Firestorm500

I really hate to tell you this.

Dexcool didn't cause your problems. Your problems were already there when you bought your Jeep.

Since you say you're low on money, the cheapest thing you can do right now is trade that sucker off today or tomorrow.

The engine and cooling system are ruined.

bigbadon

That won't get it....read my post again

RTorrez1

If you are short on money stop doing the flushes and coolant refills. That won't buy you any more time. If you are really hurting on money. Cut your losses not and get rid of it and buy something that you can afford. They way you were running it you are not going to have many options other than doing a rebuild or finding a good used engine. I hate to say it you got screwed when you bought it if it already had milky coolant and oil.

Parsnip

Alright, I'm going to seperate this into the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good- it's a jeep! And your a strapping young lad, short on cash but big on the fun yea? Well my good sir for the ripe old price of about 100$ you can get yourself a head from your local pick and pull (off a 97-99 motor, the head will fit, you can make a bracket for the coils to mount with), get a head gasket set and bolts, and at least have enough life out of her to get you through till you get the cash right to more then likely replace the crank and cam (if they are out of spec. Test with a plasti gauge).

The bad- your head is cracked. Call around a few local machine shops, one of them will almost certainly atleast do a quick check of the head for a crack between 3&4 for free. One of mine here locally checked my buddy's and mine for free.

The ugly- at the very least you probably need main bearings, at the least. Most likely you'll need main and rod bearings, and probably either a new crank or atleadt one that gets sent in to aforementioned machine shop for a cleaning/'re surfacing. Now, my friend and I did this to his newly acquired wj last week, took a total of 3 days, and that was with our work split between a piston replacement/total rebuild on my motor, and rebuilding the wj.

But all is not lost bud, anchor down and get the wrenches out, it will be alright.

Turbo X_J

That's cool man, everyone was young once and had to learn.

Lets get this out of the way first,
never let any girlfriend no matter how "special", ever, ever, ever, borrow your ride.
As you can see when you are not around they just beat the snot out of it to entertain their friends then helplessly phone you with the "honey it just broke".

I would do a compression test (you can borrow the gauge n/c from Vatozone). It might also be worth while ($25) to send an oil sample to Blackstone Labs.

Now if you or the PO has been adding Deathcool to the standard ethylene gylchol it can cause a reaction as you describe. A flush first with baking soda & water then followed by Cascade dish detergent may get rid of some of the mess.

ETA:
OP does it look like this?

bigbadon

Before everyone jumps to conclusions lets get the facts right.
1. Does OP have any evidence of coolant in oil? This has not been answered
2. Was OP LOSING coolant? This has not been answered
3. Air entering the coolant system, e.i. bad water pump or other leak,can turn OAT coolant into a "chocolate milkshake"

OP did run engine HOT AFTER discovering brown coolant so he MAY now have a cracked head.
CLEAN and NEUTRALIZE coolant system and monitor for coolant loss. If no coolant loss then head is not cracked.

Firestorm500

Chocolate milk = oil and coolant emulsion

As an aside, I don't know why OP went 70/30 on coolant mixture. Even Alaska is not cold enough for that now.

70/30 = less resistance to boiling. Best all around mixture is 50/50. Straight water transfers heat the best.

This 17-year old needs to do some reading and research before jumping around and doing stuff *****-nilly.

md21722

From what I can tell, the only sure thing the OP did wrong was let the water pump go too long and let it get hot too many times. If oil pressure is good and there are no bearing noises, etc. there is a good chance the engine does NOT need a full rebuild.

There are some things you should not put off because they fall into the "pay now or pay more later" category. Not changing the water pump or thermostat for a few dollars could easily turn into a $1500 repair. This is particularly important is you are smart enough to shut down the car when it gets hot but someone you lend it to will drive it all day and mention it was in the red when they got back home, if they mention it at all. These people should not be allowed to drive your vehicle (ever).

Auto Zone is a good source of SOME parts. Their radiators are perfectly fine. Many here use them with good results. The best source of a thermostat is the dealer (or maybe NAPA). It should be a 195F thermostat with a jiggle pin (that goes on the top). The radiator cap should be checked or replaced. Get one from the dealer or from NAPA. The NAPA ones look nearly identical to the dealer and only cost about $5. If the fan clutch is shot, then replace it with dealer ($100) or NAPA ($35).

If the chocolate milk is truly oil in the coolant, then its very likely the head gasket is blown. But, the brown coolant could also be Dexcool, etc. and it will get trapped in the radiator, etc. It might take 20-30 times to get it out, or another new radiator. Use plain tap water for the flushing. You may find that it comes out clean but when you fire it up the coolant will turn brown immediately. As more of the crap is flushed, you may find that when you fire up the engine it stays clean but when you drive 5-10 miles it will be dirty again. If its simply dirty/old coolant, it will come clean. If its a blown head gasket, then it won't. When 0331 heads crack, they will almost always put coolant into the oil as they crack on the top of the head between rocker arms of cylinders 3-4. Its very likely that your head is cracked if it is original, but you'd have to pull the oil filter cap and look down and look for the common crack. It may also be cracked on the bottom, but you'd have to pull the head to check that.

djb383

My bad...........maybe a powder puff auto mechanics class at the local junior college?

southsidecatac

Now that's no way to earn your CF merit badge.......

Programbo

Won't be to costly. I would simply get a head off something from the junk yard. Probably would be $100 total for the head and all the new gaskets. Otherwise it's not a super hard job swapping a head on the 4.0L engine if you have tools and are even mildly mechanically inclined. I'm sure some local Jeep guys would offer to help

djb383

My bad.........how about the OP AND his GF take a course. Is that better?

Programbo

When I was 17 I was riding my 10 speed to my gfs house

travis99xj

Hey so the people that were saying mixing regular coolant with dex cool will make it milky ( mixing non universal coolants that aren't compatible will cause them to gel up by the way) or that dex cool is acidic or that it's crap that's not true. Dex cool is actually a really good long life coolant problem is people mix it with regular chlorinated water (need to mix with distilled non chlorinated water) which breaks down the organic matter in it and causes the silt like rusty looking build up. Once you have this condition caused by the chlorine (you will never flush out the chlorine) you should switch to 50/50 or you can stay with dex cool but need to flush every other year. just fyi

JamromXJ

Hello fellow LI'er... I'm from Lindy, and now live in West Islip. Where is this place you mentioned... I've never heard of it. I go to Robert Moses, Gilgo, and Sore Thumb sometimes Montauk as well. But after Sandy, there isn't much of those left to have fun with.

sorry to hear about the problems your experiencing with your Jeep.

You defiantly need to do some more trouble shooting to find out what's going on under the hood. There is no quick answer to this, try some of the steps a few of these guys suggested, and get back to us. It sounds like a cracked head to me... which unfortunately will cost you more then $100 out of an LI Junker...but not more than $200. We're usually $75-100 over what anyone else pays in the US. Ain't LI great....

As for the wise-a$$ remarks.. we were all young once, maybe some have forgotten... go easy on the kid.

When I was 17, I did far worse things to my car than over-heat and crack a head. Anyone remember what neutral drops do to a drive shaft?

JR