolers might be interchangeable or not. I doubt they would be. Do you know if the XK8 coolers would fit mine?
I have replaced a few things on my XKR like upper shock mounts and sway bar bushes but nothing else really under the car. I am about to do some trans repairs - replace pan/filter and remove mechatronic unit to replace the 4 tube seals, the bridge seal and the other large sleeve seal. I have the typical trans issues that most of us end up with - the nasty bang into 1st gear when slowing plus the 'squawk' around 3rd to 4th shift.
I live in New Zealand so shipping was almost equal to the cost of the parts, but I'm actually thankful because had I bought the parts from here it would have cost 3 times as much probably!
It's mid-winter here so I'll wait a little while as I need to do it outside, garage is too cramped to do much in! Call me a hoarder - I end up finding uses for "stuff that is too good to throw away" - my wife loves that about me....yeah right. lol
Cheers!

 

I've often wondered about the XK's CATS suspension - does it use air shocks ? I don't think I've heard this mentioned before. I remember my parents Lincoln Town Car losing air over night because of leaks. Or is this only on the XJs ? Just curious ...

1: Air shocks suck! I have changed all 4 of them... and 3 of them twice in just the last 3 years! Finally I decided to change all using Arnott's conversion kit... and now I never, ever walk out to my car with that dreaded feeling of wondering if it is sitting on the ground! No more worries about changing the air pump, the o rings, hissing sounds or morning blues finding the car sitting on the ground!

 

For future jacking requirements, place an 18" piece of 2x4 lumber directly underneath the radiator support to help spread the load. Be sure to get it centered before jacking the car up....

 

I usually lined it up fine but that time misaligned it - great tip and yes I will do exactly this and spread the load next time around.

 

I'm no expert but I know they aren't air shocks - they are a pressurised hydraulic oil shock tower, I find them quite harsh at times - if you get a fault too like an ABS fault that may cause the shocks to default to 'DSC off' and the "DSC Off" switch on the dash is shown as being "On" but actually shows that DSC's off (confused yet? light on switch means it's off - lol) - it just means 'Dynamic Stability Control' is 'Off' and defaults to the harder setting.