Resolution! Amazing that it realigned while running.
Larry, is there any shop around you that can rebuild your HB? Or you need to ship it the US? I wonder how much it would be.
No Joe- nobody in Canada can do it AFAIK ā¦ it has to go to Oregon or I shell out $500+ for a rebuilt one and send my core back for a $200 credit ā¦however shipping to Canada is quoted at $100+ but to Seattle, $12.75 - oh the joys of shipping!!
On line right now deciding what would be the best way to go ā¦even junkyards are asking $450 for iffy but apparently ok ones the greedy basdurds 
I donāt know if I can do the job myself, getting a bit long in the tooth for things like crank bolts and rear ends etc so calling a shop on Monday to find out what the labour cost will be ā¦
Question - if the things slips a bit but the alternator still charges/water pump still pumps, can I do any damage if I drive the car in this condition until it gets fixed?
The noise is pretty awful when it does slip but seems to quieten down when the car warms up ā¦even though the racket is a bit embarrassing, I can handle it for a week or two - like Mike, the old bus is my daily so I donāt have a spare garage queen to pull out of mothballs in the downtime.
Iāve never seen a Jaguar HB competely separate and free itself, but Iāve seen it happen on other marques. Not pretty, not pretty at all.
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When I sent mine to Oregon to rebuild it, the guy told me these HBs are designed the way so they wonāt fall apart. I drove mine for weeks until I decided I had enough.
This is how I did mine:
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The bracket advances the ignition by a few degrees as Andy (the maker of the bracket) worked for Jaguar and knew that Jaguar had been conservative with the total timing advance.
When I had to replace the front seal I chose to re-position the reluctor wheel which achieved the same result.
You could have shortened the steel plate and used the same method of setting it against the chassis rail to set the torque on the bolt.
Great video Joe - thanks for posting!
Process quite a bit clearer now ā¦one question though - when you used the steel bar to lock the HB, what did you thread the two attachment bolts in to? I looked at a pic of a HB and couldnāt see any threaded holes on the face? Am I missing something?
How did you reposition the wheel? There doesnāt seem to be an easy way to do that given the way the wheel bolts to the HB and the HB is keyed to the crankshaft.
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Larry, this is the only picture I found that shows you the front of the HB.
Also, another picture of the bolt I used to drive the rebuilt HB on the crankshaft.
Robin, I didnāt have any jigsaw with me that day to cut the steel bar but the neighbour guy was nice enough to help me out.
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Thanks Joe - thatās the pic I was missing ā¦makes sense now!
Kewl! So whatās your decision? DIY or a shop?
I drilled or slotted the holes and then re-drilled the hole for the roll pin, from memory I think it equates to 1mm on the circumference = 1 deg
Well hereās what I did yesterday.
I thought Iād better take my own advice and at least TRY the big gulp method, so went over to the dollar store and picked up 3 tubes of āthinā superglue. Had to pay a buck-and-a-half each, buy hey, whatās fiddy cents when the stuff MIGHT save you about a grand? 
Anyway, it was about lunchtime when I popped the hood and gave the balancer seam a full tube bath. Went to do some shopping, came back about 20 mins later and started the car. Guess what? Silentium. The start up death-rattle had disappeared.
Finding this result rather incredulous, I put her in drive and eased away, trying not to make an abrupt change of revs with the of late accompanying loud crunch-clang sound.
I made it to the first stop sign before I heard it slip, but this slip was only momentary and quickly returned to the previous silent state. It was only about a mile back to my place and it did slip maybe twice more, again, very quick recovery and when I finally pulled into the parking spot, she idled without the ting-ping-clang-crunch symphony Iād gotten used to over the last couple of weeks.
So - a definite improvement. Not perfect, but really a huge improvement. Figuring that the top of the balancer seam was now in a different position, I opened the hood and gave her tube #2.
The car sat in the parking spot for about 6 hours then I took her out for a short (5-mile) drive, traffic lights, hill starts and highway. I certainly didnāt stomp on the gas like I usually do, but drove egg-on-the-throttle style, hopefully keeping the balancer āglued upā. She did squawk once early in the trip but when I drove back home about 3 hours later I was (happily! 
) shocked that she didnāt make any noise the whole way.
When I got back home, around 10 pm, I gave her tube #3 and let her sit until 7am this morning. Just after 7 I headed off to the fleamarket, about 10 miles out of town. I was still driving fairly gingerly, especially from standing starts, but the drive out to the market involved quite a few traffic lights and some fairly hi-speed highway driving. Silence from the balancer, no slip at all.
On the way back I did use the gas pedal with a bit more spirit, but this had no effect on the HB as it still refused to slip.
So, just to be even more belt-and-braces, I went by the dollar store a few minutes ago and picked up some more superglue and after parking the car, gave her yet another tube, #4. The car wonāt get used till late tomorrow morning, giving the last ādoseā plenty of time to cure.
Maybe I fixed it? Hard to know for how long 
but at least I can start the car without scaring small children and passers-by. 
So there you go.
Proof that common or garden superglue CAN rebond a harmonic balancer in place, on the car - possibly temporaily, possibly permanently.
btw, have a replacement balancer on the way just in case I ever do need to pull off my superglued one ā¦weāll see what happens tomorrow I guess! 
Took the car out for another spin today, 35 miles in all kinds of traffic and not a peep out of the balancer.
Temperature today was in the high 80ās so I had the a/c on full blast and the voltmeter on the dash still hovered around 13v.
When I put my foot down or downshifted, I switched off the a/c and wound down the window listening for any sign of slipping, but there was nothing. As I was getting back to base, I started driving in a more natural way rather than the easy on the gas pedal style I used yesterday.
Tentatively saying itās fixed, weāll see what happens as the days go by ā¦total cost $6.00 
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Iām impressed. Itās a major part of owning an older Jag. How to fix it on the cheap. Less you spend on the repair, bigger your success is and itās a great feeling isnāt it?
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I am feeling pretty smug at the moment Joe - letās hope it lasts!!
You know, after I did the ārepairā I read some very technical reports on the function of the harmonic balancer and how important it was to the integrity of the engine (crankshaft) ā¦
For a while I was worried that because the pulley was now in a ārandomā position ('cause it had slipped) and by simply gluing it back in place Iād changed the balance of the crank ā¦
Not true of course, the meat and potatoes part of the balancer, counterweight anā all, is held in relative (correct, factory) position by the woodruff key - all the superglue did was re-bond the slipping 5-rib pulley and rubber - I imagine that has zero effect on the balance of the crank.
Now if the key had sheared and the actual balancer part in the front was rotating or wobbling, thereād be NO WAY to fix it other than by replacement ā¦fortunately most XJ40 HB issues are the screeching slipping 5-rib pulley, so all good.
I didnāt feel any vibrations when the HB was slipping. But I noticed on it when I got it back from the rebuilder that he balanced it by drilling another hole on the back side. Iām sure he uses some kind of jig before pouring the new rubber between the inner and outer rings but apparently itās still requires a final balancing.
Just to be on the safe side I just bought a good used fairly low mileage balancer from the UK 
and hopefully will fit it in the next couple of weeks.
Larry, have you thought about a puller in case you want to replace the balancer?