In the process of removing engine and transmission to repair the transmission.
The cam covers are removed to prevent hoist chains from contacting them. The engine was rebuilt back in 2007 and at that time a blue colored intake manifold gasket material was used. Before installing they had been cut to eliminate the unneeded joining sections. Several of them had surface cracks and some had extruded into the air flow passages by as much as 1/8 inch.
The A bank cam cover gasket had leaked to the extent there is thin film of old oil below it.
Am asking for recommendations for best gaskets to use for both the cam covers and the intake manifold.
Have check the archives and see different opinions.
Saw that the Gortex gaskets are expensive but have not found where they may be available.
Thanks in advance for your input and have a great new year.
Don,
I would expect any of our Jaguar parts suppliers, e.g., Coventry West, could send you the latest & best gaskets for both places. Trust them. When I did mine the intake gaskets were thick as you describe and fibrous. I did have to cut out some connecting sections for clearance for spark plug wires as I recall. The cam cover gaskets were gortex. I rember using the blue stuff too, Ultra Blue as I recall. Don’t know if they are still available, but there is/was an aftermarket aluminum half-moon seal available.
BTW, you might want to look over my write-up on Cam cover gasket replacement. Covers all of this in detail.
Ed Sowell
'76 XJ-S coupe, red
Am asking for recommendations for best
gaskets to use for both the cam covers and the intake manifold.
For the cam covers, use no gasket at all. Seal the mating surfaces and all
around the half moon plug with Loctite 518. You might want to check the
bolts, as the original bolts should be replaced. The original bolts have a
triangular threaded area that’s supposed to do something when threaded
into soft aluminum, but Jaguar decided it’s not good and later switched to a
standard – albeit quite expensive – set of bolts. I recommend skipping the
Jaguar prices, buy a set of socket head alloy bolts the same thread but one
size longer, and install them with a small flat washer and a split-ring lock
washer under each head.
For the intake manifold, AFAIK gortex is not available, even the latest
gaskets are a thick paper of some sort. Two gaskets, one per bank. I
recommend at the very least cutting them into four gaskets by separating the
front three from the rear three on each bank. As noted, you can cut them
into 12 separate pieces as the early Jaguar gaskets were configured if you
want. If your engine is a pre-H.E., you pretty much HAVE to cut them into 12
pieces if you ever want to change your spark plugs again. Install the gaskets
with a gasket dressing of some sort, Hylomar will work but supposedly
there’s some black stuff from a Toyota dealer that works better. And, a week
or two after installing and after a few drives, get back in there and retighten
all the nuts. And a year after that, retighten them again.
– Kirbert
“As noted, you can cut them
into 12 separate pieces as the early Jaguar gaskets were configured if you
want. If your engine is a pre-H.E., you pretty much HAVE to cut them into 12
pieces if you ever want to change your spark plugs again. ”
You need to cut them into only 5 pieces per manifold. The center two ports can stay together. Photos in my write-up.
Ed Sowell
'76 XJ-S coupe, red
Don:
The transition between the old and new site made some things more difficult.
I had posted before on this subject. Was able to find only one of my posts from 2014
The intake gaskets available today are either greenish/blueish or redish/brownish.
Nobody was able to say which, if any, is better. I have one of each kind in my spare bin now, they both seem the same in thickness and feel to me. Only difference is color.
The cam cover gaskets – either the aftermarket Eurospare or the OEM. Kirby recommends just sealant and next time I need to open the covers, I might do just that. I have Ron’s aluminum half-moons and I am very happy to report Zero leaks.
Good luck,
Steve
Kirby:This may have been true on the older engines. The 6.0L will
take the gasket as one piece, no problem whatsoever.
All H.E.s will TAKE the intake manifold gasket as one piece, it just looks like
%^&%^& so some of us opt to cut the connecting pieces out just to make the
vee look nice. On the pre-H.E., though, you need to cut those connecting
pieces out if you ever hope to change spark plugs again.
– Kirbert
The cam cover gaskets – either the aftermarket Eurospare or the OEM.
Kirby recommends just sealant and next time I need to open the covers,
I might do just that. I have Ron’s aluminum half-moons and I am very
happy to report Zero leaks.
If you have the aluminum half moons, you need to use the gortex gaskets!
It’s one or the other: Either OEM rubber half moons with no gasket, or
aluminum half moons with gortex gaskes.
– Kirbert
Not on the 6.0L. I had pictures in my old threads. There is NO gasket material visible anywhere.
Steve
OEM and Eurospare are the two cam-cover gaskets I know that are thin metal core and teflon-like material on the outside. You refer to this material as gortex. The suppliers these days don’t seem to know this terminology.
Steve
PS I will also add that as someone who mingles with professional chemists on daily basis (and someone who lives just down the road from the headquarters of the company W.L. Gore), ‘gortex’ is not a word my colleagues will recognize in this connotation – even Google struggles to find a good description. Gore-Tex - Wikipedia
OEM and Eurospare are the two cam-cover gaskets I know that are thin
metal core and teflon-like material on the outside. You refer to this
material as gortex.
Gortex and teflon are synonyms. And yeah, I meant the metal sandwich
gaskets. AFAIK, the only gortex non-sandwich gasket used in the Jaguar
V12 is the valley cover, although I dunno about the timing cover gaskets,
they might be non-sandwich as well. The intake manifold gaskets aren’t
gortex, they are a solid cardboard of some sort.
The suppliers these days don’t seem to know this
terminology.
Yeah, the guys who pull the part numbers off the shelf and put them in
packages for shipping don’t necessarily know the difference. But Jaguar
made lots of variations on their gaskets over the years, but when Ford
decided to try to get the leaks under control, they issued an all-new gasket
set – most of which was gortex sandwich. That was in the early 1990’s, and
suppliers STILL try to sell you the paper gaskets! And they can legitimately
describe them as genuine Jaguar parts because that’s what Jaguar sold
before Ford updated them.
PS I will also add that as someone who mingles with
professional chemists on daily basis (and someone who lives just down
the road from the headquarters of the company W.L. Gore), ‘gortex’ is
not a word my colleagues will recognize in this connotation – even
Google struggles to find a good description.
That’s probably because it’s actually spelled “Gore-Tex”. No shortage of hits
that way. I dunno how we came to shortening it to gortex on this forum.
– Kirbert
A thought on intake gaskets. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of compression on the gaskets involved. My mechanic put me on to a gasket material that is really great, PermaTex The Right Stuff. Do you think that reusing the old gaskets with a well applied thin layer of the gasket material on both sides of the old gaskets would creat the air seal necessary?
Thanks for your thoughts
Dave
It’d probably work. Make sure to retorque the manifold nuts periodically.
Thanks for the response!
If you are going to keep the car, do not use anything else but the recommended gasket. If not, your call. The next owner will have to deal wit the removal of the goo when the intakes have to come off.
Probably not much fun…
Thanks for your thoughts on it Steve