Blog

There are many reasons you might want to remove the supercharger in your Jaguar F-Type. Like me, you may have suffered a coolant pipe failure under the supercharger (a design fault), or you might need to replace the supercharger coupler. Or you might just be really bored and want to take your car apart. It happens, I understand you.

Jump to Coolant pipes

Jump to Supercharger coupler replacement

Resources:

The following threads on various forums were helpful in getting this project and this document over the line:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/f-type-x152-72/sc-intercooler-removal-202630/
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/xj-x351-53/supercharger-removal-188511/
https://www.ftypeforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4525
Did the supercharger coupler today. – Page 2 – Jaguar Forums – Jaguar Enthusiasts Forum

Overview

The supercharger sits on top of the engine block between the two cylinder heads. It has the intake manifolds bolted to its sides and the charger air cooler (intercooler) sitting on top of it. The large aluminium charge air cooler is what you see when you pop the plastic engine cover off.
The supercharger has the belt and air intake/throttle body at the front, and a number of electrical, fuel, vacuum and coolant lines attached to it at various places all of which need to be removed to get the supercharger out making this a moderately big job. Having said that, if you go slowly and take a lot of photos it is achievable for the average home mechanic.

• 

Removal:

It helps to break the process down into a few steps;
1. Removal of the charge air cooler
2. Removal of attached hardware at the front of the engine
3. Removal of attached hardware at the back of the engine
4. Removal of supercharger drive belt and throttle body
5. Removal of supercharger

Removal of charge air cooler

The charge air cooler is attached to the top of the supercharger and intake manifolds with 22 bolts! Around the outside are 18 Torx 27 bolts (red and yellow circles) and in the middle are four 10mm standard bolts (green circles). It has two coolant hoses going into it on either side. On the front of the charge air cooler there is a stainless steel fuel line which is held in place with tabs attached to the cooler. It is possible to get the air cooler out without removing this fuel rail, however I subsequently found it impossible to manoeuvre the supercharger out with the fuel rail in place so I would recommend detaching the left hand side of this line and gently pulling it forward to make space. No fuel sprayed out of this when I removed it. The access is a bit tricky but can be done using a 17mm spanner.

• 

There are also four tabs holding structures to the cooler which need to be removed (blue circles). At the front of the cooler there are two bolts which are very long (yellow circles)- these are quite seized and should be lightly greased with some antiseize compound when replaced.

On top of the cooler are 4 more standard hex head bolts (green circles) and an electrical plug. These need to be removed. The electrical plug has a little plastic tab which needs to be depressed to allow it to pull off. The coolant hoses at the sides also have two plastic tabs each- the trick with these connectors is to push them in a little first and then depress the two tabs and pull the connector free.

When all the bolts have been removed (and documented and stored in ziploc bags!), the air cooler can be encouraged to come loose with a few stern taps with a rubber mallet. The fuel rail can then be gently eased forward just enough to allow the air cooler to be manoeuvred out and placed in a safe place, taking care of the gasket which is reusable. Put some rags in the intake manifolds to stop things falling into the heads.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Removal of attached hardware at front of engine

At the front there are:

1. Three electrical connectors (all on the same line that the connector of top of the air cooler was on)
2. two hoses going into the intake of the supercharger
3. the air intake t connector going into the front of the throttle body
4. a moulded plastic coolant connector with two big hoses from the radiator (right) and water pump thermostat (left) and small (brittle!) coolant overflow/expansion lines going back to the coolant tank. This pipe is called the upper water outlet pipe.

The electrical connectors all remove with small plastic tabs that need to be released. They are all different but fairly easy to work out.

The two hoses also have plastic tabs which need to be depressed to allow their removal.

The water (coolant) plastic connector needs to be removed. This is often called the upper water outlet. It takes the coolant from the large pipes from the radiator down into a down pipe into the block. This down pipe section is held in place with two torx bolts. When they have been removed the pipe can be levered gently up with a screw driver revealing a connector pipe with two o-rings. The actual plastic coolant connector doesn’t have to be removed completely to remove the supercharger, but it has been redesigned and replaced with part number AJ813917 so if you are doing this job to replace the lower water outlet “y connector” (the usual point of failure) you will need to replace this upper water outlet as well as it won’t work with the redesigned lower pipe

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The thin coolant return pipe going from the back of the upper water outlet pipe back to the reservoir is very brittle and if it hasn’t cracked already it probably will when you start manipulating it. You can remove this pipe and replace it (part number # T2R5910)

When the water hoses and connectors are out of the way it’s easier to see the air intake. The large hose clamps on the throttle body and the left and right air intakes can be removed allowing the t- connector to be removed from the throttle body.

