Project X-Type

We finally cure the messy engine oil leak and attend to a curious smell of burning brakes.

Fitting a new crankshaft oil seal seems to have cured the annoying leak.

Although I had originally bought our X-Type project car, I’d only had a relatively short time with the car before passing it on to Managing Editor Wakefield but a recent vehicular shuffle-round saw me swapping our VW Caravelle project for the Jaguar while Iain picked the Triumph 2500 keys out of the hat. When I last drove the car, alongside a ‘to do’ list of minor items, there were two important issues: one was the glowing EML light which was duly extinguished by replacing a pair of failed exhaust oxygen sensors and the other was a noticeable smell of hot oil when coming to a standstill after driving at speed.As is often the case with oil leaks on complex modern engines, the resulting mess rather disguised where it was coming from which made diagnosis tricky. At first we’d assumed it was the sump gasket, then an oil pressure sender but last month with the car on the lift to swap the centre propshaft bearing, we finally traced the source to the crankshaft pulley at the front of the engine. With the X-Type being transversely engined as a result of the Ford ‘CDW132’ platform’s Mondeo origins, the ‘front’ of the engine is in fact the right-hand side of the car and although the V6 is a tight fit in the bay, removing the plastic arch liner on the offside allows enough access to get the job done.We chose to have it done in the properly equipped workshop at ACG in Cheltenham, but if you’re prepared to have a go at home it’s straightforward DIY with the caveat that getting the crankshaft pulley off can sometimes be hard work.If you can’t shift it with your usual puller, then you’re looking at around an hour’s labour at a garage and the parts are cheap: project sponsor DMG retails the seal at £20.47 inc VAT for the Jaguar part or just £3.60 for an OEM equivalent with a quality Dayco drive belt at £18. As you’ll see, if the pulley comes off easily then replacing the drive belt is in fact a more fiddly job than the crankshaft seal. With the oil leak finally cured, I used the Jag’s detachable towbar for a tip run with my trailer and noticed a smell of burning brakes, with the nearside rear wheel hot to the touch. Stripping the caliper down back at home revealed that the carrier bracket was dirty and corroded to the point where the pads weren’t moving freely. Like most modern cars, the X-Type has a compensating valve to allow more braking effort to the rear brakes when it’s heavily loaded and making the rear brakes work harder had made the pads briefly jam, hence the burning smell. As with the crank seal though, it’s simple DIY and took less than an hour to sort out. Next month will see us waving off the Jaguar but not until we’ve tackled the X-Type’s notorious Achilles’ Heel in the shape of the fragile transfer box which relies on just half a litre of oil and is well overdue a precautionary drain and refill. Oh and we tackle a rebuild of the feeble headlights with replacement adjusters. Meanwhile, here’s what we’ve been up to this month.