Decided to go ahead and do my primary tensioners and guides myself. Have already done the secondary ones several years ago at 41K. Car now has 64K (don't drive it much) and decided to do it my self. Problem now is getting the right parts with the right part numbers. Any help in the part number area and/or supplier would be greatly appreciated.

As a side note I did find an interesting something on EBay that I would like an opinion on ( tread address below).

97-01 Jaguar 4.0L V8 Timing Chains Water Pump Tensioners Guide Rails Kit AJ | eBay

 

Give SNG Barrett a call, they'll sort you out, and if you tell them you're a forum member you get a discount as well.
No point just doing the guides and tensioners alone, for the small cost of the chains, get the upgraded morse chains and change those as well. You've got to have the breast plate off anyway to do those so why not?
Have you changed the water pump and thermostat tower yet?
It's the old saying, while you're in there.................and once it's done, it's done.
Forget about them for years to come.

 

Considering all the issues with guide length and questionable chains I would go with Barrett as well. It will be more expensive than some of the ebay sources, but the price difference is not worth it in my estimation.

 

I might be cautious of the ones on ebay as well. Probably made of cheap materials from China. Like buying a cheap Chinese socket and having it crack or strip the first time you use it. On a side note, was curious about the years they listed. Shouldn't 02 be included the the years specified? Mine is a 02 and it seems to be the same engine.

 

EZDriver

Unless you order the correct parts from Jaguar or Barrett, it is almost certain you will get the incorrect primary guides in any of the kits.


Have a look at the fiirst few posts on page 2 ofthis thread:



https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/xk8-xkr-x100-17/1997-xk8-v8-timing-chain-tensioners-126338/page2/


Andy

 

Good info RJ. One question. How did you secure the crank drive pulley in order to loosen the main bolt? And where did you get the puller for the pulley?

Thanks RJ

 

When I did mine back in July 2008, I remember not only locking down the cams, but also locking the crank from the rear between the trans and the flywheel. There's an opening to put a screwdriver or small bar in there. Of course, its under the car, and it really helps to have a buddy holding it.

 

Beg borrow steal or buy a pulley locking tool, or better still buy the timing kit, then sell it on afterwards if you don't want to keep it. Plenty of people wanting one of those kits.
Or if you are so minded, you could make your own locking tools; one for the flywheel, the two cam locks, crank lock, vvt retarding tool, wedges.
DO NOT TRY AND UNDO THE CRANK PULLEY BOLT WITH JUST THE FLYWHEEL LOCKED AND CAMS LOCKED.
But I think you already know that.
You can lock the crank pulley with a home made tool quite easily.
Piece of 5mm angle iron, long enough to go across the face of the pulley and past the bolt hole of the serpentine belt tensioner, two 9mm holes for the 8mm bolts to secure it to the pulley, and a square cut out for the 24mm socket to pass through.
Bolt it onto the pulley and secure it through the tensioner bolt hole. Use a longer bolt though, not the tensioner bolt, the hole passes all the way through.

 

TSB 303-10 describes the procedure.

5. Hold the crankshaft by holding the torque converter with a lever, as described in the manual,
turn the bolt using a 24 mm socket and bar, to move the damper and collar 1 to 2 mm
forward on the crankshaft.
6. Remove the tool from the damper and then pull the damper forward and off the crankshaft:
if necessary, lightly strike the damper to loosen it.

You have been a member a long time and know about the TSBs.

bob

 

Christophers foreign car parts is another option. He specializes in Jags and has all of the correct timing chain parts and tool rentals.

 

Here is a recent thread discussing timing chains. It also has my parts list with part #'s and prices. It shows some Lincoln LS parts that interchange.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...nt-kit-189047/

 

To echo what others have said, nearly any kit you buy for an earlier engine (for example, one kit that I recently bought from Christopher's) will have the wrong primary guides. The guides that are typically included are for the later engines with Morse primary chains. The supplier may claim that these later guides are a "retrofit" to the earlier cars, but this seems to be a baseless assertion. If the old parts were superseded, then why does Jaguar still manufacture and sell them?

