First off I want to say I wrote this while very tired and so if my thoughts seem a bit scattered or off point that is the reason.
To start this off my cousin purchased his 93 grand Cherokee limited 4x4 with the 5.2 magnum a few years back from its original owner who is a friend of the family and is known for taking very good care of his vehicles. The truck was running excellent considering its age as well as high mileage (nearly 200,000 at time of purchase.
I maintain all his vehicles and so a year ago he had an oil leak that progressively grew from a small nuisance to an unreasonable amount of oil loss. I traced it to the infamous intake manifold gasket and replaced it along with any gaskets encountered along the way as well as any brittle vacuum lines.
After that the vehicle ran great up until a few days ago when the water pump seized up and ate the serpentine belt, I was not in the vehicle when this happened but according to my cousin he heard the belt hit the the hood and saw steam so he pulled over as soon as possible and turned of the engine. He got it towed to his house and let me know what happened.
I purchased a water pump and belt and brought the parts to his house I swapped the pump and belt refilled the radiator as well as it's reservoir and had to make a makeshift reservoir cap with a piece of rubber and a hose clamp. We started up the beast an were pleasantly surprised to hear that the engine sounded even smoother than before I even went on to tell him that he should be happy that the pump didn't go in the summer time as it would have likely caused some serious internal damage. I know should have replaced the thermostat for sure but I didn't think to partly because my part supplier said that he had sold 4 of the same water pumps that very day leading me to believe it was just a faulty old bearing that caused the pump to fail. With that thought in my head I totally overlooked the fact that I should have spent the extra 10 bucks and put a new thermostat no matter how good the old one still worked.
I certainly regretted not swapping it when, my cousin called me the day after I fixed his jeep to inform me that while traveling on the freeway in temperatures somewhere near 60 degrees farenhieght he heard a ticking sound and by the time he was able to get to the shoulder it had become very loud and the engine was experiencing extreme loss of power ultimately locking the tires up. He said that the only visual issue was the fact that the radiator cap had blown off and disappeared as well as the water in the radiator of course. He also said that there appeared to be smoke coming from
I haven't gotten a chance to check the engine out myself but it’s my guess that the cause of this catastrophic failure was due to a stuck or clogged thermostat. My theory is that it ran fine for the short while that we had it on only because it was so cold outside that it didn’t have enough time to even reach its operating temperature. As soon as he took it far enough for it to really heat up the plugged thermostat made it impossible for the cooling system to maintain a reasonable temperature (likely the reason of the previous water pumps failure.) As the temperatures climbed higher and higher the pressure increased as well. The ticking noise he heard was a piston hitting a valve or a rod knocking against the crankcase. The pressure became so great that the radiator cap blew off to keep the radiator from blowing up by this time the coolant was so hot that it vaporized leaving the engine dry and severely overheated until he got over and the wheels finally locked when the pistons expanded big enough to ping the rings to the cylinder wall. He says the starter just buzzes when he tries to turn it over.
At any rate I was discussing his options and made sure to convince him that selling it as is or junking it will get him nothing. The best idea I could come up with is to first make sure that the engine is definatly seized and then remove the oil pan and inspect for visible problems like metal shavings, excessive bearing play, scorching etc.. Then if I can’t see any problems in the bottom end then I will pull the heads and check to see if the engine is still stuck. If it is not then I will check the valve train for bent or stuck valves as well as examine the piston clearance. The heads would then be examined under magnification for any cracks or fractures. Next I would check the heads surfaces to make sure they are perfectly flat. I am assuming that due to the nature of this problem the piston rings are likely toast as well as the bearings so at minimum he should buy a master rebuild kit that includes every gasket, two timing gears and chain, an oil pump, pistons, expansion plug kit, new roller camshaft, roller lifter set, and rings as well as rod, main, and cam bearings for 587 and have the cylinders bored and honed to a standard oversize bore and get matching oversized rings. Then I will take the crank and check to see if its tolerances are within reasonable range if it shows significant loss of material or any signs of scouring on the surfaces that the bearing rides on then I will have the crank machined to the nearest standard oversize tolerances possible and get bearings to match as well. I will then reassemble using standard procedures used in any rebuild. I will also check the radiator for blockage and flush it with plenty of water before I reinstall. Also the radiator cap as well as thermostat will be replaced. While I would personally do a more extensive rebuild if it was my vehicle I think that this should put him back on the street with a fairly dependable commuter. He has never taken it off-road and since he has owned it the car has never even dreamed of hitting its rev limiter. He has no desire to race, go fast, or romp so the engine is under very little stress. I say if I can throw that together for him for 1200 or less then he should go that route and drive it around for another year before he sells it, that way the 1200 he invested is still way less than the cost of renting a car for a year and he will be able to get at least a couple thousand rather than the few hundred he would get if he sold it as is. Sorry for the length but I wanted to be thorough in my explanation so hopefully if there are any problems with my plan someone else with more experience could correct them or give me some advice. Thanks for enduring my ridiculously long write up and hopefully this won’t be the end of the road for this old jeep.
