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There are several places where you can get an evaporative leak in the emissions system and often it is the seal or gasket around the gas cap that goes bad. When I run into that the first thing I do is to smear some heavy grease (bearing or axle) around the seal to see if the 'cures' the problem for a few days. It's not the cap that goes bad but the seal around it.
As for a diagnostic there are a few that members will attest to and in my case I use British Diagnostics IDS/SDD version 130. on a cheap laptop that is able to support a virtual version of Windows XP. I've used it for several years for both my '99 XK and 2004 XJ8
There are several places where you can get an evaporative leak in the emissions system and often it is the seal or gasket around the gas cap that goes bad. When I run into that the first thing I do is to smear some heavy grease (bearing or axle) around the seal to see if the 'cures' the problem for a few days. It's not the cap that goes bad but the seal around it.
As for a diagnostic there are a few that members will attest to and in my case I use British Diagnostics IDS/SDD version 130. on a cheap laptop that is able to support a virtual version of Windows XP. I've used it for several years for both my '99 XK and 2004 XJ8
Does that use one of the Bluetooth plugs that goes into the diagnostic port?
Does that use one of the Bluetooth plugs that goes into the diagnostic port?
No it does not. It requires a separate laptop capable of running a virtual version of Windows XP and it's own connector cable. The cable and the virtualized XP are included in the supplied software and capable laptops are available used on eBay and elsewhere for about $100+/- .
The version I bought probably 5-6 years ago wouldn't be good for Jags much newer than perhaps 2005 or 2006 but it was fine for my 1999 and 2004 models as it has both the older IDS and newer SDD systems. They may now have a newer version of the Jaguar program available that has the updates that would cover the newer models but I haven't looked.
Since purchasing my '06 Victory Edition, I have made several mods, and have a few to go. Originally equipped with a Nav system, and maple dash, I replaced with "RealGauge" system, walnut dash. Also, as I did not care for the leather shift knob(starting to wear), nor the leather wrapped steering wheel, they were replaced with walnut also. Since the taupe trim on the interior was a bit blase', I dyed all taupe covers, wine maroon. This required quite a bit of breakdown to the interior.
The next move is to paint. Currently black exterior, will like become black cherry, with a very subtle gold metal flake.
Not impressive to the purists, I know, but an individual design that will not really 'jump out' in reality. The interior is much more ma The original interior. After the NAV/gauge swap Interior broken down for dye job. Final interior. Actually less purple than in this pix.
roon than wine as seen in the pix.
Attempted to remove just the LHS cat tonight. I've read that it's possible without removing the exhaust centre box but, even with a fully-charged magic wand, no joy. The before axle boxes whack the A-frame before I can shift everything far enough back to clear the cat outlets.
Partially did the thermostat housing/valley hoses today. Old plastic thermostat housing was leaking quite a bit. Everything went well until I got the intake manifold off. Looked dirty from the peek through the side, but I didn't fully appreciate that there was a thick layer of kitty litter and gerbil bedding congealed with coolant.
In with the sticky carbonized dexcool rodent bedding was a substantial mass fraction of what appeared to be small rocks. Have never seen this before, but they were quite a bit harder than the usual carbonized wood. Took forever to clean because I wasn't willing to use my nice wall vac on the mass of goo (the hand vac wouldn't pick it up), and I didn't want any in the intakes. So, as usual, job ran longer than anticipated, used more advil than anticipated....
Leaky stuff with kibbles and bits. Big yellow bit is not yet carbonized 'real wood'.
With the LHS cat now out of the way, I've removed and replaced both oil cooler lines for the 5HP transmission. It didn't prove too painful in the end, although I suspect that the steering rack would need to be dropped for LHD cars.
I'll wrap up what I did in my original thread once I've collated the pics, text & brain ramblings. Really glad this one is off the list.
My Oxford battery tender / charger stopped working,
So i took the opportunity to upgrade to the CTEK tender /charger.
Had to make a backing board to run the input/output wire's in the correct direction,
Relevant to the wall socket and the car.
im happy with the outcome and permanent fixture to the garage wall.
A really easy installation that will hopefully last for year's to come......
got tired of my instrument cluster lights sometimes working at night - so replaced them the T10's with LED and the T5's regular incandescent. Will need to get a clip for the upper bolster since one side is missing
Spent 2 ½ hours refitting two aircon pipes Those connectors at the back of the compressor are a **** to get to.
Fitting the new compressor itself went much better than getting the old one out. Either I’m getting more adept (highly unlikely) or I got lucky, but it just slid in. I even managed to get a 3/8” torque wrench on all the bolts.
got tired of my instrument cluster lights sometimes working at night - so replaced them the T10's with LED and the T5's regular incandescent. Will need to get a clip for the upper bolster since one side is missing
I'm curious as to why you only used the LEDs for the T10's? I am about to replace my instrument lights and planned to use LEDs in all. Would the T5's be too bright??
I also went ahead and replaced the shocks/bumpers this time. The old shocks are still in good shape but with 100K on them I did not want to risk having to pull apart the struts again until my next Welsh replacement in a few years.
I had replaced the lower bushing in the original shocks and those are still good. If anybody wants a good used pair of shocks they are free for the taking. I'll toss in a week or so if nobody wants them.
I finally had time and weather cooperated to let me pull the winter cover off my 01 XKR and use the eBay purchased ELM327 Bluetooth scan tool. I figured for less than 20.00, I'd give it a try, took my tech challenged self about five minutes to get the device figured out and scan the codes. A couple hours of mechanical diagnostics to determine removing and replacing the gas cap while it was idling Christmas Eve was the cause of a plethora of issues. I cleared codes and now I'm itching to run her down the highway.
I'm making my own patches out of 16ga sheet metal. That should last a while lol 😁. I believe I did see some panels on the one site, but they were around $600 each smh
Just looked and saw that xk8parts has some partial sills for about 90pounds. The rear repair panels are over 1000!
Last edited by Timeisrelative; Feb 1, 2020 at 09:04 PM.
Those connectors at the back of the compressor are a **** to get to.
