I was stupid enought to perform an engine swap on my XK practically by myself, although I am doing it at a shop, where the guys are not very familiar with any jaguars So far all that is left is to connect all the wiring and tubes back, which I’ll do on Monday. But two connectors baffled me today just before signing off. One I think I got where it was from, but the other one was a mistery, as I remembered to remove it but couldn’t find where to put it back on the new engine.

As I understand the lead comes from the generator suppression module, which the donor car obviously didn’t have (doing LHD to RHD engine swap if it matters... it did for the hydraulic pump ). I think it’s alternator does not have a place for the plug, and I’ve already bolted the engine and the tranny back in place and am not sure how easy it will be to swap the alternators.

Does this generator exist anywhere in the cars ECU, and will it complain about it? Is it any good of an extra to make the effort and keep it? And of course is this actually what I think it is or something completely different

I’ll post a swap thread as soon as I’m finished

Nice. Makes sense. I actually have this issue with my Polo where after upgrading the sound system and adding an amplifier, I now have a high pitch, revs dependant, sound when the car is running, and I did suspect it was coming from the alternator. My first question to the guy who installed it was “can’t we put a capacitor to cancel out the noise”, but he wasn’t very keen on the idea Apparantly I wasn’t too far off.

I do plan to upgrade the sound system in the xk too, but buying a donor car, kinda postponed that a bit Still if I can replace the alternator with not much work, I’ll do it. Or may be there is a way to connect it to this alternator, even without the factory leads?

I’m using a donor car from the same year (97), although it is a RHD. I’m still not sure if it actually has one, too, as I figured it when I got home, and will check tomorrow. Also I still think I have pretty good access, as I haven’t put the fans back yet, and the car is still on the jack. After I managed to remove the hydraulic pump before lifting the engine as the feeding pipe couldn’t have been unscrewed, I’m doubting the alternator will cause me more trouble But if it is too much of a hassle, I’ll just connect it as you’ve suggested. Currently I’m more anxious if it will start after all this

It was simpler than I thought Yes the donor car didn’t have it, but the original alternator just had two wires and a plug added to the positive lead and one of the two extra bolts on the back. So I just removed it from the old alternator and without too much hassle installed it onto the donor one. I also did manage to start the car today (first try) and after I adjust the gear shift cable (which I forgot to check before putting back the exhaust ) it will be all set.

But there is something else bothering me and I didn’t want to open a new thread for it does anybody know where this solenoid goes to, as I started dismantling the car after a shop had removed the lids to check the chain and I wasn’t the one to remove it from where it came The donor car didn’t have it, and the car now runs fine without it

False alarm, sorry These are fake “plugs” which simulate that the car has the adaptive dampers, where it actually doesn’t at the moment.

Thank you I sorted it out and it ran perfectly, sadly for less than 48 hours before the gearbox gave a “fault” error and went in restricted mode the first time it went away in half an hour just sitting, but the second time is now permanent and I was worried about the suppressor

You should be able to test both cases, easily. The suppressor has a plug between itself and the alternator. Detach it and see if the noise changes in any way. If the noise increases, then it is working, but either not good enough, or you have another source of the noise which is somewhere else in the system. The other test is to connect a voltmeter to the battery before starting the car. Look how the voltage will increase when you start the car. I am not sure, but I think anything above 13.6V should be fine.

There are several other ways to diagnose where the noise is coming from, and mostly they require unplugging the system at different stages, until the noise goes away, so you can figure where it happens.

Yes, that is my intention. Today I’m going to the shop to see if they’ve had any progress, and if they didn’t have any, I’ll just give the car to the local dealer for them to try figuring it out. As soon as I get it consistently up and running, I’ll post a thread with the hole swapping ordeal