RR 1982

Hi I'm new here,I just bought a nice chili pepper red 4 door 99 Cherokee with 119,000 miles. When I first looked at it and ran it, it sounded great, but I got it home,changed the oil 10w30 Mobil clean 5000 and started it, I noticed a bit of a ticking noise that I didn't notice before.Also it idles decently aroud 700 rpm,but not as smoothly as some of my other injected vehicles. Any ideas on these issues? Thanks.

kojoff

Its an XJ.

The 4.0 L has all kinds of ticks, tocks, and rattles. Search Tick in the forum and you are sure to find something that will help. Dont worry yet, you probabbly didnt get ripped off.

EDIT! Oh yeah, welcome from East Texas!!!

djb383

Presume the PO(s) did nothing maintenance wise - start at the front bumper and work your way back doing maintenance. It's an old, used car but it could be a great one. I've never seen an in-line engine that wasn't clicky, ticky.

Gee oh Dee

+1, althought this should apply to every used car that is purchased.

Welcome to the forum!

ntomsheck

For an explanation as to why the ticking started after the oil change:
Previously, there was probably a lot of sludge in the engine, which dampens the sound of valve tick. When you clean it out, obviously there is no sludge left to dampen this noise. Every AMC 242 I've heard that runs well, ticks. Same goes for most small block chevy's and a lot of ford's small blocks (especially the 4.6L). Nothing to worry about, so long as it isn't a loud "knocking" sound...

SteelBlue99

Welcome! Yes, the ticking and not perfectly smooth idle are normal. As ntomsheck said, as long as it's a "tick" and not a loud "knock", it's nothing to worry about.

Bustedback

We had a 94 XJ at work with 150,000 miles on it, it made all kinds of noise from the valve train, but no knocks. That XJ was the fastest XJ I've ever driven! It was bone stock and was only serviced every 6000 miles, but it was the fastest of our fleet of XJs. Don't worry about ticks, the 4.0 is a noisy engine, but it will last forever with very little maintainence.

no rdplz

both the tick and idle are normal for the 4.0. I have the same XJ (even the color) with 146k on it and it's running perfectly fine with that little tick, tick, tick. My 82 AMC did the same thing with the 4.2 in it, even after my dad and I completely rebuilt the thing with new parts. It's normal for 'em. Even BMW's with their inline 6's have that tick once the milage gets around 80k+.

RR 1982

Thanks for all the replies. I changed the oil and air filter immediately.I had an 89 Cherokee with 190k ran great but was starting to rust badly.I looked at 5 of these in the past 2 weeks, 2 of them had the floor pans rusted so badly I could put my finger through and touch the passenger side carpet.Believe it or not this one had no rust anywhere except under the rear 1/4 window d/side near a drainhole at the bottom about 1"/1" so I POR 15d the that spot,bottoms of the rockers,underseams and the undercarriage,then topcoated with correcct color. They dump salt all winter in Detroit area so I'll do just about anything myself to prevent rust! Oh yeah I forgot, so far the only obvious issue besides what I mentioned is the dome light wont shut off no matter where they headlight **** is turned,anybody have this happen before?