XJwonders

Hey y'all. I wanted to document this project so those who like doing DIY stuff can learn from this.

Last January I decided to put up my big BBQ smoker for sale/ trade on craigslist. I either wanted cash or trade it for another XJ.

I got a few hits on the emails but none of them was even close to my asking price, until one evening, one guy emailed me saying he has a cherokee that he could trade...

Of course that got my attention. I never would thought someone would give up a cherokee for a BBQ smoker. So of course I answered back and asked for more information.

Pretty soon we got to talking and I found out he had a 2001 XJ with 4.0/AW4/231 along with Chrysler 8.25 in rear.

Only catch was that it overheated last summer and was towed to a shop and it has been sitting there ever since. He told me I can go check it out.

Next day I went to the shop and looked at it after work... Wow I have to say, no rust at all and it already had scores of new parts on it already. BUT the head either warped or the head gasket blew. That was no problem for me, I wanted it already.

Couple of days and after an even trade, no cash involved, I had it towed to my home.

Pictures coming soon, I gotta sort through the albums on my phone.

XJwonders

This is my BBQ smoker that I built and eventually traded away.














Built from a 120 gallon air compressor tank as a main cooking chamber and a 60 gallon air compressor tank as a firebox.

XJwonders

This is the jeep that I got in the trade.

The night when it arrived via tow truck







The next morning

XJwonders

When I got it, I looked it over with a fine toothed comb, trying to see what's new and what need replacing/upgrading.

The good...

New lower control arms AND bushings
New rebuilt AC compressor
New radiator
New hoses
New AC hoses

The bad...
Head gasket, obviously
Dent on driver door
Missing rear drivers side bumper cap
Dented front passenger side bumper cap
Smashed rear bumper
Little rust spots on roof
Sagging headliner
Very dirty interior

I got the service records from the guy and he said he always sent it to an Acura dealership because his cousin works there.
They must have done a good job of keeping it up because there's a wix filter on the engine and all spark plugs were NGK.

XJwonders

The shop was nice to offer me the paper work that they had on the jeep. After some reading, I found out the previous owner poured three bottles of Stop-Leak in the engine.

With that information, I decided I wouldn't bother checking the head for flatness or cracking, or whatever. I decided I ll just go get another head from a junkyard and use that.

Since it's a 2001, it had the 0331 head on it. So my logical choice is a 0331 TUPY head. (2002-2004 WJs and 2002-2006 TJs had them.)

I set out on a hunt one day and searched three junkyards and i couldn't find a single TUPY head at all. I finally went to a salvage yard and asked the front desk if they had a head.

Sure enough they did, from a 2004 WJ with only 109k miles on the head. $175 later, it was mine.

XJwonders

It was time to do the head gasket job. So I started by taking the parts off...

First I took out the electric fan, the air filter box, fan and shroud. Then took out the power steering pump, the bracket, and disconnected the fuel line and finally took out the intake manifold.

I decided I didn't want to risk ruining the new head so I decided I ll take out the radiator also. And it was a good thing I did, too! Cause I found there was big crack on the plastic tank.

Now that clearly explain why the jeep overheated.

Next came off the AC compressor, the valve cover, the AC bracket, and alternator. I also removed the water pump and all hoses.

Finally the head came off. What I saw shocked me.

All the coolant ports on the head was completely clogged. All from Stop-Leak.

I texted the previous owner about it. He said that when the radiator cracked, his father in law told him that the crack can be easily fixed with Stop-Leak. Such a genius.

XJwonders

Here u can see the clogged ports...






Clogged head gasket






The old 0331 head

XJwonders

XJwonders

The shot of the engine bay..

XJwonders

One event I ran into that I wasn't expecting... The cracked intake manifold..

It was already cracked, I can tell by the color of the metal on the crack... When I took the intake manifold out, the little piece fell off.










So I decided to bring it to work the next morning. (I already cleaned the manifold the night before).
I heated the whole thing up with an oxyacetylene torch. Then I proceeded to TIG weld and filled up the whole area with some 4043 aluminum filler rods.
But first I ground off the area to be welded.













After the welding was done, time to start grinding it down back to original shape.

XJwonders

Finally assembled everything back together

HS00XJ

Very nice work on the manifold METAL MAN.

XJwonders

If anyone need the info about head bolt torque sequence here it is

XJwonders

ha thanks sir

XJwonders

I also would like to add that when putting everything back on, only mod I did was putting in 784 injectors.

And since I was concerned about the heater core being clogged, I decided to bypass it for now. I ll try to check if it's either clear or clogged later this summer, not like I'm gonna need it! Ha