JUNK at Just 62K Miles! Jaguar 3.0 Supercharged AJ V6 Engine Teardown 

That gunk tells the entire story. This engine was destroyed because two incompatible coolants were mixed in the cooling system. Today's coolants are usually IAT (inorganic acid technology) or OAT (organic acid technology). They cannot be mixed together in an engine. What happens is they chemically react with each other to form a thick gel -- that goop you saw in this engine's cooling passages. I guarantee that if you had looked at the radiator from this engine, you would have seen the tubes in the core all clogged up with the same goop that was in the engine. I miss the good old days when engines were cast iron blocks with cast iron heads, and the coolant was just a 50/50 mix of ethylene glycol and distilled water with a little green dye added in.

I saw you at Cars and Coffee today. Your car looked great. I almost asked you what the tear down was but figured you wouldn’t have told me anyway. Keep up the good work! Saturday night tear downs are something I actually look forward to. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

I've watched your content for months. As a 65 year old mechanic, with 50 years of experience, I've constantly worried that you're working alone. If you would get pinched and be bleeding out, there is nobody there to watch you and know your status. Please don't ever work alone. I retired with ten fingers and two eyes. Wear your safety glasses. I'm here every Saturday night. You can never undo an injury. It's 4LIFE.

A whole 8 hours just to get to a valve cover is crazy

As a former LRJ tech I was hoping you’d do one of these. This V6/V8 block is quite a thing.

Just got all metal coolant pipes/parts including the rear crossover....so issues has been addressed by the aftermarket. The V6's in the F types have the new timing chain and as you note, they don't wear much....new motor oils (*and JLR spec oils) protect the timing chain way better (IL6a...). Great video. Thanks. These are amazing engines....pulleys and a tune and 3.0L can do 475hp... Great engine....

I own an XE-S with this engine, which I've started doing the work on myself now that it's out of the free maintenance period. Very interesting video, thanks!

I have one of those 3.0l in my wife's XF. Wondered how robust the engine is as we bought it used. Now I am confident it is a keeper based on the level of engineering in the engine. It was clear that it was abused and it still held up for the most part. I agree that if it had used straight water or correct coolant it would still be cruising. Will be referring to this video if I ever need to tear it down for any repairs. I do need to pull the supercharger eventually to see about an intermittent weep at the y pipe behind oil filter adapter. Rumor is they are tough to pull but you made it look easy.

I've done a ring job on an early 70's Maverick on an apartment complex parking lot and re-built my 289 Ford in my carport. These new engines just totally blow my mind.

Those pistons were "well done" indeed 😆 The thing that impresses me most is the performance of the oil throughout the rest of the engine. The oil had to be over 500F.

Love when your streams show up in the UK, on a sunday a.m. Keep up the good work and been following you for a while now Eric..

I cannot thank you enough for all the effort to record and prepare these videos. Best wishes man. Keep it up.

What you see in between cylinders is a plastic coolant separator. Plastic part that optimizes coolant stream around cylinders. Looks like it melted

Such a perfect way to close out my Saturday. Always love watching these videos.

Those timing chain rails are the updates ones. The buttons you rubbed on are the difference. The old design doesn't have these and the tensioners eat into the diecast metal. The junk in the head is probably from the wrong coolant. Jaguar specifies a non-silicate coolant. Junk precipitates out with the wrong stuff. Since that was a 2 piece water pump, most came with 3 piece OEM so I suspect it was replaced and they used the wrong juice. Obviously, blew a head gasket and the blowby boliled out the coolant and melted the cross over. Love my 5 lter xkr, pushing 660 hp now.

I believe those torx looking heads are called triple squares, VW and Audi love using those things.

I have seen the plugged cooling holes before. If you look at the head gasket 29:43, the holes don't exist in the head gasket, hence the plugging. A good lesson in not using cooling system sealers though.

Considering that the pistons look to have been magma balls for a while, it stayed together fairly well. I'd agree with the comments that the black bitumen looking gunk is some sort of stop leak product. It has no place in a modern engine for exactly that reason.

