V12 Jaguar Engine DESTROYED By One Small Mistake

So jag story time: Used to work at a Jaguar dealership and out back in the smoking area there was a v12 half disassembled not too far off looking than the one at the end of this video…. It was there because it was the “pissed off Jaguar mechanic punching bag”. Had been replaced years before I started working there and left out for whenever any of the mechanics got angry at some stupid Jaguar design of some kind, we could go out and beat on it with whatever tool or other engine part we had around and take some edge off. It had axles punched through pistons, tons of hammer marks, air chiseled chunks taken out of it, marks from being beat by pry bars, etc. Cool story bro, had to be there.

These are great engines. They are bulletproof - but I guess not if the owner dropped a stud in the engine. I have torn mine apart - new injectors, Teflon wiring, better coil, and it runs so smoothly. As others have said - these are LeMans winning engines in the late 80s - knocking Porsche down the ranks. The HE engine shown here has an 11.5-1 compression ratio. Those heads have the combustion chamber closed off around the spark plug to create a compact flame front. Very slick.

Excellent job there Charles. How about a VW V10 diesel teardown/rebuild?

Proof of how important part and hardware accountability is with a secondary focus on the use of the proper coolant! We all thank you for wasting your day taking this apart for our benefit. Perfect video if you only have a tiny garbage can and want to know how to fit a V12 in it.

Congrats on not letting the second half of that cylinder head defeat you! 😆

Great engines, short stroke designed for racing. Just lovely these days with a manual box conversion.

Jaguar made 160,000 V12 engines over a 25 year period, a legendary power plant, just a shame some owners don't maintain them properly.

This video is gold. We need so more oddball engine tear down videos, like this one! Thanks Charles!

Jag story: I once wanted to take off the cylinder head of my 4,2L 6-cyl. XJ6. When trying to lift off the head with a hoist, I eventually found the front wheels off the ground. It was the same issue as on your V12: The headstuds, which run thru the water jacket, were rusted up and seized to the bores in the head. It took me two days with a hydraulic duck-beak style spreader to wiggle it upward, millimeter for millimeter. Man, was I pissed. Now I know there is a special tool for those heads, a kind of puller. It is a steel plate which bolts to the studs of the camshaft caps. Then bolts are screwed into the plate, they press against the head studs, forcing the head off.

that engine is totally worth saving

When you got the first one off with just a prybar, I thought, wow, luckiest guy in the world, then the second one wouldn't come off no matter what and I felt better. That is normal. Welcome to the club! There is actually a special tool to help with it but it can still take days.

You said you're too young to have had a proper Lucas experience, Hell, those of us that are old enough to have been around them new have never had a proper Lucas experience either, because they never worked properly. Lucas electronics were so good they could get five functions out of a two position switch- On, Off, flickering, intermittent, and half power. Lucas headlight switch positions: Off, Low, High, and Maybe. Lucas ignition systems saved their owners thousands if fuel costs... because you can't burn fuel if the car won't start. People say Ford invented intermittent windshield wipers, Those were actually invented by Lucas. Ford, however was the first to do it on purpose. Lucas had cylinder deactivation WAY before anyone else...

I would like to see a rebuild of that engine.

These cars are actually what made me work at a dealership in the first place. I worked at the corner garage (now a pizza place) and we had an unusual number of old (at the time not all that old) Jags in the area. That and a service writer that just couldn't say no) brought a lot of these into the shop. These things drove me to a Hyundai dealer (at the time just a few steps above a used Yugo) but it was still better than trying to do a set of the inboard rear brakes on an XJ 6/12. And do a rotary. And if you truly want to be awesome swap the engine into a classic bug.

The trays under the camshafts are meant to hold an oil bath on the cam when the engine is shut off. When the engine is started the cams are already sitting in an oil bath. As the engine runs the oil is pumped up to tray, excess spills over back to sump. When engine is stopped what's in the tray stays until engine is run again.

Very good friend of mine used to race the XKE/E-Type back in the day... He used to run a worked-over 3.8. Bored out to something closer to 3.9, specialist pistons and rods, replacement forged steel crank, courtesy of a contact who operated a "Dunbar & Cook" Crankmaster... Swapped out the standard SUs for a set of triple Webers (45 DCOEs IIRC) on a specialist, one-off manifold. Good for 9000rpm and peak power at around 8k. Which might not sound like much in comparison with modern engines, but considering this was all based on 1960s design, not bad at all. And he went with a tuned up 3.8 over the 4.2 as the latter had all sorts of overheating issues when pushed hard. Despite the higher states of tune the engines were largely bulletproof - the "weak link" was either the gearbox (which my friend described as "agricultural" / "better suited to a tractor") and, until replaced, the wheels. He started racing on original, center-spinner spoked wheels... until he found spokes literally pulled through the rims where he was cornering so hard. Epic.

What a beast of an engine. Going after the cylinder head with a hammer because "I SHALL NOT BE DEFEATED" really speaks to me at a primal level. Definitely not something I, myself, have done in the past trying to repair the brakes on my '84 RX-7. Here's a breakdown I'd like to see. An F56 Mini Cooper S. I've been seeing a lot of talk about timing chain issues in this generation and a teardown of one with those issues and your thoughts on the "why's" would be pretty neat.

That foamy coolants is from mixing different types of coolants together. I work on transports and I’ve seen it multiple times. Drivers top up with whatever, next thing you know it’s foaming out of the reservoir, making a massive mess

Send it to Tom Walkinshaw Racing. Powerful reliable and will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up with the sound.

Great video as always! Thanks to WD-40 for sponsoring Charles. They should set you up with a 55 gallon barrel of WD40, or a container full of wd40 big enough to lower an engine down into it.