Hi there. I am new to the forums and was honestly relieved when I saw these forums as it looks like these care are being slowly forgotten…
I have an XJ40 with an original 4.0l engine. The car sat for a long time and recently I discovered that I had compression leaks between the water jacket and the pistons as I was seeing a lot of steam coming out of the exhaust. When I removed the cylinder head hoping to find only a blow head gasket, I discovered that both the head and the block had pitting between the combustion chambers and the water jackets so I removed the whole engine and took it to a machinery shop to get it filled / faced accordingly. I am now on the lookout for the top and bottom end gasket set however all the places I am finding are all out of stock.
From what I could gather, my engine which has engine number 9EPCMA116096 should use the JLM11383 for the top end and JLM11574 for the bottom end.
I would also like to change components such as main bearings, big end bearings, piston rings, tensioner guides, etc however at this pace I am honestly doubting that I will ever be able to find such parts. At least I would need the gaskets and assemble the engine with the existing parts as the engine is quite low mileage so I would afford to do that.
Welcome to the forum, Alex. You are right, as our XJ40s age and more and more of them find there way to the scrap yard new parts are becoming more difficult to find. I did a quick search and found this supplier in the UK (no affiliation and no dealings with them) that shows the ‘bottom end’ (supplementary) gasket set [JLM11574] you cited as being in stock:
They do not list the ‘top end’ gasket set [JLM11383] you cited but do list a number of gaskets individually.
By the way, when seeking advice on the forum it is always helpful to provide the model year of your car and your location. You can edit your profile to add both.
Good luck, and again, welcome to Jag-lovers. It is a great resource!
Thanks for your reply. It is indeed an option to buy individual gaskets and the site you provided has quite a good range of gaskets. I will go down in the garage and list them individually as I was comfortable ordering a whole kit with the expectation that the kit would contain all that I need (I know that’s the lazy aspect of me )
I followed your recommendation and filled in more info on my profile. I am from Malta btw so RHD here also.
They actually list the JLM11088 as a gasket set for Jaguar XJ40 XJ6 3.6 / 3.2 / 4.0 but on other catalogues I read that this kit is for engine numbers up to 116000/179541 and mine is 116096. Not sure what the difference is as the individual head gasket doesn’t seem to be engine number specific. Maybe someone can chime in on this aspect?
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