I have a 2006 Lincoln LS with the Ford built variant of the AJ V8 and it's been dead reliable except for having to replace the plastic cooling system parts every 60-80k (yes, I only use the OEM Ford parts), it has 271k on it and is now my beater car for bad weather (it got hailed on real good a few years ago) if you keep up with the scheduled maintenance the AJ engines are usually quite reliable and will go for a long time without any issues; I am slightly surprised that an overheat got this engine as they should be a "failsafe" design (at least mine is) and should go into reduced power mode when the coolant is run out or over heats and alternately disables cylinders to provide a level of air cooling then again, car thieves probably don't stop driving (running from the cops) until the engine just flat out quits.

That engine is a LOT of fun in an F-Type. Wonderful sound, plenty of HP. It has a reputation of being able to handle plenty of boost. Just don't overheat them.

You really have no idea how many people you have become a ritual for. The Saturday evening or the Sunday morning in bed show. I really like the show and it's nice to know that there are almost 250,000 people who like it too. Keep it up man, really. I believe this is a dream come true for you! Greetings from the Netherlands

As always, great video plus I learn quite a bit from the comment section, thank you to everyone involved and watching. Oh, I long for the older days of simple engines and copper and brass radiators. I use to work in a Radiator shop and built many radiators. Much fun.

The designers really wrote up an 8 hour valve cover job in the service manual and the whole time they were doing it, it never even crossed their minds to just add another connector or put a hose in.

in ALL the engine teardowns i've watched you do over the last year or 2, I don't think I've EVER seen heads come off that easy, or head gaskets for that matter.

Watching all your tear downs greatly increases in my comfort level in my maintenance schedule on my own cars. As well as reinforcing what I am and am not comfortable doing repair wise. And I may have changed opinions about what cars (and engines) I’ll buy in the future. And yes please to the Mercedes video. And maybe a future VW VR6 engine tear down. Always been curious about those. Or the W12 that’s two married together.

You got to do a Mr. T dress up using all those timing chains you have removed! XD

Had this engine in an XF, put 180k miles on it, was a releable engine for the most part, the coolant crossover pipe started dripping so had that changed but other than that it was fine.

Is it weird that I find this oddly addictive? Each teardown is like a murder-mystery….although in 90% of cases, the murderer is always lack of oil….😂

The Trophy 4 engine in the 1961-1963 Pontiac Tempest essentially started out as half of a 389. In fact, it's displacement is exactly half of the Trophy V8 389.

That engine looks huge on the stand.

I have an 3.0 S type and an S Type R, great to see jaguar stayed true to themself and made the newer AJ-V6 and AJ-V8 complicated to work on too 😂 But other European cars are also quite a hassel to work on... could be worse

It's incredibly easy to build a V6 from an existing V8. Jaguar, as shown in this video, doesn't even bother changing the outside dimensions of its block. The company's V6, was simply its V8 with shorter cylinder heads and balancing weights on the crankshaft where the last two piston throws should beLike all V8-derived V6s, Jaguar's has a 90-degree angle between its cylinder banks. That works well for a V8, but it's the wrong angle for a six, because it means the engine will fire at uneven intervals, and odd-fire engines run rough and make terrible noises. A V6 will fire at perfectly spaced intervals (read: smoothly) with its banks splayed to 120 degrees, but that's too wide to fit in most cars. Halving that angle keeps the even firing order and, with a couple of crank counterweights, it allows for smooth running. Toyota's 3.5-liter V-6 is a 60, and it's very smooth. But a 60-degree six negates the economic advantage of basing the engine off an existing V8. So manufacturer tend to stick with the 90-degree architecture and apply various tricks to make it work for a V6. The big one is using split, offset crankpins. In essence, they slightly offset opposing pistons, forcing them to move in such a way that the engine fires evenly. But these are difficult to engineer and expensive to manufacture. Plus, the 90-degree V6 usually has an engine-driven balance shaft to prevent the whole complicated mess from vibrating itself apart. All of this adds expense and hurts efficiency. That is why many European manufactures. Have resurrected the straight-six engine(BMW did never stop making them as an aside). Accountants want fewer cylinders. The engineers want smooth engines. The compromise? A good straight six. Each of its cylinders has a twin that's doing the opposite thing, at the same time and in the same plane, canceling out the other's forces. That lack of internal dissonance gives perfect balance.

