So my Cherokee I bought for 400 bucks has developed a knock.
It has 268,888 miles on it. Litereally. I was stunned to see an engine run this long. I am torn. I want to put money into this because I think it will run for forever. It has good paint and thats about it. The electrical has had a melt near the headlight and still havent found the source. the instruments, such as, fuel and oil pressure dont work. the heater motor doesnt work and havent checked AC yet. Oh yeah, there was a leak at the rear hatch. Water came in soaked the carpet and rusted the floor out pretty good. PS Mold smells awesome all the time. With that said, its got one hell of a good sound system in it. (which wont play the radio but does do cds)
SO thats the back story.
Now, engine options. Junk Yards run about 300-600 for engines usually with about 190-250000 miles on them. Maybe a good temp solition until a rebuild is done. Then a master rebuild kit is 450 plus about 10 days for rebuilding the engine. Im guessing another 200 for a machinest. So this has a lot of down time and labor involved. Then there is the STROKER OPTION! Oh wow, more power and money. Stroker is about 13 day rebuild plus 1500-2000k in parts and stuf. Then there is the remanufactored engine. Its $1240 for it. Its not a rebuild but remanufactored! I watched the youtube video of them and was BLOWN away! The company that does backs up the engine for 36000/3yrs. You do have to supply a good core. I am leaning towards the remanufactored crate engine.

Am I missing something? What would you do?

 

For older XJs', I'm a big fan of finding the best salvage yard engine you can and swapping that in. Plug and play and you're back on the road.

Reman engine is nice....sure. But you get upside down financially real quickly with this option. Your XJ is going to be worth roughly the same (not much) in the even of an accident, etc.

 

Ive done two remans myself... Well worth the money and eas... Got mine from advanced auto parts... Shippings on them... Ive done the use motor thing but I ONLY buy a wrecked xj... Use the motor in mine and part the rest... This way I make my money back and get a free motor that I know was running fine or it wouldnt have been on the road to get wrecked... Also a half *** rebuild yourself isnt that much... Buy a new rebuilt head off ebay... Take yours off first and inspect piston walls and such... New head gasket and all new gaskets up... Flip the motor... Do a new oil pan gasket and oil pump.... Call it good... If its not smoking or anything u dont have to do much more then that... Its what im currently doing but mines just leaking everywhere... So dont need a new head or nothin... May do a new head gasket while its out and may replace springs, rods, valves since they are cheap at autozone... Im not gonna do nothing else... I may or maynot do crank bearings... Should but then I may as well at least do rings even though not needed... Lol... U dont always have to do all the machineing and stuff if nothing is wrong... Half *** rebuild can get u along ways for cheap... Lol

 

If you've got the coin to do a rebuild or reman engine that is really the best way to go. Myself, I didn't worry too much about getting "upside down" financially because I know I like Jeeps so much that if something happens to this one I can always pull the motor and put it in another Jeep, be it an XJ,ZJ,WJ, or TJ. I still have lots of options. In my mind I'm now running a motor with nearly zero miles.

Doing the bare minimum in your rebuild has it merits too. The 4.0L motor is an amazingly rugged motor and could go many years/miles in less than perfect condition.

 

Sounds like you have plenty of issues you could be dealing with before you get an engine. I'd fix those, then ship the old knockin' block off to the place that remans 'em for ya. Shipping is on you?