XJ_Lemp

Hello fellow XJ owners. I purchased my first XJ about two months back. Its a RUST FREE 2001 4x4 XJ Sport with 179,000 on the clock. I got it from a fella that bought it back in 02. That being said I am a garage mechanic and do all my own work. (I also have a 1992 Cummins that I work on aswell) So the XJ had a couple of small oil leaks that I've began to tackle. Oil filter adapter o-rings, valve cover gasket, oil pan gasket and rear main seal. Upon draining the oil and removing the pan I got right to cleaning it. Right near the oil drain, in what looked like built up grime, were a couple large chunks of metal accompanied by several smaller fragments. The fragments DO stick to a magnet. I can not see an visible signs of breakage in the crank area. My oil pressure has been a solid 50 going down the road and it has a brand new sending unit. No milky oil. No knocking that is blatantly noticeable. The only red flag I've ever had was after a 30min commute doing about 65mph with some stop and go traffic mixed in I pulled into a lot to grab a bite to eat. I had the XJ off for about 5min, when I turned it back on it idled very rough at about 500 RPM. I gave it a couple revs and let it idle back down and it seemed fine. Discovering these chunks has me VERY spooked. I was planning to do the head gasket after these simple repairs. I have the intentions to fix the minor issues with this thing and drive it for a long while. If anyone can provide an insight as to what I should do that would be VERY VERY helpful!!! Thank you all!

GreaseMonkey17

Garrett S.

If it sounds fine and has good oil pressure I wouldn't worry about it.

mikesweet33

Wow that's interesting. For starters, the issue with the rough idle when starting the engine hot is injector heat soak. If you run a few searches it is very well documented, and remedied by insulating the injectors from the manifold heat.

As for the metal in your pan, thats very strange and I have no idea what it could be. I posted a thread only a few down from yours, where I have very fine metal shavings in my oil, but also no knock or unusual symptoms.

XJ_Lemp

GreaseMonkey, they are metal for sure. They stick to a magnet. The picture is somewhat deceiving. The pieces are truly a gun metal gray color rather than a shade of black.

XJ_Lemp

Thank you for the info on the heat soak. As you can see in the pictures the metal chunks are both rounded and you can see they are all curved as if the came off the something in the cylinder or head area. I'm very worried that I have an engine rebuild or replacement in the near future due to this finding.

Red1992XJ

Question, do they look like they would fit together like a puzzle? As if they are the same part that broke apart, or if they come from different parts. (Does not look like it from pic, but just wondering)

XJ_Lemp

Ralph77

Concerning the heat soak does the XJ still have the heat shield that is on top of the intake manifold?

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/m...SABEgIbGPD_BwE

Also I came across this awhile back. Liked how it was 4.0 specific and includes the heat shield above. While I don't have any problems in my '00 had I know this was out there when I did the 4 hole injector upgrade awhile back I would have done this too just because. I would have to take the Jeep apart to do it now so since I am not having these problems not worth the bother.

jordan96xj

I enjoy trying to crack mysteries like this. Could you provide a few more pictures? perhaps with better lighting, and something to compare size to? (like a quarter/coin).

dave1123

As far as the heat shield is concerned, my 2000 WJ was recalled for a couple of things, one being that intake manifold heat shield. When they went to cast iron exhaust manifolds on the CA compliant ones, the added heat from the cast iron became a problem. All it is is a aluminum wafer blanket that fits over a couple of studs that mount the fuel rail and blocks the heat from boiling the fuel in the rail and injectors.

XJ_Lemp

XJ_Lemp

XJ_Lemp

I was not able to check on the heat shield. More pictures are up. The second to last picture is important. It seems to appear that the part had some sort of spiral motion too it

jordan96xj

I am almost positive those are teeth from the bottom of the distributor gear/shaft. It probably still has enough to keep it spinning, but I would check it soon.

Here is one of Cruiser54's pages, the third picture shows what I mean:

http://cruiser54.com/?p=68