behind the thermostat housing short fat hose.....Mine is very swollen, it appears to be seeping coolant

Shoudl I change the thermostat too?

 

Absolutely! After going to the trouble to drain some coolant anyway, it is very easy to replace in a XKR,

My hose is somewhat swollen also. I Didn't replace it when I replaced my Thermostat (Probably should have!).

 

You might take this opportunity to change the whole thermostat tower & maybe even the outlet pipe at the front of the engine (the 2 parts that the swollen hose connects) depending of course on whether or not these have been addressed previously.

I just did this on my 97 a few months ago. My hose was very swollen. When I got in there, I found all of the plastic parts to be very brittle (no surprise after 15 years). I also saw that I had some coolant seepage through tiny cracks in the plastic which explained why I was loosing a small amount of coolant each week.

I elected to go with original parts (not the aluminium aftermarket thermostat tower) but that is just my preference to keep it as original as possible. Also did a coolant flush & replaced all of the coolant at the same time.

The end result is that I haven't had to add any coolant since. Success!

Best of luck whatever you decide.

 

He said "swollen hose and seepage", eh eh

Sorry, couldn't resist!

 

As written by bsprowls
On the XKR's the thermostat tower is aluminum and is sufficient, not plastic like the XK8's
The water pump impellers also was a problem for early R's and 8's. I beleive there is a TSB on it.

 

Thanks for that correction - didn't notice that he was talking about an XKR.

 

Somebody was watching over me. Downtown Dallas to home this evening, low cOolant light and I found the pin hole leak in the very puffed up hose. Repairing now.

 

Try some ointment and maybe penisillan
if there's corrosion on the aluminum be sure and brush it off as many times that is what swells the hose under the clamp, other than old rubber.

 

Everything looked great, easy job. the hose was corroded at the bend and was swelling like a balloon. Very small pin hole leaks.

Drove to work fine this morning. I replaced the thermostat, the intercooler tap seal used 50/50 and RP ice.

I notice the thermostat was 84 degree Celesius that converts to 183.2f

 

I have leaks around my thermostat housing and a swollen hose too. I think it is a blown head gasket (bubbles in the coolant). Waiting for the opportunity to do some compression testing.

 

XK or XKR?

The test strip you can use to test for blown head gaskets are at large truck mechanics shops and heavy truck supply stores.

Swollen hose will let let air in to the system and let it escape so gradually you may not notice.

Blown headgaskets....for me have been very tell tale with engine codes, steam etc. The symptoms usually rear the ungly heads when the motor is HOT and after hwy travel.

 

So far I have had two cars with blown head-gaskets, symptoms have been similar, coolant loss, dirty coolant. Fortunately, no water-in-oil. When I bought this car, the thermostat housing cap had a crack and it was losing coolant like crazy. Replacing that helped a lot but there is still coolant escaping. Unfortunately, the Jag coolant reservoir is not transparent as that helps to see what's going on. I'm somewhat wary about trying to seal things up any tighter right now as if it is the head gasket, that would just allow more pressure to build.