jesus dude, use some damn punctuation.
im not even going to attempt to read that mess
i think i read the word jizz bubbles some where
is it really that hard to press "enter" every now and again?
Arrival Blue 04 LS Sport
Eco
Turbo
Megasquirt
'Nuff said
Wow, I'm not even going to attempt to read that either.
2010 Subaru Impreza WRX Limited
1999 Cavalier Z24 Supercharged
1999 Grand AM SE (Beater Car)
1997 GMC Sierra
2007 Honda CBR 600RR
2005 Honda TRX450R
Just throw a good running junkyard 318 back in it
I am I suppose to be looking for a hidden shark or something? One of those crazy eye mind @#$ pictures?
Couple things I got from trying to read this.....
The ticking noise he heard was not a piston hitting a valve or a rod knocking against the crankcase. If valves and pistons meet they meet once and the valves lose that fight, plus it would be barely running if at all. Rods don't knock against the crankcase, rod knock is when the bearings are beat up letting the rod bang up and down on the crank, if the rods touch the crankcase your internals are now externals and its a total loss.
Pistons don't expanded big enough to pin the rings to the cylinder wall. The rings are always pinned to the cylinder wall, if they weren't you'd have tons of blowby and burn oil like crazy. When the look up its usually bearings that get to hot expand and lock the engine or the block starts to warp to lock itself onto the pistons.
And they have whats commonly referred to as "idiot lights". Isn't there a temp gauge? Isn't there a warning light that will flash if it starts to overheat? If the cap came off from pressure it would be steaming... why didn't he stop?
Just junk it and buy something else.
Translation.
"This dude I know has an old ass Jeep. The water pump went bad and seized up. I went over there and replaced the water pump, serp belt, and I made a radiator cap out of a hose clamp and some rubber hose. I should have replaced the thermostat while I was there but I didn't. Later on while he was driving on the high way the engine started ticking from the valves hitting the pistons or the rods knocking against the crankcase, then after a loss of power the wheels locked up. I've decided a faulty/clogged thermostat caused to much pressure and my rigged up hack job of a radiator cap failed and it lost all the coolant. He kept driving and the pistons expanded causing the rings to be pinned into the cylinder walls thus locking up the engine. Should I take apart his old as hell Jeep and rebuild the engine using every part I can name off the top of my head so he can drive it for a year and sell it or should he just sell it as is right now?"
rofl!
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Where I work:
HP
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Focus Fast
Darkstars wrote:Translation.
"This dude I know has an old ass Jeep. The water pump went bad and seized up. I went over there and replaced the water pump, serp belt, and I made a radiator cap out of a hose clamp and some rubber hose. I should have replaced the thermostat while I was there but I didn't. Later on while he was driving on the high way the engine started ticking from the valves hitting the pistons or the rods knocking against the crankcase, then after a loss of power the wheels locked up. I've decided a faulty/clogged thermostat caused to much pressure and my rigged up hack job of a radiator cap failed and it lost all the coolant. He kept driving and the pistons expanded causing the rings to be pinned into the cylinder walls thus locking up the engine. Should I take apart his old as hell Jeep and rebuild the engine using every part I can name off the top of my head so he can drive it for a year and sell it or should he just sell it as is right now?"
if it's a "chrysler" jeep then just toss the turd.
thanks for the clif's notes.
Put an AMC 360 in it and a Turbo 400 and call it a day.
