Indeed. No such issues with the older AJ16 engine! As nice as the 4.0 V8 is, especially with a blower, there are too many plastic bits on it for my liking.
Thanks for the video, ordered my tensioners today. Did removing the valve cover require disconnecting any of the coolant hoses or is there enough room to wiggle it out?
You shouldn't need to remove any coolant hoses, there is enough room to carefully wriggle the cam covers off. Be careful to avoid knocking the small coolant pipe going to the top of the radiator, it is pretty fragile.
My xjr ticks on one bank. Maybe mine needs that changed. I thought it was a valve lash shim but maybe its the tensioners. I had the head gaskets done several years ago and the guy said he put new tensioners in. I just blew head gaskets again and decided to do it myself. I'll be looking to see if he put the aluminum ones in but I feel he may have lied.
Good job, while you were in there, did you look at your guides? I have a video on my channel named 1998 Jaguar Tensioner issues. It shows the progress..
Mitch Grooms I didn’t look at the guides in any great detail apart from poke a borescope down from the top. No doubt they really wanted replacing too, along with the primary tensioners and all the chains, but that is a really big job as you know, and the car went for breaking to parts before long anyway as the rest of the car was too rough to keep.
just as a curiosity, before you started the job, did you have any symptoms other than the noise? Also, was there any slack in the tensioners after you bolted them down and removed the little tab thing (i.e. does it take starting the car and letting them fill with oil for it to be fully tensioned?)
Carl Monroe Hi, I had a check engine light on, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the tensioners necessarily. Other than that the only symptom was the noise. Yes there is some slack in the tensioners when you first install them as they are dry. After the first few seconds of the engine running there was a noticeable drop in engine clatter, which was presumably due to the tensioner filling up with oil. If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing. It really helps the channel out!
Metal on metal would wear the timing chain through, which would be worse. The problem with the old design was that the whole tensioner body was plastic. You have to have some plastic for the chain to rub against. It is common for timing chain guides to be part plastic, this is the friction material.
No you don’t have to have plastic for the chain to rub against, most tensioners I have seen on other cars are oil resistant bonded rubber, which seems to last for ever. Other questions I have is why a single roller chain, the only answer I can come up with is so that Jaguar can sell more parts and keep their Technicians busy. I could elaborate even further after having owned quite a few jags over the years, almost tempted to buy another but after researching what’s out there there’s no point in buying a great looking money pit.
When you pisition the cam so that the lobes are not touching the valves, did it have to be set back because it looked like you left it like that? Also how did you turn the camshaft to get the lobes off of the valves?
@@tainchains It’s not quite so straightforward on an AJV8 since the engine isn’t timed to TDC. There are flats on the ends of the camshafts to which you can attached a locking tool and then you could lock the crank with a bolt through the bell housing inspection port. Remember though this is a redneck repair so I’m not following the correct procedure at all. You can’t lock the cams doing the job this way because you are lifting the cams up, hence the cable ties. There will always be some load on the valves doing the job my way, which is a risk. If you want to time up the engine perfect and be cautions you should be doing the whole job by the workshop manual which involves replacing all the chains, tensioners and guides from the front with the timing cover off and the cam sprockets removed. This video is not for you if you think you can lift the cams up without taking a risk..
@@tainchains Everything is done by hand. You can wiggle the cam a little bit off the lobes, but the resistance isn’t that much. The main thing is that the camshafts are reseated exactly as they are removed.
Please help me solve this problem and the big puzzle I think, I have a 2001 Jaguar XJ8, I inherited it from my father, but I found the wires and sockets leading to the camshaft valves and the timing valve for the camshaft are completely missing,!!! And please, sir, for your experience, I want to know from what point the sources of these two wires start with the plugs and reach the two valves, thank you very much
Hello. I think you are referring to the variable valve timing system. Not all XJ8s have variable valve timing. The XJR for example does not have the system, hence no wires. Unfortunately I do not have an XJ8 anymore so cannot source the wires if you do indeed have the system. Sorry. If someone cut them off, you might have bigger problems than just the wires.
The objective at the time was to get the car running a little better and not have the engine grenade. It was borderline worth saving the car at all. It was an R1 XJR X308, but a bit rough all round.
@@kennethtalbott2233 I sold it on about 3 months after this video. It did resurface again two years later for sale, looking a bit more sorted. I just looked up the vehicle details for the car and it is indeed still on the road. The work was not for nothing!
Hello. I just changed both tentioners and having a problem. I Think, even though I used the zip-tie method, I might be off One tooth, right side. I rotated the engine where I thought the cam lobes were not touching, but when I removed the retainer caps the cam was under a little tension, not very much as I was able to reinstall everything, but now it Idles rough, but smooths out under acceleration. Codes telling me *misfiring on all 8 cylinders Help, what can I do?
Did you mark the position of everything like I did? There will always be a bit of tension reinstalling the cam, but maybe something slipped. At this stage it is either a matter of rechecking everything and potentially repositioning the cam (risky), or send the car to a professional mechanic. It is also worth checking all your electrical connections to make sure something else has not been disturbed.
Yes, I'm afraid often it is necessary to replace all the timing gear to fix the problem fully. Sometimes if you catch the upper chain tensioners failing early, you can postpone the big job.
Sorry, I don't know exactly when the design changed. If you have a car sold after the year 2000, it is most probably an AJ27 engine, which should be slightly better, but I think the tensioner design changed some years later. Unless it's the later 4.2 V8, you will always have to check the condition of the timing set in my opinion.
Some people say 2001 some people say not until the end of 2002 is when the replacement or the new improved tensioners were finally fitted, what is the truth
Jonas Axelsson There was a torque wrench off camera to finish things off. As I said in the description this job was very much NOT by the book. It will work though, but can be risky if you are not careful.