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Sweet success to stumble fail - 01 XK8 saga continues
After spending 2 days on the road with my newly revived XK8 I have now entered the third-life territory...
After driving about 8 miles into town I headed for my attorney's office to drop off some paperwork. First top down ride in more than a year, it was sunny out, perfect weather...
I checked my temp gauge multiple times to verify I had reached operating temps, The car ran like an absolute champ, new plugs igniting clean fire, smooth running mellow sounding stock exhaust note, no coughs, hitches, or stumbles in the past 2 days.
After I came out from my attorney's office I started it back up and it was completely different. It barely started, then stumbled like crazy, and adding any gas pedal would stall it out. It sounds likes its missing all over the place. I spent a few minutes goosing the pedal to see if it settled down but it kept up the same behavior.
Called AAA. Towed it home on the flat-bed, pushed it into the garage and went inside to watch Thursday night football.
One detail:
Thursday when the engine was warmed up still I could get it to start but it immediately stumbled horribly as I described.
Friday when the engine was cold it will not fire at all, but I do hear compression so I don't have wash going on (yet)
It has been noted a number of times here on the forum that when these cars sit unused for long periods of time, fuel pump failure tends to be a frequent result....
Guess its the fuel pump then, I replaced the fuel filter and the old one was still letting plenty of fuel through via gravity as it emptied, and I saw no gummy crap in the fuel. On the hunt for a fuel pump now I suppose. Updates to follow.
New battery with full charge, tested the relay and chkd the fuse. Seems like its the fuel pump. Threw in the towel and had it towed to the dealership. I don't have the energy to pull the gas tank, I climbed underneath and decided I'd get way too frustrated trying to get those two fuel lines R&R'd...
guess it's too late but you could have jumper-ed the fuel pump at the relay to 12 v and see if it spins up and spit gas out of the fuel filter (that might be exciting). There are some threads on jumping the pump.
I know its been a while but... I got a jem of a tale...
Okay, I wanted to follow up on this thread and its been on my todo list forever, so tonight I check it off.
I had it towed in the Bellevue WA Jag dealership and asked them to let me know what they found. They diagnosed a dead fuel pump and prescribed remove/replace. They called the next day to let me know that the input screen to the pump was old/clogged enough that it was reducing fuel flow as well. I had them replace both. They also noticed the relay in was weak so they recommended replacing that. I asked them for a quote on R&R for the 2ndary tensioners and they quoted me $2950 for the labor with me supplying the parts. I elected to wait until I could do that work myself.
Fair enough, I had read up on the procedure and I don't mind handing over 7 large for someone else to do the R&R with the fuel tank in the way.
I got the car back and it ran great! Again
But I was still concerned about the 2ndary tensioners so I was hesitant to put many miles on it until I could deal with that.
In the mean time I've moved from Washington to Michigan and brrrrrr its cold here.
I shipped my jag from WA to MI using PolyCar. When it arrived I was all excited and had my video camera out to capture the unloading. My jag was loaded in a sweet enclosed transporter with a brand new Ferrari wrapped in plastic and a sweet white AMG. Top shelf outfit right.
The guy backs it out of the top rails and the whole time I'm hearing this horrible metal-on-metal scraping sound. I'm filming mind you, but in my mind I'm thinking WTH. He backs it out onto the lift and then drops the lift down to ground level. I'm asking him (with some 4 letter words) what the sound is and he says its been like that since he loaded it on his trailer in LA... LA? I ask... It was loaded in Seattle... he backs it off the lift onto the driveway. I ask him if the E-Brake is engaged and he says No, I checked that... Ummm, the British do have a weird ebrake setup. Turns out they put nearly 4 miles on the jag with the ebrake engaged for some or all of the miles when they transferred the car in LA. He couldn't explain how the miles got on the car.
I jumped in and yes, the ebrake was engaged, and the Brake light on the dash was lit. I released it and drove the car to park it and, while it was much quieter, there was still an oscillating grinding sound emanating from the front left wheel area... and this was not noted by the WA loading driver on the bill of lading (because it wasn't a problem in WA).
I filed a claim with the carriers insurance company, and they assured me they never break cars mechanically and have never paid a claim for "mechanical" damage, only cosmetic. I persisted though and got the car towed to the Novi MI Jag dealership. They found the left-front backing plate (light weight steel or aluminium) was bent into the rotor, and when they bent it out they found a pebble lodged in there as well.
So there's a $350 pebble I have in my room now No harm no foul, simple fix and covered by the carrier...
Sorry, to make a long story long here, but while I had it in there I asked the service rep if they would do the R&R on the 2ndary tensioners while it was in there. I already had the new 3rd gen metal tensioners in the trunk of the car. They quoted me $375 and seem to have done a good job. I don't smell any oil burning out of the plug sockets and the car runs great now and I finally feel like I don't have to worry about putting some miles on it!
I brought the old tensioners home and will take some close ups to see if they were starting to break down. The car/engine have about 56k miles on it.
Pics of the old plastic tensioners - so close to gone!!!
Well I'm so fortunate that I engaged with you all on this forum and especially paid attention to the warnings about the 1st gen secondary tensioners in my 2001 XK8!
If you've read this thread at all you know the most recent work I had done was to have them replaced with newer 3rd gen metal tensioners, and I held off on driving the car quite a bit this fall with concern that I could drive it into a massive failure.
This week I finally got around to digging through the parts box in my trunk and dug out the original tensioners. They look worse than any I've seen on the forum so far, short of total failure!
I feel SO fortunate that these didn't fail before I had them replaced!
You forum jockeys rock! A thousand thanks to everyone who contributed to this post.
Check these pictures out:
1st tensioner zoomed out - notice the crack running up from the hex shaped recess in the plastic above the spring
1st tensioner zoomed in - you can see through the crack all the way to the metal, and see additional cracks around the beveled edge if the hex recess.
2ndt tensioner zoomed out - same thing! Notice the crack running up from the hex shaped recess in the plastic above the spring
2nd tensioner zoomed in - you can see through the crack all the way to the metal, and the additional cracks around the beveled edge of the hex recess are worse on this one.
You'll notice the plastic top on the first photo is missing, (or not in photo) if you don't have it and it wasn't retrieved during service you might consider pulling the oil pan and checking for debris, that's usually where they are found, good chance at some it may affect oil pressure as bits lodge themselves in the sump screen. There are a number of posts finding this here (with photos)
Thanks man, I wondered about that as well. The piece was not in the parts box. I was thinking maybe the mechanic dropped it in the trash or on the floor.
I'll look into the procedure, do I have to pull the motor or lift it to get the pan out to look into it?
I must admit I have never owned a car that is I did not drive it on a regular basis it would start breaking. FP goes out cause it sat for weeks to a month or so? That is lousy engineering??? I make sure I drive ours 3x a week now. ha ha ha
09-26-2014, 10:24 PM
Sweet success to stumble fail - 01 XK8 saga continues
I know its been a while but... I got a jem of a tale...
Pics of the old plastic tensioners - so close to gone!!!