Thanks for all the awesome content. Happy Saturday night to all.

Interesting to see the FoMoCo logo on the cams. I wonder, did the AJ series make it into any other cars that Ford made at the time other than Land Rovers? I am really looking forward to you tearing down an Audi V8 just to see the look on your face when you see what's under the timing covers!

I’ve been a Jaguar fan since 64’ and it hurts to see some of the crap that they put out now! Love your videos! Out here from Menomonee Falls!

Speaking of weird block mods, I once owned a '64 International Scout with the 152 4 cyl. It was actually a V8 304 block (I think it may have been the same one in the older Jeeps), but one bank was essentially 'cut' off and a pan mounted over the hole. It still had the V8 crank, and the rod caps for the 4 cylinders were double wide to fit the whole journal. It was the oddest engine I have ever tore down. Oh, why did I tear it down it? Well, because it broke one of those extra wide caps into 3 pieces, and ejected the center through the oil pan and made a really unique square hole in it. Some more unrelated fun facts about that little truck (one of my favorite vehicles of all time), you can hold the 3 speed transmission in one hand. The low range on the transfer case, combined with the ridiculous granny 1st gear in the transmission was so low you could literally jam it into first gear and start moving without using the clutch. Good times.

For a massive overheat it looked pretty decent internally.👍

Thanks for always reminding me to check my oil. It was very low. Now I'm back in the habit of checking all the things :D

I rebuilt one of those a month ago. It was $9000 for 4 VVT gears, 2 timing chain, 4 buffers, 2 tensioners and all the gaskets to put it back together. 22 hours of labor too 😮

Dropping the subframe to remove a valve cover. Sweet mother of god

What amazing timing! I was going to ask for this stupid motor, it baffles me how they came upon the idea to reuse a v8 block for a v6... not even removing a row!

I am betting that the gunk in the cooling system is "Bars Leak". Like they were trying to fix the blown head gasket :(

That stuff clogging the coolant passages could be some kind of stop a leak product..my guess

Eric superfan here 🙄🙄🙄 I was one of those kids who took EVERYTHING apart to see how things worked... Most times I could get it back together (mostly) My uncle back in the day asked me to help him tear down a automatic transmission just to see what was going on inside and I was amazed by all the check ball's and channels. I've been an ironworker for 30+ years and have always had a new 1 ton Silverado (diesel) and have always been amazed by the automatic transmissions that can transfer all the power and torque from the motor to the rear wheels (magical 🎉). Pulling load's that may or may not been WAAY over the rated capacity... I absolutely love this channel and am jealous of your job!

This was a very interesting teardown to me as I have owned 2 versions of the earlier version of this engine, a 2005 Mercury Montego and currently a 2004 S type Jaguar. The Merc always felt underpowered but the Jag is fine. It also runs smoother and quieter and even gets better gas mileage. At 56,000 miles its only weakness is the PCV system, which looks good but is terrible. A Steeda oil separator made a huuge difference in how it runs. Would like to see you do one of those Ford/Jaguar 3.0 v6s.

Your voice overs are the best. You didn't even have to use any penetrator on this one. It's definitely time to cram the cam caps loose.

As always I watch your program every Sunday morning. I have worked in the tool and die industry all my life as a machine repairman. I have come to a final conclusion this morning. What I see and have seen in my life is this. The old school bench leader on projects always looked over prints before a build, the really good ones, German by the way, would see problems and March that print book up to design, and they would raise hell with those newbies and have it corrected before building said project. I don't think we have that anymore. It's either that or what I have said before, which is they are all on acid trips when they think of this crap.

I got the CAD data for this engine many years ago to look at exhaust manifold design (I worked for the supplier) and couldn't believe the use of the V8 block for the V6! I asked why but the JLR boys were saying nothing! I drew my own conclusion (cost) which seems to be the case.

The gunk was a sealer of some sort - someone tried a pour-in product to fix the blown head gasket issue and just kept doing more and more, eventually plugging up the passages. Block is toast.

