Yep it does feel good, I never considered myself an engine guy but I guess I'm getting there. Never minded tearing into the suspension, accessories, spark plugs, etc, but alwas a little leary about the internals.
Without the help and information available on this forum, I wouldn't even attempt it. I'm starting to look at it this way, If I break something, at least I know it's broken. I like that better than paying someone to fix something. Then having them brake stuff and not tell me, and give incorrect information to boot.

Should have done this job 6 months ago, just been crazy at work. Moved the shop, so been getting everything setup and work's been busy. When I'm there I'm machining and when I get home I'm on the system doing engineering. I do miss this though, got a nice break right now so it's time to play catchup.

Still have to fix the vacuum line problem I was having correctly. When my brake boost went out found a tear in a line on the pass side and wrapped it with electrical tape. Still holding but I have to find the part. Stopped at Jaguar today and they couldn't find it in their system. I even took them out to the car and showed them and they still couldn't find it.

You'd be surprised to see how many vacuum and gas recirculation hoses that are no longer 'jaguar' issue. Some are just regular 3/8" fuel lines from any parts store, then I've used special lined hose for the PCV line (fuel lines were too 'porous' and oil seeped through). There's not a single plastic line left on my engine. I tried to use 5/8" truck air brake line from the auto parts store, and it would have worked great, but couldn't make the 90-degree bend I needed and there were no easy fittings for the air hose making it affordable. You'll find a good alternative, I have faith. :)

So, when's your next appointment at the dealer? All in all though a blessing in disguise that the oil leak led to the tensioner change. Wrong information and shoddy work that probably cost alot and could have resulted in disaster.

I'm thinking never. Yep, $1300.00 for plugs and gaskets, and within 20k all gone. I'm just stunned that they never mentioned finding cracks in the valve covers, could have charged me alot more before the engine would have blown. Not the first thing they screwed-up/broke on mine but this is the last.

Hey Matt, brake boost line fix in place. Cut the bad section out and inserted a tube to re-join and while inserting I head "crack", ouch, right at the body of the intake. So pulled the throttle body, removed the rest of the old tube and said a few supuralatives. Looked around the shop and found some camozzi fittings for air/vac connections & some 3/8 urethane tubing. Had to open up the side hole a little and tap for 1/4" pipe tap. I was very careful to make sure no chips got into the intake. Cut the old tubing from the original connector and was able to reuse with new tubing.

That's the spirit!:icon_beerchug:

Nice, that's precisely what I did. Those connectors are brittle too, I'm always really gentle when separating them from their hose.

Hey guys, giving the final update for the oil loss issue.

After 3 weeks I'm still loosing a little oil but only about 1/4 of what I was before. Did some investigating and found a little oil in on the boot of #2 passenger and #3 driver. So I have ordered new valve covers and will change those out along with new o-ring gaskets. I will reuse the outers since they haven't been on very long and I don't see any evidence of oil around the outer seals. Thanks again for the assitance.

By the way I changed out the water pump a couple of days ago as when I started the car in the morning I heard a funky noise under the hood. Opened it up and yep, needed a new water pump. I had changed the original one out shorlty after purchasing the car and this one lasted about 85K if anyones interested.

Don't you just hate when repairs overlap? Must be that time of the year.

Which type of pump was in the car. Jaguar black plastic impeller or aftermarket metal impeller?

BTW, it is usually helpful to lightly lubricate the rings and gaskets for the valve cover. That lets them squirm around against the casting surface as you tighten so that they seal better. Not much more than finger tight needed.

It was the later model with the white plastic impeller. I changed out the black one shorlty after I bought the car. It failed about 2 weeks after I bought it. Took out the hose that ran under the intake too, that sucked.

Actually this one was ready to fail too. The outer ring of the impeller actually seperated from the fin section. I can take a pic and post to show you.

Thanks for the advise on oiling the gaskets. I didn't do that originally and I'll make sure to do it when I put the new covers on. Also I made sure not to overtighten the screws, I used my wrench and set it for 10nm. I don't have any leaks around the outside either, only on the inners. I expect that's from the cracking I found. Plus who knows how well the plastic covers hold there shape after 15yrs. Figured I would just get the new ones and be done with it.

10NM is very difficult for many torque wrenches to handle because it is outside of the middle 60 percent of scale of most wrenches. Many people advise that lower than or higher than 20 percent of the range on a torque wrench is not very accurate.

Pics of almost anything are always welcome here :)

I use my beam torque wrench which doesn't rely on the ratchet mechanisms so saying I set it was inacurate. It has a scale that as you pull the handle a beam with the arrow indicates your torque. It made for the lower torque ranges.

Maybe .. a "Reach" .. but my 23 xents
 

Is it possible .. with almost 200K miles .. that you could be burning it .. masked by the converters? Maybe rings seized at some point? For the original 4.0 motors .. 200K is getting up there. God knows .. they are a heck of alot more fun to drive, than work on.

