My 02 XK8 has 67,000 miles on it and I am thinking it would be a good time to finally change out the plastic tensioners. While I am somewhat mechanical and believe I could do this myself I figured I would ask if there is anyone in the Southern CA area (Los Angeles, Ventura, or Santa Barbara county) who has done this with success and would be willing to help me out. I would be willing to compensate anyone willing to help. I called a local shop and they wanted $$$ to do the job. Anyway, I thought I would put it out there for anyone willing to help.

 

If you are going to attempt this yourself, I'd strongly recommend getting a subscription to AllData. It will prove invaluable.

 

Many of us with your experience have done the job.Do a search on the forum for all the threads and post.Read and review what is required,get the right tools and you will be fine.
If you get into trouble, jump onto the forum and someone will try to help.

Good luck!

 

Somewhere along the way Jaguar upgraded the tensioners, make sure you need to change them.

Do it yourself or pay someone, just get it done. Mine let loose at 65,000 and it cost me $4K to replace upper tensioners, lower tensioners, guides and chains, T-stat, gaskets, flush and new fluids. I was lucky in a manner of speaking since when it skipped a tooth it didn't bend a valve or worse. The chains were fairly well stretched, I don't know if an upper tensioner change would do much for that...

If you do chains and lowers I believe you'll need a particular tool to reset the timing.

Good luck!