No offense taken, he can do in his garage whatever he wants...I have always just been of the mind, if I'm in there, and it's easy (and relatively inexpensive), replace it.

 

I tell people, check out cherokeeforum, I'm the guy with the black dog. Our older bolts might be spendy or not available. Also as mentioned, there are bolts being marketed (from China), with the marking of high grade, that actually are not. With those, new manifold bolts, T-stat & hoses, a new belt and all you should be about bullet-proof when you are done!

 

I already overhauled the cooling system when I bought it since I knew about the infamous head crack in '00/'01 models. I'm going to replace the head bolts while I've got the head off.. better now than later. If they are torque to yield bolts and have gone through plastic deformation, and considering the amount of stress cycles a head goes through in its life, I find it hard to believe that they are for sure good to use twice.

I'll hopefully have this done by the end of the weekend... thanks for the help and I'll let you all know how it goes!

 

He never did let us know how it went. Jeez.

 

I hate that...too many forum posts end that way

 

Sorry guys! It ended up taking me two Saturdays to finish the project.. I ended up having badly worn rocker arms. The local parts stores didn't have them in stock, so I had to finish installing them the next saturday. If I had to do it again, I could probably finish the whole job in a morning. I learned a lot though, and I appreciate your advice along the way.

Anyway, the jeep is running great now! My next few projects are going to be compression/leak down tests, check my oil pressure with a mechanical gauge, and change the front/rear diff, tc and tranny fluid.

I'll post some pics of the project this weekend.

 

Sounds good! Fixed and improved. Thanks for the update.