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Jaguar XK 2.4L Failures

What killed my 2.4

The following line is extracted from a message I sent out to the British-Car mailing list when first looking at my car:

" The one thing I'm likely not to have troubles with is the motor..."
Here's what turned out to be wrong with my 2.4L motor:
  • Cracked block (between cylinders 1 and 2)
  • 2 nuts lodged in the intake valves, intermittently jamming the #1 (and possibly others) intake valve open.
  • Badly worn cylinder walls
  • Completely clogged cooling port around cylinder 1 (in the head)
  • Badly mis-adjusted valves
  • Badly worn valve guides
  • One guide so shot that you can wiggle (with a spring pre-load) the tip of the valve around several mm with your finger.
  • Pitted Cam shafts
  • Severely dinged piston, from previously stuck intake valve on #6.
  • Badly burned ignition points
  • Extremely worn lower timing chain, and %100 non-functional tensioner (lower chain may very well have skipped a tooth or 2)
  • Sticking mechanical advance in distributor
  • Vacuum advance to distributor hooked up backwards; effectively providing a vacuum retard to the timing. Static timing set to ~25 degrees ahead of TDC.
    • And, courtesy of the previous owner:
  • Spark plug gap of (near) zero, on cylinder 6
  • Plugged (partially) radiator. Very poor flow.
  • No thermostat.
  • Evidence of a previous horrific oil leak (ask anyone who's seen my 2.4 block)
  • No Oil filter (empty cartridge)

    • Now, after you've stopped laughing, consider this: the motor ran. I drove it home. It actually ran OK, and, when it wasn't fighting with a nut in the valve, it actually ran pretty good- providing decent acceleration and performance. If that's not a bulletproof motor, I don't know what is.

    Off the factory floor, I think the 2.4 Motor with Solex carbs made around 110hp. I figure in the condition mine was in, I was probably lucky if I was seeing 70hp. Needless to say, the freshly built 4.2 motor with dual HD-8's I've installed is providing a slight performance increase.

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