mycherokee1989

Hello everyone,
I have a jeep cherokee 89 that we recently rebuilt the engine in. We replaced the camshaft, crank, oil pump, radiator, 2 pistons, bearings and many more miscellaneous parts. Everything seems to be going pretty well, but there are a few things that I am curious to find out about and am worried about.
1. There is a white film on my dipstick for my oil, indicating that there is water getting in. I don't think that the head gasket is blown, or that the block is cracked, which is what I have been told are possible problems, because they were just recently put back in. -All indicators lead me to believe that the head gasket is the problem, but I find that hard to believe
2. Car is idling very low. Has even stalled out on me a few times. (It says inside the hood that the idle speed is non adjustable.)
3. Oil is getting blown through a breather tube going from the head cover into the air filter compartment, making the filter an oily mess, and oil is making its way down to underneath the engine compartment. I have been told that there should be some type of mesh to block this from happening, or some valve, but I have neither.
4. Hitting big bumps causes the car to stall. We looked under the hood and were moving some wires/vacuum lines around by the distributor, and noticed that this also caused the engine to cut out.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. the countless POs have not been too nice to this jeep, and I'm trying to put some new life into it.

stumper

#4, seems easy, when you move the vacumm lines, do you hear a hissing sound? then it dies? possible broken/cracked line, check them all,carefully. check all the plug wires as well, dist. cap wires on tight? if you grab them and get a real good jolt, there're not on tight. Oil blowing passed the breather, when putting the pistons and rings in, did you offset the rings? [on each piston] is your blowby excessive? Milky oil,with the engine cold, remove the rad cap and start the engine, do you see air bubbles? if so, head gasket is possible. hope some of this helps..Stumper

mycherokee1989

Checked distributors and vacuum lines again and couldn't get the car to die, so that problem might have fixed itself. Oil is not milky at all. Just changed the oil the other day from the first 1000 miles with the rebuilt engine, and it was black. Rings were offset, but I could see that as a possible reason for the problem. Where exactly is the radiator cap?

BuckB91XJ

89 XJs have the old closed cooling system. No radiator cap. Just the the cap on the overflow tank.

mycherokee1989

I think that mine is the same. I looked around online

mike37

#3 sounds like your rings did not seat properly

did you install new rings on old piston and forget to give the cylinders a good ball hone

mycherokee1989

nope. did that. I guess its common with older xjs. The po had all of the original vacuum lines taken out and rigged them up all crazy. I bought the right vacuum lines, I'll see if that is going to help at all. I'll get some pics up soon