Great tear down, I enjoyed it! This 3.0L SCV6 rides pretty good in my 2016 LR4! I just upgraded the front cross-over and Y plastic coolant pipe for aluminium ones (made in china but still they won't be cooking in there). I'll do the same upgrade with the rear cross-over pipe soon. The guides and tensioner upgrades I think fixed the timing chain issue in 2014 and I also think they upgraded the chain (not sure about that). However at the same time, they added the ECO stop-start so that can't help those poor chains, I'm sure. That's the reason my ECO mode is always disabled. I bet the gunk is incompatible coolant or some coolant gasket sealer that was not used properly (not flushed). It'd be funny to ask the thieves ;o) Thanks for the video and Cheers!

This engine is awesome. Ivhave one in my '16 LR4. The thing about those vehicles and other LR products this engine is in, is that most of them are unibody-on-frame construction. Ina those cases, sometimes its faster to lift the body off the frame to do the tricky repairs. You cant do that on the Jaguars.

66k miles on mine, now 11 yrs old and runs like a champ. I did have a coolant line failure at around 38k miles and had it replaced with the oem upgrade. (I did get a coolant low warning…topped it off and a short drive to dealer) Unfortunately the updated oem part is still plastic. Aftermarket has all metal kits available now. Otherwise between this engine and the ZF 8 speed transmission it’s a bulletproof combo.

I'm trying to do the rear coolant crossover manifold in my 5.0 V8 XJ with the engine in the car. It's not too difficult but needs a lot of dismantling, such as intake manifold, window wipers, scuttle panel... all for access. I still can't get at the 2 T30 bolts on the manifold that sit towards the outside of the engine. Searching for a tool that will get the job done. Your videos (on both the V6 and V8) help me understand what I'm up against! Thanks

YES! MY REQUEST FULLFILLED! Thank you!

The V6 is V8-sized, so it would act the same in a crash as the V8. This saves Jaguar a ton of money on vehicle engineering.

Thanks for another great video. I'm not into cars at all but I find your knowledge, enthusiasm and work ethic very enjoyable to see. Keep up the great work.

Cool engine this week! Love your videos! Still hoping you can tear down a 1.8 out of a 2016 Chevy Sonic, and a 2.4 SRT4 engine out of a 2003 PT Cruiser GT that has the aluminum intake setup on it. As usual another great video!

For anyone wondering. The VW/Audi Head stud bits he is using are called Triple Square. They look like torx bits but the main bit has more meat to it. Its 3 offset squares to form the head of the bit. Torx are more like a Spline. Whatever you do, don't cheap out of these. You need to get out the axles and all sorts of stuff on VAG cars. Anything with Triple Square is there to warn the technician that the bolt is single use only and must be replaced.

Thanks for keeping me entertained on my train ride. I've always thought these were the most logically insane things I have ever seen.

I rebuilt the 5.0l NA version of rhis engine and THEN overheated it and did it all again. I had a sludge cooked coolant and oil after the overheat I had to clean up. My cylinder walls were fine. I've gone over 10k miles sinxe the repair, no real issues have come up.

Okay, you commented on the timing chain off this engine. I've been going back and rewatching some of your older tear downs and you often comment on the chains when they come off. IN one video you even said the chain would make a great addition to your collection. You've done a lot of tear downs now so let's see this chain collection

I was between cars in 2005 and a co-worker gave me a ride home one afternoon in the Jag his parents owned. I think it was a 2003 or 2004 model and when I got in it was like I got into a Taurus/Sable. I knew Ford owned Jag at that point but it was a bit startling to see how much Ford was in a Jag by then.

27:33 I am guessing that since the engine got so hot, the top of each cylinder warped. If you measured for roundness on each cylinder, they are oval shaped at the top.

My favorite engine for longevity and acceptable power is Buick V8 with two cylinders removed from the middle...Buick 3.8L (odd-fire) throught the L32/L67 gen III 3800's. Done well, it tends to be a really good thing and most the manufacturing process/tools remain the same.

Loving the content as usual... That's a garbage idea having the V6 the same size as the V8. Would love to know what the sludge is, haven't seen that before! And looking forward to the video on the Benz!