If you are losing oil past the rings, splash in some Marvel Mystery Oil and let soak for a couple of days. Again, with 200k, this would just be a temporary band-aid fix .. if indeed some stuck rings were part of the problem. Only my 03 XK8, F-600 water truck, and a '52 Ford 8n are gas here .. everything else is diesel, but the MMO is reknown for solving "mystery" problems.

Sounds like you are handy with a wrench .. maybe consider swapping in a 2003=< 4.2 with the six speed .. mod the J-Gate. Maintenace on the 4.2 is .. change the plugs at 90K. For sure .. it's a labor of love, but alot of the 900+ changes between 2002 and 2003, were in the drivetrain .. including going to 4.2 and going to the six-speed. Ford Motor Company used this small V8 in other products as well, including the Lincoln LS the 2002-2005 Ford Thunderbird as well as in several Land Rovers and the Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Like i said .. alot more fun to drive, than to work on. Good Luck ... Have Fun .. Be Safe

Thanks for the confidence boost, but I think I'll stick with this engine. I do understand that I could be burning some oil, however this issue didn't show up until jaguar did the last service, not to mention break a few things. After I removed the passenger side cover and replaced the gasket I actually didn't loose any oil for the following week, which before I lost close to a quart a week. Then I found the tensioner issue and also the cracks in the covers and chips missing around the o-ring areas. After doing the tensioners and replacing the gaskets I am currently loosing approx 1/2 qt/month. I'm rounding off, but much better than before. Upon inspection I did find signs of oil in the coil cover area where there should be none, and a bunch of tiny little oil mist dots on the rubber coil boot in #2 passenger. Whether this is due to the cracks in the covers I found or something else, I'm not sure, but I'll start with cheap stuff first.

Oldmots reccomended doing a compression test and I picked up a gauge to check. The gauge has readings in KPA and PSI, please forgive me as I've never done a compression test before. I checked all four cylinders on the passenger side and got a reading around 6.1 KPA or around 90-95 PSI. All the cylinders were registering the same values. Does anyone know if this is where they should be?

Gotta love those forum searches, just found info about the compressions test and I don't think I did that correctly. It looks like new is 150psi but they also mentioned wet and dry tests. I checked mine on a cool engine with no open throttle. Guess I'll have to try that again when I get the new covers. Still not sure what they meant about wet tests though.

Anyone got detailed instructions for us newbies on testing compression?

I've been following this thread and I'm impressed! Great details and the members input is priceless! On a scale of 1-10 hard easy or hard was the tensioners?

A wet test involves squirting some oil into the cylinder before testing. That puts oil on the rings to seal. If the result of a wet test is much higher than a dry test on the same cylinder, that suggests ring problems. If both are low, that suggests valve problems. If both are high, you are in good shape.

The sequence should be:

remove all plugs

perform dry test recording all readings

perform wet test recording all readings (optionally skipping those that were high on the dry test)

analyse readings

Thanks for the information Plum.

One other quick question, should I do the test after engine is at temp or is cold fine? I expect warm is better but don't really care for removing parts on a hot engine.

In regard to the tensioners I would put it at about 4. It's not that difficult but definately take your time. I did 1 side per day though it only took about 2-3 hrs each. The most time consuming part in my opinon was tightening the exhaust cam shaft bolts, also the most critical, 1/4 turn here, 1/4 turn there, etc. Drivers Side for me was quicker as I didn't have to move the oil dip stick tube. Maybe something with the 97's was different but I had plenty of clearance. Just had to loosen the coolant expasion tank to get at the rear bolts. Make sure you have a good universal and extensions to get at the rear cover bolts.

A precedure I did to make sure I didn't confuse and parts was I placed all the parts on a cart with paper towels and wrote info right on the towels in regard to position, etc. Also use the zip tie method as described in the DIY. Great info there, a real testament to the quality of members here.

Highly reccomend studying the DIY and make sure you understand the procedures. If done incorrectly I could see some real damage occuring.

Bad news on the new valve covers. Just got an email from jag saying they were unavailable. Guess I'll have to look for them somewhere else because I can't resolve the oil in the coil area of the covers without them.

I do have pictures of the water pump but I'll post those under a new thread as this one is definately getting a bit long, and others may be interested.

Talked to Jaguar this morning and I guess the reason for the unavailable covers is that they have been superseded by a new part # that cost $40.00 more per cover so instead of $156.00 each they're now $197.00 Each.

Yah, I don't like 'new part numbers either, means a new manufacturer run, even if the design is the same. Inflation...grrrrrr

Yep, not much we can do about the price increases. I just wish when they e-mailed me about the unavailable part that they would have let me known why, the only reason I found out was calling them.

Want to waste an hour or so, just look for aftermarket valve covers for an XK8. I was thinking about designing a set but that'd be a big hunk of aluminum. I'll just be happy when they arrive so I can get this project done.