The correct numbers for the four primary guides (two each):
NCA1998AB
NCA2025AB

In particular, the substitution of the later guide C2A1456 in place of NCA1998AB is problematic because it does not fit unless it is flipped upside down, in which case the round and oval mounting holes are mismatched. The oval hole is supposed to fit over a peg, presumably so that the shape of the guide is not distorted by thermal expansion. Installing this guide upside down mixes up the peg hole and the bolt hole.

 

I am just trying to find out the best way to hold the damper without damaging something. The TSB says to wedge the torque converter. Someone cautioned before about possible damage to the torque converter. Some say to use the engine starter with a pry bar on the bolt. Some say to use a chain wrench on the damper. None of these options look very safe and without a possibility of damaging something else. Just trying to pick the best technique without creating more trouble.

Frankly the TSB does not show how to get the bolt loose while holding the damper other that wedging the torque converter that I think is risking torque converter internal damage.

 

See post #8
If you don't want to use the tensioner bolt hole then use a piece of 5mm angle iron long enough to wedge between the pulley and the chassis rail.
Or the floor.
I had absolutely no problems un-doing the bolt or torqueing it up again this way on my V8.
As long as you have the flywheel lock in the back, the cam locks on the top, the angle iron across the front and all nice and tight, it's not going to move. I used the same method when I did my V6 shogun.
Actually, you don't need any of the locks in place to use this method as it locks the crank in place completely. You can always re-set the timing afterwards and put the flywheel lock and cam locks in place.
Just make sure that the bolts you use to pass into the crank pulley are not too long or you will contact the breast plate and maybe crack it.
All I will say is this:
It's 372Nm of torque. It's tight. But not so tight that it can't be dealt with.
I used a 3/4 breaker bar on mine. No flex in it.
The problem you may have is removing the pulley itself after you have got the bolt loose.
Do not use a puller. You will only pull on the rubber damping part of the pulley, possibly damaging/tearing it.
Make yourself two pieces of 5mm thick squares, large enough to cover the cut out for the 24mm socket.
Loosen the two 8mm bolts securing the angle iron to the pulley enough to place one square between the bolt head and angle iron.
Evenly tighten the 8mm bolts and you will see that it starts to pull the pulley forward.
When you have reached a point of no more travel, loosen the bolts and insert the second square. Repeat.
The pulley will come off easily.
Then it's the 24 breast plate bolts, all 8mm headed bolts to come out; you may need to loosen the three oil cooler housing bolts a bit to allow the pulley to pass over it, minor oil loss, nothing major.
The one thing I did when I did all this was to remove the VVT's off the cams completely. This was so I could follow the JTIS instructions to the letter and get the timing absolutely spot on with regards to having the VVT's fully retarded. Get that bit wrong and it'll run, but not well.
Looks complex, but when you do it stage by stage as per the JTIS, it's simple.

 

Thanks for the description and photo of the installation. This make the most sense. Directly to the issue of holding the damper and loosening the center bolt. I'll try to set this up.

 

Note the build up of "spacers" I use to make up the difference between the tensioner bolt hole and pulley face.
All this does is make sure that the angle iron is flat and stable and reduces the risk of the bolt through the tensioner hole starting to bend as you loosen the crank bolt.

 

A chain wrench has worked well for me, both for loosening and tightening. Cut a piece of serpentine belt long enough to wrap around the damper once. This will prevent the chain wrench from gouging the damper. It holds tight without slipping.

 

That is the way I do it but others are frightened by the thought of using the chain wrench withe short length of belt wrapped around the pulley.





bob

 

Well, I got the damper locked and tried to loosen the bolt. My bar was not long enough to loosen the bolt. Will get a pipe for the bar and give it a good twist today. Hope I don't break the bolt or something drastic like that.

I used the Stevep10 technique. This worked pretty good as I am doing this alone. I'll send pictures after I start to put things back together. If I can figure out how to do that again. Stay tuned.