Like the title says I would like to inspect my oil cooler lines. When I took it to the dealer several months for an oil change ago they came back told me they needed to be replace at a tune of almost $900. I took my car to an independent and they told me everything was fine.

 

gearbox or engine, engine lines are at the very front of the block, they strike out both ways to the cooler (the thin round fir tree type) only short, and unless you drove over something safe and out of the way. You may need to remove the undertray to inspect fully.

Gearbox lines are tight to the engine block, flexi pipe to the cooler, and connected to alloy pipe when they reach under the exhaust manifolds, to inspect fully it's best to get the car on a ramp and a good flashlight.

 

Here is a drawing of the pipes for my 2000 XKR. Hope this helps.

 

I meant the oil cooler line hoses.

 

The picture is of everything from the engine to the small cooler behind and below the grill.

 

That is what his picture shows. There are four pipe/hose assemblies. The hoses are crimped on the pipes at the factory. The portion of the hose right at the crimp is what usually starts to fail (you will see cracks in the hose there). These parts were revised and the new ones are not as sbject to failure at the crimp.

 

Well I checked the hoses and everything is fine no leaks whatsoever. Im just wondering why the dealer told me they needed to be replaced.

 

I see you have a 2006. It seems unlikely that ones that new would be failing yet. My 2001 had some signs of stress cracks in the hoses at the crimps, so I replaced them.

I do not know if 2006 had the new design yet, but if it did not, I could see the dealer recommending it as a preventative measure because the old design is known to fail. There was an earlier post that had photos by FlaSteve I think of the old and new crimps...you might want to compare and see which you have. In any event, it hardly sounds like an emergency.

 

I hate the oil coolers, crappy design, you can never get the connections apart, the same design is used on the air con by lots of other manufacturers as well as Jaguar.

I changed mine completely, you can buy a standard oil cooler identicle in size as OE for $60 instead of $400 you then use the orignal pipe ends and get a hydraulics company to attach braided hoses, instead of $1000s its $100s

I have 2 coolers, one is for the gearbox oil




You can even bypass it on XK8s, I made this one, saved quite a few $$$

 

That's interresting. Where is that, Tony?

 

That is at the lower left hand corner as you are looking at the engine (front), it is where the original oil pipes would come out.

 

So have you removed the oil cooler all together, or just reconfigured the lines to the cooler ?

 

No oil cooler at all, I did away with it, not necessary on a XK8, you will find some XK8s had coolers some did not, Jaguar themselves even did a bypass pipe for the XJ8, but they are like hens teeth to get a hold of

 

Was wondering why the 8's had one, just an unnecessary cost and risk of damage where it sits. Mine's been raised by flipping the brackets, but I still think about whenever I'm parking it!

May remove mine one day. Where did you get the the bypass fitting? Homemade?

 

Indeed it was made by myself, I turned up the fittings, bought a couple of stainless elbows on ebay and silver soldered the lot together. a much cleaner look than TIG welding

 

Do you know what other body parts must be removed for me to then remove the oil cooler hoses(two in front left and right side) Thanks. Bill XK8 2002

 

[QUOTE=XKRacer;427499]
I have 2 coolers, one is for the gearbox oil


Nice setup! Do you have any information about the parts used for that transmission cooler? Or does anyone sell a kit?

I've read that a transmission cooler is recommended for the 6HP26 if used under hot conditions and spirited driving.

 

Not really, I made the setup myself, you can buy the coolers cheap enough on eBay and then find a hydraulics company to sort the pipes, I just did an XK8. The pipes stripped on the radiator so rather than replace the rad and pipes I did a separate setup and saved the customer a fair bit of money