500$ engines? What are y'all talkin about? Most I've paid for a salvage yard motor is 165$, and that was full dress

 

everything is more expensive in DC area

 

S&D LA Area

 

i agree with this. marine-tex is good epoxy for that. after it hardens, bypass heater and put the stop leak to it. bet it would last a good while.

 

I vote for epoxy/JB Weld on outside and stop leak, but seeing he lives in a DC Highrise he'll be lucky if they let him raise the hood.

 

good luck with JB weld ever working ...

 

Thanks to all for the responses! Sounds like stop leak products are a crapshoot, not permanent, and potential risk to the rest of the cooling system.

I am going to get a few more quotes to see if I can get a better price on an engine swap before I pour anything in the radiator. As several of you noted: yes, everything costs more in the DC Metro area; and yes, I get nasty looks if I even pop the hood in the garage, so my options are limited. I would be perfectly fine with a low(ish)-mileage junkyard engine installed for $1 - 1.5K, but I don't hold much hope that I'll find someone to do it that cheap.

Since the rest of the Jeep is in pretty nice shape, I may clean it up this weekend and post it on Craigslist. I got a pretty good deal on this guy considering the age, wear and miles, so I may be able to sell it to someone who can do an engine swap themselves without taking too much of a hit myself...if no bites and no reasonable engine swap quotes, I'll take a shot on some stop leak and/or marine epoxy (though draining the coolant will be a challenge).

I have to believe that this kind of block failure is incredibly rare and that I am just horribly unlucky.

 

Bring it down to sw va I'll do it that cheap lol

 

Not to many people get to say there 0331 head out lasted the motor lol. I haven't had a problem with mine yet. I'm not defending the 0331 head. They do have a casting flaw but there's more post saying "they will crack "then post saying "mine did crack" Have a look on Google. My point is if you go the route of getting a used motor and spending all that money just get one that doesn't have a 0331 head so you don't have to have the worry "is mine going to crack" in the back of your mind.

 

When I lived in Arizona, one of my good accounts (A man that worked out of a shop in his back yard) bought this new product that we just started carrying. He said he did a bunch of research on it, and wanted to try it on a head gasket leak on a Chevy Astro-Van.
He purchased it from me, and followed the directions.
A couple days later, when he stopped in, I asked him about the head gasket.
He said it fixed the leak.
6 months down the road, he was buying some more parts for the same customer's Astro-Van( for a different repair), and told me the head gasket never did leak again after he used this bottle of stuff.


The product is called "Blue Devil" and it is around $50 (kinda pricey, but sure beats the alternative)
http://store.gobluedevil.com/head-gasket-sealer-38386/

 

Yes, the irony is not lost on me. I was freaking out for weeks, convinced that my coolant consumption was due to a cracked 0331 head casting. Couldn't find any evidence, though...oil looks great, compression is great, nothing in the exhaust. Kind of hard to be mad when the real problem is so ridiculously bad.

 

Done it many times, on all sorts of surfaces with almost every type of substance you can think of that's automotive related.

Key is ALWAYS in the prep work and cure time.

BTW I am assuming you're using "JB weld" as a catch all name for epoxy.

 

I don't like stop leaks, because they do indeed have a good chance of clogging heater core, but I had a very good experience with one. It was the bars super stop leak for head gaskets. Got it from Walmart, in a bigger bottle for 28$.

I flushed the coolant because it was dirty and nasty looking. Flushed it real good by running water through and warming it up and repeating. Well turns out it was dirty because of the stop leak and I flushed it out and it started smoking and leaking out the exhaust. So I decided to go ahead and put a gasket on it. Got it off cleaned up the head checked for cracks and straightness and appeared to be okay. Put it back together and it was smoking just as bad and pouring antifreeze out between the head and the block like a river. One can of that stop leak and about a half hour and it still has heat to this day and is one of the strongest running 4.0s I've had.

 

Stop leaks are band aids...I'm sorry. I've used aluma seal powder on the trail if a heater core or rad busts, but that's as a last resort. Powders and potions can't replace hard parts, plain and simple

 

Probably didn't do this when it was new so something is definitely botched.