"Chad Bolles (thanks Chad) suggested an
oil and filter change - and that cured all".
Let me explain:
The XJ-S (and mine has 53k on it) has 3
service intervals. I paid 300 ukp for a 15k service, where a 30k one is
450 ukp. The main difference is that the oil is changed in the GM400 and
the rear diff. My car has had non Jaguar service through some of its life,
so I am suspicious
that someone took the cheap option at
30k (OK so did I at 51k when I got it- I really should have had the 30K
too).
The car was ok - perhaps a little slow
in part throttle down changing
- but then this seems to be the case normally
- but mine was supposed to have a more
lively 89 on box.
Then, one day, the car seemed a little
noisy mechanically - and this is a car witch is not normally.
Then the noise was definitely getting
louder. A 'turbine' sound, changing with engine revs, even with no gear
engaged.
The
basis symptoms were :
-
A whining noise sounding like a light 'skimming'
as if two spinning disks were lightly in contact
-
The 'turbine' sound. This sound was directly
related to engine speed, not road speed.
-
A lag at rest of about 3 secs when engaging
reverse from forward gear. On my car, I could select reverse, apply about
4k rpm, then the box would eventually come in and take up drive. It was
not necessary to apply 4k - it just illustrates how bad selection was.
-
Slow, reluctant down changes under heavy throttle.
-
Under hard acceleration, the car would NOT
change up from first - it would go way over 6k. Had to select N let revs
drop, and then a higher gear would be there.
The cause of all this
-
Dirty oil (brown coloured) and a blocked
filter.
In the UK the filter and gasket were 34 and
6 ukp respectively
- way up from the 5 usd I have seen advertised
on usa web sites.
However, I did get a nice green jaguar
carrier bag :)
In my box, the sump had about 2 mm of thick
sludge in the bottom, and the magnet was quite covered in swarf. I cleaned
(scraped! - and used water and wash up liquid) the crap out, fitted a new
filter, filled with new oil, and I now have a box that has no problems
at all. Also, it is a lot more responsive to part throttle down shifting
- in fact it feels like it should now - except for the typical poor auto
off the line performance.
I know a few of you will say brown oil
means eventual problems, but right now the box seems fine, and I
am not spending ages overhauling the box for no reason. It stands to figure
that all those friction plates will wear, it ends up in the oil, and that
nice cherry colour does not stay that way for always.
The other possible reason for failure
and the noise is apparently caused by a struggling hydraulic pump pulling
in air.
-
is as Kirby's book says, a fallen filter.
The way its fixed seems crappy to me.
The filter is loosely held in the middle by a single bolt that allows the
filter at least one quarter inch of float. The filter is big - it takes
up most of the pan floor. It is held stable by a rubber washer at one end
that grips the oil pickup tube - which is a plastic thing that goes up
into a corner of the box. It grips ok when new - but this thing is running
in oil, in a hot environment.
Kirby's book also recommends
-
overfilling to raise level of oil to test
if the filter has fallen.
A good idea. I drained my oil off for
the change by using the pipes to the radiator, also recommended in the
book, before the sump was taken off.
Beware refilling
-
mine only took 6 litres (Jag say max. 10)
when filled again. If you have really bad oil like mine, it might be an
idea to do a 'double fill' (dumping the first set of new oil after a little
running) to flush out the torque converter, or at least dilute it a bit
- of that retained 4 litres of brown stuff.
Hope this helps!
Steve |
To
repair:
Yea
the seller put an old battery inside the car for years ! 
At
home I took out the 90 degrees gear, put lot of oil inside ( indeed impossible
to open it !) and it works 2 days fine. . and come again ! It really
was hard to turn it !