Removal of attached hardware at the back of the engine

At the back there are structures attached to the supercharger and on the left and right intake manifolds. Given the supercharger and manifolds need to come out as one piece, all of these structures need to be detached.

On the left there is an electrical connector (yellow circle) and a vacuum pipe (blue circle).
On the right there is a pipe with two screws holding it in place (red oval).

• 

• 

• 

In the middle there is a complicated mess of components attached to the back of the supercharger. These include a lot of wires and the resonator pipe which pipes engine noise into the cabin (the “symposer”)
Completely removing all of this stuff would be pretty complex but it is all essentially held on the back of the SC with 3 torx screws as shown (turquoise circles). Before those can be access those 3 screws however you have to loosen some of the stuff on the top by removing the three bolts in pink circles. The outside two of these hold the bracket on and the middle one allows the symposer tube to be moved out of the way. Then the final 3 bolts holding the bracket to the back of the supercharger can be accessed (with difficulty) by using a long torx wrench weaved through the tangle of pipes and wires. I should note here that actually accessing these screws without removing everything, whilst possible, is very fiddly and time consuming. Same goes for putting them back on during reassembly. Particularly the lower screw on the right hand side. This took me ages.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Removal of SC drive belt and throttle body

Before the SC can be removed, the drive belt on the SC pulley and the throttle body at the inlet of the SC need to be removed.

The drive belt tensioner for the belt is difficult to access from the top but it is possible. To access it the air intake pipes (both the t-pipe and the right hand intermediate pipe) need to be removed. Then a 3/8in drive ratchet or breaker bar can be slipped past the charge air cooler coolant lines into the tensioner. Pulling on the ratchet will put the belt on slack allowing the belt to be lifted off the SC pulley.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

If all the above parts have been removed, the only thing holding the throttle body to the SC at this stage should be the 4 Torx bolts (1 at each corner- orange circles). When these are removed the throttle body can be moved forward off the supercharger with its rubber gasket. There are two pipes on the underside of the throttle body which can be left in place.

• 

• 

• 

• 

In the bottom of the intake manifolds are the 6 (3 on each side- purple circles) bolts that secure the intake manifolds/SC assembly to the heads. Once these are removed the SC should “lift out”….. but it won’t without some encouragement as it has two guide dowels (red circle) which are often pretty seized. Various techniques have been used to get the SC moving here- two people rocking on either side, various levers using timber and jacks but worked for me was a rubber tipped crowbar levering gently at a couple of points as shown. I used timber blocks to protect the surfaces. It didn’t take much force and once the SC was free it was easy to lift it out by myself.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

As you lift the SC up you will notice there is a long hose going from the throttle body to the bulkhead which is attached to the underside of the SC with little clips at two points (yellow circle). Just pull these off.

Reassembly

As they say in the classics installation is a reversal of removal. However here are a few thoughts which might help;

• This CAN be done with one person (i did it) but lowering the SC into place would be easier with two people
• I replaced the intake manifold gaskets- they can only be installed one way and I cleaned all the surfaces thoroughly first. Gasket part number is C2Z17249
• The manual calls for “special tool” guide pins to be inserted into the cylinder head to guide the SC down into place on the gasket- these are just 50mmx M8x 1.25 headless bolts. I made some by cutting the heads of some headful ones.
• before you tap the SC down remember to clip the heater hose from the throttle body to the bulkhead back onto the underside of the SC
• If you’re ever planning on removing this again, remember how hard it was to get those guide dowels out of the block! I dressed mine with fine grit paper and applied copper antiseize before reassembly
• Some useful torque specs:
  • the lower water outlet “y-pipe” 12 Nm
  • intake manifold bolts: 25Nm
  • Throttle body bolts 10Nm (if you want to replace the gasket it’s part # C2Z28265)
  • Charge air cooler bolts 25Nm and a funky tightening order as shown!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

