Hey, i was just offered to buy 2 jaguars one 1972 and the other im not sure of. I was told that these jaguars were made with a 400 trans and a chev v6 small block. can anyone confirm that? the running gear looks great in both and was thinking i could get that for a later project mabey? Anyone know if that would work?? Roughneck Josh
My mistake it is a straight six, my biggest concern is that ii was told it had a factory 400 trans and was wondering if that was true?
GM Hydromatic transmissions were used in Rolls royce and Jaguary cars, and many others too. The Jag engine should be a 3.8 or a 4.2 inline six with DOHC and two or three side draft carbs. I would think a GM 4.3 V6 may be an improvement.
Could be a Borg Warner (similar to the old Cruise-O-Matic in Fords) or a TH400 depending on year/model. Look at it, see what it is. TH400 has an odd shaped pan, longer than it is wide, curved at the back. BW is a rectangular pan, wider than it is long.
This may be the worst information you've gotten all day and I'm just talking from distant memory, but I believe the V12s got the THM400 and the sixes were getting a Borg-Warner type 35 or something at that point. Be very careful, double-check everything.
Conceptually the Jag motor was a far better item than the two-thirds-of-an-SBC. It was big and heavy as one would expect from the prewar design it really was, but for its time it worked really well. Problem was, it was built by an undercapitalized company with a disinterested workforce eventually part of a government combine more interested in bleeding money from the operation than reinvesting it. If you have never read this, you should: http://www.jagweb.com/aj6eng/xk-engine/index.php "As the 70s progressed so the shortcomings of the poor XK became more exposed and it began to wilt. Bore grades were reduced in number, as were piston grades, so piston/cylinder fits considered too sloppy to be acceptable in the 1950s became OK for the 1970s. Piston slap from cold became noticeable, as did "little end knock" which, strangely, could be best heard by standing a few yards in front of the car. Most engines were not too bad but the worst were getting to be a bit clanky for a "Quality Car". Around this time the sump was altered and this introduced further problems. To meet the ever tightening exhaust emission regulations in the U.S.A. the XK was equipped, as we saw earlier, with L Jetronic fuel injection and a three-way catalytic converter, which needed to be placed nearer to the engine than had been the case with the earlier oxidising catalyst. The only way the catalyst could be accomodated was by cutting off the "ear" of the sump which was in the way. Somebody said "why not cut both ears off the sump, simplify the casting and just raise the oil level" - so that was done. Sometime after that it was noticed that if a car was left idling on a hill then one of the crank throws would hit the oil and make a noise easily confused with "big end" knock. Just to compound the problem an epidemic of real big end failures started around the same time. Spates of big end troubles were not unknown on the XK but the outbreak in 1978 was the worst by far. A situation now existed in which production engines could display several faults:- piston slap, little end knock, oil slap, and big end knock. The latter was further complicated by variability in the surface finish from the crank grinding process and because some engines were not noisy but could suffer sudden bearing failure, whilst others knocked quite audibly but did not fail. "
The internals on the trans are pretty much the same as other turbo 400's but they have a Jag specific case just as the Jeep Wagoneers had a Jeep specific case in the 70's when they used turbo 400 transmissions. There is a ton of info on those Jags out there Josh you just have to do a bit of searching on the specific models. The rear end out of the 72 was popular for street rods in the 70's and 80's though and some guys used parts off the front suspension. No one piece removable setup like the later ones though.