Hi Guys,

Hope everyone is off to a good start this year. Unfortunately for me, the XKR is acting up. I have a 2003 XKR and recently had a clunk develop. I have already replaced the upper shock mounts and went to replace the sway bar bushings but found that I had accidentally ordered the rear bushings while I was attempting to replace them. The old bushings seemed okay, links seemed decent, so I reassembled and ordered new ones. This leads me to believe that the clunk is not the sway bar.

Anyways, I noticed it would happen when I was making circles going to the right and not so much making circles going to the left. Entered the parking garage today and the front end simply seized up. I was concerned that I was stuck blocking the entire garage but I was thankfully able to limp into a spot by basically reversing, then putting it in drive, and repeating that with the left wheel seizing up and sliding every few inches. I was unable to find anything that looked loose or jammed up when looking in the wheel wells or under the car.

Any idea what might be the cause of this? At first I thought a ball joint was off due to the clunk while making circles but now I am thinking perhaps a seized caliper given the latest development? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Best,

Corey

Edit: The title of my post is off. It is the left wheel that siezed up not the right.

 

The most likely cause is a seized wheel bearing. You would need to lift the wheel free of the ground and rock it back and forth gripping the tire at 3 and 9 o'clock and again at 12 and 6 o'clock. Movement will verify that the bearing is bad.

 

Interesting. I suspected the bearings as well but found no play in the wheel when I had it on jack stands in my attempt to replace the front sway bar bushings. Also, could bearings go badly so quickly? I always thought there was a whining or groaning noise that worsened over time but in this case their wasn't.

Thank you for taking the time to respond!

 

Generally I would agree a wheel bearing usually let's you know when it is failing with the grinding and whining.
There are only 3 things I can think of.
!. stuck caliper- generally engine power will overcome it and you will have a very HOT wheel.
2. Cracked rotor locking against the disc brake pad. Here again the engine power would overcome it and you SPIT the pad off of the caliper.
3. Wheel bearing has fractured and collapsed locking the wheel.
Since you can back up an then go forward for a short distance my diagnosis is bad wheel bearing.

 

A low speed wheel bearing failure is a fortunate thing. When they fail at high speed the spindle is at risk of breaking off, leaving the driver with no control.

 

Hey Guys!

Figured out the problem. I jacked the car up and got underneath it to look at the suspension components. The wheel had no play in it and spun freely. Low and behold, while I was under the car I noticed that the caliper was not in the right position. As it turns out, one of the caliper bolts had come completely loose. Thankfully, the bolt was still held in the caliper by the brake line. Super lucky there for sure! So I tightened the caliper back up and everything was fine. Fine I should say in regards to this issue. There are still plenty of others and yesterday the dreaded convertible hydraulic hose went so now I have that going for me. Still an incredible car and I hope that one of these days I will get all of the gremlins sorted. Right now I still have a leaking valve cover gasket, minor leak with transmission pan, need to install the correct sway bar bushes, fuel pump needs to be repaired or replaced (thanks to Sam's posts I think I can repair it), camber is too negative, and a few other smaller issues. Ah, the joys of Jaguar ownership!

Thanks,

Corey

 

Have you actually measured the camber, or are you experiencing inside tire wear and concluding it's a camber issue? Excessive toe in is often the culprit.

 

The camber was off when I went to get an alignment with the purchase of new tires. You can see the slant inward on the wheels. I took a level and it seemed like the wheel was tilted about an inch inward at the top. I already need new front tires due to the inner wear (only had them for 3-4000 miles). I will see if the shop can adjust the toe which I do believe was off and hopefully that, combined with my new upper shock mounts will help a bit.

 

Normally, the camber is not adjustable. It is entirely set by the ride height. The 2 causes of excess negative camber are the collapsed upper shock mount (that you replaced?) and failed lower shock bushing. The hard number to look for is the distance between the wheel center and the fender. The number is listed in the vehicle spec book, available on jagrepair.com. Don't waste your money on an alignment before you can confirm the ride height from the spec. And no, these (expensive) eccentric bolts you hear about will likely not get you there...

Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

If you haven't already, you might want to consider using thread locker to be a bit more certain this will not come out again. Also, be sure to properly torque these bolts to spec. Might even want to just outright replace them as they have clearly been removed before. Last thing: double check the treads to make sure the bolt did not come out because of over-torquing. This is not an area to cut corners. Just my thoughts.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I just checked the ride height and measured around 14" from the center of the front rim to the fender. It is really low which explains the severe camber issue. My thinking at this point is that I might have the wrong shocks and springs on the car. Do you know if there were different springs and shocks between XKRs and XK8s of different years? The car was in an accident with the previous owner so I am thinking there is a chance the wrong parts were used to replace the old ones or that the old ones simply are worn out and not able to support the weight of the front end properly.

As for the caliper bolt, do those need to be replaced when they are removed? Also, any idea what the torque specs are for that bolt or where I could find it? Good call on the thread locker. I am so thankful that the caliper did not do its thing while on the highway.

Thanks fmertz!

 

One thing I should add. A squeak just developed in the last week or two and I believe it is the shocks.

 

Check the sponsor sngbarrat.com. Their web site has good information. You can freely browse for various combinations (XK8/XKR). My recollection is that there are in fact several part#. Spring sagging, cut springs or after market lowering springs are all possibilities. Before any of this, check the lower shock bushing.

Not sure the absolute rule for bolts. Generally, they can be re-used once. As you do not know the history for sure, I would say go ahead and replace them. When you pull then out, check for metal shavings, an indication that the treads could be stripped on the hub. For the final word (including torque), check the workshop manual, available on jagrepair.com

PS: Do you have the single piston setup, or the Brembo setup? Just curious.

 

Agree w/ fmertz... thread locker. Almost everytime I pull the Jag apart, one or more of the fasteners has a little blue line around the threads which tells me they used a kit if loctite during the factory build.