I have not been on this site for a while, but I have a 2000 XK8 that needs some TLC, it has nothing wrong with the engine or transmission, but lots of peripheral things. I'm looking to repair it or sell it. My starting point... it has front suspension issues. A couple of years ago, I replaced the front strut mount plates because the bushing material had totally crumbled. But now, something is rubbing in the front again when I hit a bump. Any suggestions as to if there a total kit somewhere I can get that replaced all bushings and everything I would need to had a good front suspension? Will I have to figure out what is bad part by part?
This car is too pretty to sit in my garage.

Your input is appreciated!

Joel

 

That's a deep subject and a common one here on the forum. Front shock mounts are in a lot of posts, in fact here is a very recent one -

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...o-back-223755/

I think most people, like me, got the Welsh front upper shock mounts. The original Bilstein shocks aren't too much at Rock Auto, and the roll bar (stabilizer) drop links aren't real
expensive either. There is lots of help on the forum for this job. I haven't done the roll bar bushes, yet anyway, but I hear they are a little tricky.

BTW - sweet looking car !

 

How many miles on the car (lovely color BTW)? Could be a few possibilities but if you're going in to do the work (and from experience) - do it all at once if you have the funds. A few questions:

When you replaced the upper mount, did you use OEM or poly? Did you also replace the bump stops on the shock (foam spacer on shock covered by the bellows)? The foam deteriorates with age not necessarily mileage - so if you went with OEM (I did the first time too), they could be starting to pancake as your front end does look a bit low. Ride height should be 15.75 inches from the center cap to the wheel arch

Pull the wheel off and look at upper control arm bushings, lower shock bushing, sway bar bushings and sway bar end links and pop the hood to look at the top of the shock mount. For about $500 and half of a Saturday, you could replace the shocks, upper mounts, upper control arm bushings, sway bar bushings and links. Then get aligned

The 3rd time going in, I went with the Welsh Poly upper mounts, new Bilsteins and Powerflex poly bushings all around (upper/lower).

 

Thanks for the input, and the complements on the car, yeah I love the color combo. I just rolled over 100K not long ago, had it since 36K miles. I have a laundry list of things to repair, but I still feel like the car is not in bad shape at all. I offered to sell it a while back and was shocked that there were no takers. So I have decided to repair it. The upper mounts I used were off eBay, I don't remember the brand, but the bushing material was bright yellow, I don't think it was OEM. I think they are still ok, and my problems are elsewhere. I didn't replace anything else at the time of the mount plate replacements and I noticed that the lower bushing on the shocks were terrible at the time, this is I know one problem. Do the bump stops and lower bushings come with the front shocks? Ill check that center cap - wheel well dist.
Joel

 

Joel - the yellow is a foam similar to oem - so probably starting to pancake. When I purchased my new shocks, they came complete with new lower bushings, bump stop & bellows. The only thing I had to reuse were the spring packers - so be careful removing them as the plastic gets brittle