Yes. The 380hp V6 in my F-Type is plenty powerful, and i can get better than 30 mpg. Thanks for the tear down!

Whenever an engineer is tasked with designing these engines, they should be forced to perform service procedures on the preceding design with the engine installed in the car to learn not to make a valve cover job an 8 hour procedure 😂

i'm not even a car guy or really interested in cars in any way but i can't stop watching these

I said this in a previous IDC video: I am utterly surprised that GM didn't do this for the 4.3 V6. The 4.3 is a 350 small block with two of the center cylinders removed. They didn't ACTUALLY cut a V8 block up and weld it at the engine plant, what they did was to use CAD/CAM tools to design a new casting with 6 holes instead of 8. This is advantageous because the boring machines and assembly machinery used to produce the V8 can produce a V6 instead with the push of a button, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in expense for new tooling for a totally new design. It makes sense. But it seems to me that it would make more "GM Sense", since GM's engineering department's main goal is to SAVE COSTS WHEREVER POSSIBLE AND STILL MAKE THE CAR SELLABLE TO GULLIBLE BUYERS, to simply put V6 guts in a V8 engine. Just the way that "Jag-You-Are" has done. [Technically, the pronunciation of the name of the central American animal is "Jag-WAAR", in the indigenous language] You can easily do this. Build a V6 crankshaft with a shaft on the end where the rear pair of cylinders would be. And do the same with the cams. And the heads would have nothing after the third row of cylinders, just a flat blanking off plate where the valves would be. There would be a fourth pair of bores, but they simply wouldn't be used, just a pair of holes. The great part about this? If you had the crummy V6 version, you could get a crank, cam, pistons and heads along with an intake from a junkyard engine and on the cheap upgrade to a V8~! My point is that I don't know why the skin-flint automaker GM didn't do what Jaguar did~ Great video!

Another great video Eric!! I have seen many used pistons in my life but never a matched set of 6 looking fresh out of a powder coating booth...the heat to bbq them like that...wow!! As for that line to be pulled before the valve cover...yet another way a car mfr has made it so one has to go to a dealer or make specific shop...8 hours...why not have made another union in the top edge of the head area...ughhh... Keep up the great videos Eric!!

GOTTA BE a 'head gasket seal in a bottle' with the clog. Look for it next to the "power steering stop leak" and my brother-in-law...and all the other things that don't work!!!

Wish you had told us what that gunk was... and how it got there... running car hard would not explain that overheating?... but the blocked cooling channels, combined with running hard.. leading to it over heating would? So some kind of coolant additive? or ??

Great vid sir. That sludge stuff in the coolant jackets would be a nightmare to flush out in car.

I understand the aj133/aj126 did not date back to the 90’s, it was designed in the mid 00’s when Jag was owned by Ford. v6 is a great engine from a driving point of view with loads of character (probably due to the v8 heritage), which is a suprise given it was a cost saving hack. With the exception of idle, it’s sounds like an orchestra changing tone throughout the rev range. Have to agree though, plastic does not belong in an engine in any shape or form, unfortunately accountants always win.

"Drive it like you stole it"

Man,that hollow metallic head bolt removing popping goes right thru me every time !!💥💥

"Stolen" - yeah, right. My bet is on the owner not paying attention to the light (long time JLR owners are trained to ignore electrical gremlins), overheated the engine, drove it on its last legs to the bad side of town, and reported it stolen.

How soothing to watch these teardowns and not be busting my own knuckles! Nice to see how all these are made so I know which cars I would buy and keep.

Maybe i'm just used to a basic double overhead cam engine or a pushrod engine but this seems unnecessarily complex. I've ridden in a Supercharged V6 F-type and they certainly do have some torque.

The way this engine was turned into a V6 is funky, the block would make the most unique coffee table, and it has underhead camshafts too. I think the “asphalt”in the water jackets is what remains of the plastic coolant flow doohickies.

