Gotta go with Shoreguy on this one. Keep it simple. Just put in the donor. My tranny has 200K on it, so there's no reason to suspect that just because it's used, it needs to be rebuilt. When mine finally does go however, I'm just going to have a professionally rebuilt (and warrantied) unit delivered and installed.

 

Yep, that is what I decided to do. Put the used one in as is and maybe rebuild the old one and have as a spare, ready to go in if needed.

I will let you know if the replacement one works or not when I get it in. I am in Minnesota and am a CPA, so that may be a few months.

Brian

 

you should open it up and look at the A-drum. I will be interesting to see if that is the failed part.

Any advise on pulling the old out and putting it back in? How long did it take you?

 

Yes I agree with pulling the pan and see if you have shavings. I would suggest that if it looks good replace the filter and gasket, install it and put new fluid in and hope for the best.

 

A lot of our members have replaced the A drum with good results, but that is nothing like a complete rebuild. If there are pieces adrift and causing collateral damage it certainly will not last. A couple of cases of professional rebuilds not holding up have been mentioned recently, so your comments should be considered before proceeding with a DIY.

 

Just thought I would show you this for fun. Changed out my A drum. After putting the transmission back in, I had some gear slippage. I ended up taking it back out and taking it to Eriksson (mentioned in this thread). They fixed my mistake, I missed putting back one o ring, and then did some other work on it. They called it a partial rebuild. Runs great.

 

Every time I see the guts of an automatic transmission, I'm reminded that I don't "ever" want to play around in there!

 

Honestly, it was one of the most nerve wracking projects I've done on a car. It's not hard, but for some reason, when you don't know what you're doing fear takes over

By the way, the people at Eriksson are just the nicest you could meet and they do know ZF transmissions.

 

Agree with Shore as recently had my transmission go at 170k miles, hot transmission and drove through a freezing puddle/lake over 14" deep.

I wasn't up to DIY as simply don't have the tools and asked the Jag specialist whether they could change the parts that had failed. They sampled the fluid and it was black with shavings in and advised that the clutch pack had gone. Their price for replacing the pack including labour was £1200/$1450

Whereas a donor used tranny with 70k on it was £320/$387 delivered and labour to fit was £587/$710. Since they couldn't offer a warranty on a used box I supplied them with an aftermarket filter/gasket/o ring £22/$27

So my total was £929/$1124

As I wasn't able to do the adaptation properly on public roads it's taken 200 miles for the gearbox to 'bed in' properly.

What do 2nd hand tranny's run stateside?

 

There's an 84K mile one for sale on eBay (US) for about $1,100 including shipping.

 

Scar, thanks, so 3 x the price of the UK, good to know!

 

Hey Shoreguy: read your post from 2012 re your transmission. I had FixEuro (west Dallas) do my transmission two years ago and this week my 1997 XK8 drum blew up again. Based on cost it sounds like they did yours- identical quote. I'm wondering if yours held up or whether I should just drop in another transmission. Thanks, LB

 

For what it's worth, mine was done at FixEuro off Stemmons too. They were a little disorganized business-wise, but I am pleased with the final result. Too early to say on my repair, but doing well so far.

Two years seems to be too early for the replacement drum to go again. Did they give you the 1 year or 3 year warranty? Hopefully the latter.