Jaguar Independents in Ireland

kgdo85

Hey I recently bought a Jaguar XJ8 in the UK and imported it to Ireland. It was a finance repo at a very good price, so I got what I paid for!

The car has some problems with overheating and I have had my local mechanic to look at that, however I will need the help of an experienced Jaguar mechanic to change waterpump and check head gasket for leaks.

Anyone know of any independent Jaguar guys or have any experience of this? I am not bringing it to Jaguar garage firstly on price and second I have often found they know very little about the cars they are working on.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

unkel

Hi kgdo85 and welcome to boards.ie

We had a thread about that recently. There's some bitching going on, but there might be some useful info for you too. Here's the link.

Well wear with your XJ8 - great cars!

BrokenSpiral

Hey,

I had major problems with overheating on my Jag V8, you may know lots of this stuff already but I'll give you an idea of the steps I went through and what I learned so it might help!

There is a test which involves plugging a chemical filled tube onto your coolant expansion tank and taking a sample of the coolant while the engine is running. The chemical changes colour in the presence of exhaust gases in the coolant and therefore gives you a good indication of the condition of your head gasket, but it isn't 100% effective as you may have a small leak. If you have ANY milky residue in your oil then you have a leak and need your head gasked replaced and possibly skimmed.

I had steam marks all over my water pump and was told twice that my water pump was leaking but in fact it wasn't the pump, it was on of the coolant hoses in the inlet manifold. The coolant was running along the engine and down the front of the engine making it appear as if that was the problem.

I decided to give my entire coolant system a once over as heat damage is really easy to do with that ford V8 (particularly easy on the 4.0l between 97 and early 2001).
so, I did several coolant flushes and I also pressure cleaned my radiator. I then changed all the hoses and clips.
It made an incredible difference!

I got a misdagnosis from a couple of "normal" mechanics so I'd stick to specialists if you can. I used Spirit Motors for the work and they were expensive but were very good!

Try http://www.dickensonjaguarspareparts.com/contact.htm and use britishparts.co.uk for the parts.

If you are replacing the pump then get the upgraded one on eBay which has a metal impeller. Also, a thermostat is only a few quid and worth replacing if you've had any overheating just to emake sure it's not damaged! (On one of the Jag forums I read a post about a thermostat breaking at teh halfway point so as the engine over heated there was no indication and a lot of ppl seemed to hav eexperienced the same thing!)

Hope that helps a bit and good luck!

kgdo85

Hey thanks guys for all your advice, that thread about Jag indy's got very nasty didnt it!

Basically to go into it a bit futher I bought a 1998 Sovereign 4.0 (x308), overall in very clean and tidy order but with the overheating issue.

The car will start no problem and tick over happily for hours, fairly slowly losing coolant, but the second you put it into drive and start moving you can hear a slight hissing noise ( i presume this is the coolant leaking) and within 4-5 minutes most of the coolant is gone and the car begins to go into the red and display the coolant low message. Also if you put the boot down at all I have found on a coumple of occasions the coolant hose from the top of the passenger side of the engine block going to the radiatior blows off (hose looks good.....perhaps a blockage?).

I am also puzzled as to where the coolant goes so quickly or what is that hissing sound when there is no obvious leak (eg perished pipes etc). I also noticed that the thermostat had been tampered with and so have ordered a new one just to be sure, however the heater / air con is working ok so thats a good sign i think.

I had gathered that along with nikasil, overheating was a common fault with the x308 model from late 97 to early 01, as the plastic blades from the water pump broke off and got lodged in the cooling system. I ordered a new pump (with steel blades) and thermostat from british parts and my local mechanic suggested that we do this first to determine if there is any further leakage of coolant into the exhaust system. I dont see any creamy whiteness when I open the filler cap for the oil so fingers crossed that the head gasket isnt gone too.

Final problem I notice is a rattling / tapping noise when the engine is running, sounds like an engine running with nearly no oil (not the case have checked many times and no leaks). It is there most of the time but goes away for a few minutes if I rev the engine to about 2500.

I would appreciate any further advice you could give and also If you could let me know what kind of prices and time it took Spirit to sort your issues (if you dont want to post exact figures thats fine)