I filled the radiator with oil, put water in the engine & filled fuel tank with air.... Did I do it right ? 😊

as a card carrying member of the gambler 500 operators union I am very glad to see that Jaguar has thoughtfully provided us with very convenient foil wrapped burrito warming sockets at the back of each cylinder bank on the keep-up-with-the-joneses spec Jaguar engine shown here. edit: that sludgy black fibrous material in the water jacket holes in the head is the remains of various GFRP cooling system components. The inside of that crossover tube with the two bonus holes melted in it, the end tanks of the radiator, any plastic tees in the cooling system, etc etc etc. When you burn a head gasket that badly and then continue driving it in anger, you are pumping pressurized exhaust straight into the water jacket and it can make it a surprising distance before it cools down. I have seen it make it all the way through a Subaru to the radiator cap area and literally melt notches through the seat that the radiator cap pressure regulator plunger pushes against, then release the pressurized exhaust/coolant mix straight into the overflow tank and explosively vent the entire cooling system out of the overflow tank cap (which was blown open) in a matter of seconds. It was really quite impressive. I had to replace the radiator as well as the engine. I bet there is a substantial amount of carbon in that blackish sludge as well from incomplete combustion.

Someone keyed my guitar teacher's car last night. Fortunately, the damage seems to B Minor.

Those cross-overpipes are one thing but water sits in the valley and rots away the oil cooler, creating coolant leaks. Also, who doesn't love a plastic coupler with only compression holding it together on the back of the water pump. Thanks for showing this stuff, from the UK

With using same block between the two motors id say the reasons they did it this way would be so they didnt have to re engineer everything when they put it in so everything bolts up/mounts up in the same position which makes sense If they had shortened the block everything would need to be re engineered to work so from a production stand point one size fits all

The one in my FType with 14k miles has had 3 lots of engine work, lifters, supercharged, head gaskets

I love it when a blower has "nice lobes".

just an interesting observation on the v8 vs v6. the v6 has split/offset journals for the adjacent rods, the v8 does not

So many makers use plastic cooling system components and they never-ever learn.

Here in Wales I see quite a few F-Types, at least 1 per day, not including the fact that the manager of the airport I work at has a V6 F-Type too. When I see an F-type I always try to see the exhausts, because the different engines in the F-Type have different exhaust arrangements. Two centre exhausts is this V6. The outer exhausts are the V8 and the single centre is the I4. It is extremely rare to ever see the V8 or I4, almost always seeing the V6 versions. so I guess this is a popular engine. Yes I know the engine in the above video came from an F-Pace, incase some commenters try to criticise my comment.

I've been waiting for a teardown on one of these; such a bizarre engineering decision to make a V6 out of a V8 by just not boring out the rear two cylinders, especially coming from a "luxury" brand. That would be like BMW making an inline 5 out of a B58 without shortening the block.

As a 47 year Import tech(retired 5 years ago) that particular "Torx"driver you alluded to that you said fit VW head bolts is more correctly referred to as a "Triple Square" driver... When The Beetles went from "swing-axles" to CV axles, they were bolted in with a 8mm Triple Square version... I've had all 3 versions for at least 30 years... 8, 10,and 12mm..

"torx bit but not a torx bit" Triple square? edit: Yep, triple square. I got a set of those at Northern Tool a few months ago.

I'm amazed at the level of tech in a daily driver, aluminum block, heads, fuel injected, supercharged, double overhead cams, on and on!

Let’s see a Fiat 1.4T Multiair engine, mine is starting to hit 200,000km so I’m curious to see the internals

Alright. I gotta know. Where do the timing chains go after the teardown? It seems like your affinity for them prevents them from being trash.

How warped can a cylinder head be if the cams still fit properly?

Plastic coolant pipe cracks are the known issue on all of the JLR engines. When the thing started leaking, one of the thieves or perhaps the owner popped radiator-stop leak pellets into the system. IT sure stopped the leaks. It stopped everything. Nothing at all to do with incompatible coolants.

I could listen to the pop of pulling the plug leads all day. Sorry, know that's not useful.

I got one of these, I don’t think I’m any more concerned than previously (regularly serviced, no error codes). In the UK these engines attract a lower annual car tax and can return 40 (UK)mpg on the motorway. And it’s quick enough for me, even in a behemoth XJL.