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I just had my 97 XK8 coupe delivered from snowier climes, I live in the deep south of Canada, so it's still bloody cold, just no snow right now. What a mess! dirt, salt, ice, snow all over it. Soo I bit the bullet and hosed it down. the water turned to ice, but at least I got it salt free. Looks much better.
What with the urgent need of upper valve chain tensioners, the dreaded abs light, the judder from the rear at speed, and the paint bubbles on the rockers, I've decided to name her Pandora. With only 130k km and a very nice interior, to say nothing of the REALLY low purchase price, I figure she's worth the cost of bringing back up to snuff.
Job 1 Tensioners
Job 2 ABS fault
Job 3 Safety Cert
Job 4 Judder issue
Job 5 Body and Paint
Job 6 ?????? a sorry looking cat Ahhh that's better, but BRRRRR!
As you didn't post an Intro, I missed your arrival.
Almost regardless of provenance and previous owner claims, an early XK8 is going to need:
1. battery
2. tensioners - checked whatever you've been told about previous history and replace if not already done.
3. cooling hoses - will fail one by one. Simpler to replace them all and draw a line under the issue.
4. suspension - front upper wishbone bushes at minimum.
Other issues can and do happen but are not so inevitable. Very few get away without attention to the above items. A Jaguar approaching 25 years old is going to need regular attention but once the big issues are out of the way you'll have a vehicle that's a delight to own and drive.
Congrats on the new cat. Looks like she/he is well worth saving and I assume you're handy with a wrench. Here's my 2 cents below on your possible Tensioner issue (bear in mind I'm a cheap skate). NB: You haven't mentioned if you have any service history on the car.
Take off the valve covers (replace these gaskets - cheap esp. as you're in there already) and view the secondary tensioners near the camshaft. If the tensioners are red, change to the newer metal bodied yellow ones. The primary chain tensioners in the front of the engine, can wait so long as you don't have any hesitation and/or the dreaded bike chain rattle at cold start up. A quick way to check is to remove the bottom oil sump cover (again - change this gasket as you're in there) and check for plastic broken off pieces in the sump. You can also have a limited view from below - an endoscope would help clarify the state of the primary tensioners.
Turns out that I don't have to replace the tensioners. They've been done. Still doesn't explain the rattling, but at least I don't have to worry about lunching the engine every time I start it up. I'll spend some time with a stethoscope to see if I can nail down the cause. Funny, now that I know it's not the tensioners, the noise doesn't seen nearly so loud or ominous.
I was able to "save" the battery with one of those battery tenders. I used it in the repair mode then had the battery load tested, and it came up good.
Took out the ABS module. What a job that was getting it out from under the steel lines! Sent it off to Module Repair Pro, so that's one step closer to getting Pandora on the road. Once I get it back I hope that will get rid of the ABS warning. Then I'll take her to get the safety cert done and see about that judder.
Once that's all done it's off to spend some real money on body and paint.
Turns out that I don't have to replace the tensioners. They've been done. .
According to my experience wouldn't believe a single word of what PO tells you. Maybe something has been changed, maybe the upper slide rails, which are easy to get to.
I would remove the front cover and have a look what is installed there.
Pandora
Yup, Pandora fer sher.
