Replaced tired old hood and trunk struts with eBay cheapo ones. Unknown reliability but day 1 results are much nicer

 

Good advice I need them thanks Randy

 

Good idea what kind of oil? I need a procedure please ,I’ll check the manual tonight

Randy

 

my manual for the 4.0 cars has a sliding viscosity scale with recommendations varying according to the climate the car will be driven in.

For me that means 0w-40 and 5w-40. Many people in milder climes are using 5w-30. Everyone has their favorite brand of oil, mine is Mobil 1. Affordable, easy to find, and it offers great wear protection.


Z

 

Yes 0W-40 is a good choice for me, a little hard to find


Randy

 

have you tried Walmart ? They always have it in my area (Oklahoma)

 

And you can usually find good motor oil deals on Amazon, often with free shipping....

 

I saw the 5W-40 at a Walmart in Pennsylvania last week. Does this thing really take 8 quarts?

 

The 4.2 engines are listed at 8.2 quarts oil capacity (I have always run exactly 8 quarts with no problems). Not sure about the 4.0 engines....

 

the 4.0 with oil coolers does take 7.75 liters, about 8 quarts. On my ‘02 XKR, that’s barely above the full circle by about 1-2 mm, close enough .

Z

 

I just finished my front with the great help of Wayne and his upper mounts advice. Big help thanks so much to all the threads out there too. Super charger oil ? I hadn’t thought of that or changing the diff oil.
I would love a link or page number in the manual. But today I put her up in the air to r & r rear shock bushings and mounts so rear differential is easy, I guess, nothing else has been easy. So far I can’t get the bolt out of the shock. I also need ideas to repair or replace or cover my cracked headlight glass, the one thing that’s easy to replace and it’s unavailable or very expensive. I know, if it was easy everyone would be be driving a Jag.

Randy

 

What didn't I work on today Grrr!

 

Changed rear diff oil in a XKR convertible. Didn't cut a hole. Pain in the a.... well actually in all parts of me now.

Tl;dr if you don't want to cut a hole in your car, buy these:
https://www.harborfreight.com/3-piec...aps-67011.html

Removed the sway bar, then I used a 3/4" crescent wrench, and all of the swear words I know and a few new ones I invented today to get the plug turning, and switched to a metric articulated ratchet wrench once it was moving to speed things up a bit.

Along the way found the sway bar bushings were perished (easily fixed on a later date), new bushings on order, tempted as I was just to get whole new endlinks from rock auto), cleaned the diff breather, had a look in there with a borescope. Car had a transmission service less than 5k ago but it was leaking out of the right output shaft area and had no idea how much fluid might be in the diff or what was going on in there, thus the service.

 

Yes, I used Next Gen on the Toyota Avalon. Very shiny. The XK is awaiting a lite application of rubbing compound first.

 

"Nigel" rolled 160K; changed the ATF only ( Mercon SP) and Differential Lube ( NAPA GL5 Synth. 75W140). Chose Multi Viscosity since probably some bearing wear with the miles accumulated. All appeared well and no leaks or obvious problems underneath.

 

the 75w-140 rear end lube is a good choice. Not only for the higher mileage cars, but also for cars that will driven more than across town at a time. It’s better protection for the gears and bearings on the longer distance trips.

I’ve been using the Mobil 1 75w-140 for at least two decades on many different cars, both classic and modern. And have never had to replace bearings or gears due to wear.

Z

 

I jumped into my car after a couple of months of it not being driven and got the dreaded restricted performance message. Turned out to be P0332 which is knock sensor. I followed Jim Lomardi's excellent instructions and got it replaced in about half an hour. If only they were all that easy!

 

I swapped the T10 bulbs in the dashboard and centre console with LEDs.
Horror story so far with T4.2 LEDS in AirCon unit: Amazon ordered whites too loose, next order greens fit but 90% failed...cheap but waste of $.
NEED a referral to order quality t4.2 LEDs...will try blue to match the T10s.

T10s look good [white lights] give off a blue shade and I still might try green T10 LEDs as this will avoid need to change Aircon, radio, shift, etc to match.

New issue I will post separately...oil pressure, alternator and fuel gauge all appear not working. I got a 'low oil pressure warning' too! Oil level is fine.
Did a hard battery reset [touched earth to positive for 30secs] but no help.


Oil pressure? Battery?

Fuel?

 

There was micro bubbling of paintwork from previous paint years ago, so decided to do some respraying using 2K paint.


Prepping


Paint

Sand and polish

 

I managed to dislodge one side of the high-mount stop lamp a while back, so it was time to take a look.

It's a bit of a squeeze in there, but the cover slides off pretty easily once the two catches underneath are pressed in.

One of the two metal H-shaped retainers had detached from the glass:




Note that they're handed as the upper face is canted slightly

OK so that will be easy to bond back with some JB-Weld.

Unfortunately, the plastic that slides over that hadn't fared well. From the Department of Egregious Engineering:


This is the 'clip' on the end of the lighting tray that slides onto the retainer.

It is incredibly flimsy and had broken off. I've glued it back in place, and I'll glue some small, shaped pieces of plastic around it in an attempt to make it more robust.



This is how it engages with the metal retainer

And, finally, the plastic tang that holds it in place on the retainer:


I pushed a largeish zip-tie through between the clip & the retainer to release it.

Both the designer at Valeo and the QC man at Jaguar should have their gonads squeezed hard for this miserable effort