well to start i bought this 97 xk8 2 yeas ago and i dove it home it ran great.but never again since.it started slipping in 1st and reverse but would slowly get going. so i rebuilt the tranny and valve body and all the updates and upgrades fo zf5hp24 and it was the same no effect so i bought a used tannny thinking it was a bad ebuild on my part and still nothing.so i relized its a computer fault and limp home mode explaining the slow slipping feeling taking off being in 4th or 5th.
unless its torque converto it was only thing i never changed and then one day it started idling rough and then stopped all together and i found that timing tensioner gave so i replaced all guides and tensioners primary and secondary. and then found that there was 4 valve seats that had dropped. so replaced head.and then i realized that the other head was about to drop a seat or two so switched it and then i had to switch vvt that was not advancing or retarding and while doing so i noticed all the water lines were ran wrong and voiding secondary pump and control valve and throttle body and probly why it got hot enough to drop valve seats along with bad thermastat .and i found so many things wrong and half assed i cant even begin to list.but its what ive been doing for two years.now since ive had the timing all buttoned up i got it started ran pretty good considering been sitting two years and i primed the spark plug holes with so much oil curing nikisil. any way it was giving me a million codes but ive one by one cured them all but p1638 that was coming with wrong part fitted traction/control, gear fault, engine fault,with a/c err,and speedo gauges stoped, and of course no spark and no fuel.well i took the instrument pack out to check soldier points and cables and i noticed the vacts numbers in my trunk are lja4300af and instr. pack has lja4300ae that previous owner obviously put in.
1. does any one know if thats enough to cause p1638 C.A.N. failure- instrument to ecu
2.and i also noticed something strange and cant find it in the wiring diagrams but its an extra black wire in the loom going to gear selecter illumination module,and the d-4 switch this loom has just those two conectors on it all the wires for d-4 switch and gear selector and this wire are all the same length.but there is no metal clip on the end of this black wire.coating its just stripped back 1/2 inch and there is no extra wire clip in either connector where it would have went so im a little stumped and worried where this goes and if this isnt the entire problem.please help i post photos if needed.please help me finaly finish my two year pain in the butt and help me finally drive this jag. so much money so much time and sweat and headaches and endless nights on line searching for answers please please help

 

Use this link to find the wiring diagram for your car.

Link. http://www.jagrepair.com/JaguarXK8ElectricalOBDIIcodes.htm

Gus
www.jagrepair.com

 

Whew...take a breath when you post please, very hard to digest your various issues. Sounds like you've had a very bad time with your cat but you do have stamina.

I can't help with the issue but wish you luck!

 

ive used all the info on jagrepair and i cant find this wire anywhere i think my best bet is if someone could look at their own harness and tell me where this extra black wire comes from and more important where it goes ive bben waiting two years and im about to light it on fire im at my end of my rope and for sure my wallet its eaten all my savings and every extra cent ive had since i bought it im very good with c ars and honestly i find this entire experiance very embarassing so my last hope is to beg for help.so thats what im doing is throwingmyself on the mercy of the forum to see if anyone is willin g to help me cause i have no other option. i guess we will see if anyone has the heart to stop all my pain and agony?

 

A picture would be very helpful to try to solve the wiring issue.

And I am not trying to bee a smart a--..but a clear thread, with complete sentences and punctuation regarding one problem at a time will help you get the answers you are after.

Many people do not have the time or patience to wade through a giant run-on paragraph without proper punctuation. I know it takes more time and effort on your part, but that time and effort is more likely to get rewarded. Just trying to help.

 

We are here to help. I have an XK8 that I can look at if you can post a picture of the wire.

It is also possible that someone has been clever with the wiring so you may have to look at fixing the harness. (sometimes to try and get them started shade tree machanics will try and splice wires to bypass stuff, causing errors.)

We just went through correcting quite a few things with a 97 XK8, so we have a pretty good grasp on whats up.

 

Mayhem, the black wire isn't just the black ground earth from the module pulled out of it's lug terminal is it?
Diagram shows black grounded at FC3. Can you find a ground eyelet attached to body with a missing wire, kickdown and mode switch seem to use same ground point so you may be able to trace them to find it.

 

thee is a black an a black an pink and no empty eyelets at near by gounds

 

When you say "extra" black wire, is that in addition to the black that runs to module or is that the one with the bare end? If the black connected to module the bare end needs to be grounded.

 

This seemed like an excellent suggestion.

 

this harness runs along the trans tunnel passenger side and comes up to gear selecter right at stereo these wires are d-4 switch yellow connector wires blue/slate and black/yellow
park and neutral switches grey connector has red/blue and black/bown and a white connector with wires black/brown and slate/black then finaly gear selector black yellow/white green/white black/pink red/pink yellow green slate white/red and theres a place for all of those with matching colors on other side of connectors then theres a additional black with no where to go i dont think it is meant to reach the grounds on tunnel but im thinking of making it reach. i will have my camera in a hour and ill take and post photo i guess if it helps