F-Type Coolant Leak and Lower Water Outlet Replacement

The coolant leak from lower water outlet pipe (y-pipe) is unfortunately quite common. This lower y shaped hard plastic pipe is prone to failure resulting in coolant pooling on the block in the valley between the two banks of cylinders.
This pipe is connected to the upper water outlet pipe (which you can see on top of the engine) via an intermediate section of aluminium pipe with two o-rings.
My y connector failed at the base where it inserts into the block, but the pipe can crack anywhere. It should be noted that the rubber hoses tend not to fail early, just the hard moulded plastic pipes.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

In response to the frequent failing, both the lower and the upper outlet pipes have been redesigned- the lower pipe has since been replaced with a slightly stouter version (part # AJ8 13865) and the upper pipe replaced with part # AJ8 13917 and the intermediate pipe has been scrapped completely (the two new pipes simply join together). This is important because if your lower pipe has cracked you will have to replace both the lower and upper pipes with the new parts (the old upper pipe won’t join to the new lower pipe).
Another site coolant leak is the thin hard plastic overflow piping going from the back of the upper water outlet pipe back to the coolant reservoir. In my 5 year old car these were so brittle they broke upon handling. They may have been leaking already. Replacement part is # T2R5910

Unfortunately replacing a relatively cheap coolant pipe is made very difficult by its location- under the supercharger. To access the lower pipe the supercharger needs to be removed – see my other guide for this procedure.

Before you replace the lower pipe be sure to put your finger into the block coolant holes and feel around for any small pieces of broken pipe that might be sitting there. You don’t want those going through your coolant ways.

Some useful torque settings- the lower pipe screws into the block are 13Nm and the upper pipe screws are 10Nm.
Note also- for some reason one of the tabs on the new upper pipe is much thinner so the old screw won’t work- you need a shorter (25mm) M8 bolt.

After putting everything back together fill the system to the max fill line in the reservoir using a RED/ORANGE coolant which meets the standard M97B44-D ( i used generic it’s cheaper than oem)
Then run the engine with the heater on full blast until warm air comes out of the vents. This will bleed the system. Turn off the engine and let cool a little. The level of coolant will have gone down as bubbles came out of the system so top up again. Repeat this process again until the level stops dropping.

Supercharger oil change and coupler replacement

The supercharger in the 3.0L V6 F type S is an Eaton TVS 1320 ( the V8 version is the TVS 1900).
The super charger coupler (also called isolator) is the join between the input shaft (driven by the belt) and the turbine. It is a spring loaded coupling designed to operate more quietly than a solid coupler. Unfortunately the spring often fails (and possibly some were installed backwards) resulting in a loud rattling from the snout of the supercharger. Replacing it is pretty easy with the supercharger out of the vehicle and I would think very difficult but not impossible with the SC in the vehicle.
Most people replace it with the Eaton SOLID coupler (not the failure prone spring version). The part number is EAT 361506. Mine hadn’t failed but it was a case of “While I’m here” as I had the supercharger out.

To remove the snout of the supercharger the 7 bolts shown need to be removed. However don’t expect it to simply lift off! There are two locating dowels and also a layer of gasket sealant to contend with. HOWEVER I do not recommend any beating etc as others have. The snout is designed to be levered off. I used a thick bar inserted into the levering tab on the underside of the housing as shown and it comes off easily.

• 

• 

• 

• 

All the gasket sealant is carefully removed with a razor blade and the surfaces dressed with some scotchbrite in anticipation of reassembly.

The old spring loaded coupler is removed and the surfaces cleaned and degreased lightly. The new couple is applied. Then a 1mm bead of silicone sealant is applied as shown and the snout replaced and bolts torqued to 27Nm. If, like me, you find it very hard to get a neat 1mm bead be sure to wipe away the excess sealant inside the join while still soft.

At the back of the unit is the oil fill plug- sadly I didn’t take a good picture but it’s in the red circle in the blurry picture. Eaton supercharger oil can be obtained and the fill volume is 150ml. I tipped supercharger upside down and only got out about 85ml of very dirty oil. I’m unsure why there was so little but can only assume that replacing it with the correct volume of fresh oil is a good thing.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•