I know many of you old school XJ guys will say, big deal....but for me not being a mechanic and having limited tools it was quite rewarding.

My son bought a 2001 XJ with 220k, I did a bunch of research ahead of time and knew some of the "Issues" that I might be faced with moving forward. We did a bunch of pre-inspection items, some things for looks and general maintenance. My mistake was installing cheap aftermarket injectors (ebay) This started a chain of events that ultimately cost me the motor. The motor started smoking crazy bad after I installed them and come to find out it was raw fuel. I diagnosed that down to a faulty(stuck open) injector on #6. Bought all new OEM injectors, replaced them , smoke went away after about 5 mins. Drained the oil and changed filter. About 3 weeks went by and my son said the motor was making a "clanking noise". By time he had gotten home it had gotten louder. I played around with it to try and figure out where the noise was coming from as it sounded like it was between the motor and trans. Flexplate? Ummm nope, checked bolts first then looked with a small scope camera. Decided to pull the trans and see. A first for me but luckily a lot of people post videos! Dropped the trans out and flexplate looks fine. Figured it has to be internal in the motor, valve springs look intact and the noise is lower. I put it all back together with the thought of taking it to a local guy to diagnose, though it knew it was going to be bad.

Jeep sits for a couple of weeks and I'm talking to a friend, telling him the story and he gives me the "I think I know a guy that has a wrecked unit, you should call him" I call and its a 1999....research begins. I come to the conclusion that "what could go wrong" I buy "The Donor" and bring it home. I start by taking the donor down to the block and head. Saving everything that is good/re-usable. Then I start withe the 2001, taking tons of pictures, bagging and labeling all the bolts from each part I took off. Pulled the 01 out and set it on a pallet. Grabbed the 99 (120k) and brought it inside. Installed new oil pan gasket, valve cover gasket, water pump(from Jeep), Tstat housing , installed new plugs, installed the old exhaust header and intake with new gasket. This motor had zero leaks, a few weeps but no collection of oil/dirt.

My biggest concern with this whole swap was getting the Cam Position Sensor installed correctly. I left it in the old motor at TDC, got the new motor at TDC and pulled the distributor, swapped. I also built two brackets to bolt on the coil pack. This took some time and mistake engineering. Finally dropped the motor in, added everything back to it that was working on the old motor.

Keep in mind this is all nights and weekends, a few hours here and there.

The moment of truth, cycled the key a few times and the sweetest sound ever, she fired right off. I did go back and make a small adjustment to the CPS, which made a big difference at idle.

Its running better than the old motor ever did and my son is proud and happy!

If you have any questions or other questions I didn't cover please ask, Its how I got all my info!

Now on to fix the "Death Wobble".....

 

Excellent work! Figuring things out like that isn't an easy feat, especially if you've never done that before.

Watch some front end shakedown videos to see how to properly diagnose a loose front end. If you can't find anything loose, put the tires back on the ground and have another person slightly turn the steering wheel (just enough to take up the play) and find what's loose. If you STILL can't see it, replace the control arm bushings. The easiest way to replace those (which you should probably just do anyways) is to buy new control arms with bushings already installed. Then press in some new ones into the axle. Death wobble is actually pretty easy to solve so long as you have a tight front end and a good alignment.

 

Thank you, did as you suggested. The only thing I see is the lower arms moving. I'll have to assume that's this issue. Ordered and on the way!