Hey, great head liner! I was thinking of doing the exact same thing!!! And like you said, I was torn between camo or pirate! But I went with camo, here's how yours woulda looked camouflage--->

 

Um I've been working on it slowly for the last week. I'd say you could do it in an afternoon if you had everything there. I took my time but 99% of the time is getting off the oil pan and putting it back on. If you do it spend the extra time and change the rear main seal while your at it. That was one of the 1st things I did to it when I bought it.

 

i have a lift at work with all the tools since my dad owns a mechanic shop but we dont do a lot of work like that so yeah, sounds pretty good.....my oil pressure has been pretty low so im assuming its either the sender unit or oil pump

 

Well the Jeep is finally out of the shop for a while. I put all new spark plugs in it along with the new oil pressure sending unit. It runs around 70 psi oil pressure right now (I'm not so happy about the high oil pressure) and it sounds like it misses every now and then. I'm gonna get to driving it and playing around to see if it will be okay.

 

Okay the missing hasn't stopped and the blow by is getting worse. I did a compression check on the cylinders. Cylinder #1 has 78psi, #2 has 0psi, and the others are all 125psi. I'm definitely worried about the second cylinder. I think either the valves are stuck or the piston is cracked. This could be the cause of the excessive blow by. Any input is appreciative. Once I fix the Jeep I believe I'm gonna sell it for a full sized truck. I hate to say it, but I'm needing something a tad more reliable. I'd like to get a newer XJ down the road. We'll see...

Oh and congrats to Cherokee owners, this month's 4Wheeler magazine rated us as the top used 4x4 to buy!

 

Doesn't look good man cylinder 2 has tanked. Looks like a good time to rebuild. But to verify. Pull off the head to check the valves, look at the piston in question, you will definitely see a crack if the piston has one. My condolences man.

 

Thanks man. I'm gonna first pull the valve cover off and make sure nothing stuck. We'll see. I just think it shouldn't be the piston if it has 0psi. I'd think that even with a cracked piston I would be getting more than 0psi, unless it's a big a$$ crack. I believe the right way to go about this is to take the valve cover off and go from there. I'm gonna try to get a borescope or something to look in the head without pulling it. If it is the piston I'm trying to decide whether or not to rebuild the whole motor. If I rebuild the whole thing it's gonna be hard to sell the Jeep knowing it's got a "brand new" motor in her. So I dunno. I'm really wanting a early to mid 90s chevy 1500 or early 90s ford f150. not sure. but I'll get pics up here when I make some progress with the motor

 

Hey man if you need any help let me know! And if ya decide to get rid of her let me know cause the V-8 in mine is killing me lol.

 

You are selling it? We better wheel soon then.

 

Yeah I'll prob be selling it. and Hopefully a wheeling trip will be in there soon to make sure the engine is fixed. Hopefully when I get the truck I'll be building it into a wheeling machine too (lol as much as a full sized truck can get)

 

Well everything under the valve cover looked fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. So that means I'm gonna start pulling the head off... yippie. None of this is hard it just take soooooo long to do. Pics soon to come.

NOTE:
When I tried to pull the valve cover off I needed to remove the transfer case drop bolts so that I could raise the engine back up to get the rear to clear the firewall. I dunno if anyone else has had this problem but I'm just stating that raising the transfer case fixes this problem.

 

So here's the start of the engine fix...
getting the intake and exhaust manifolds off:



After the manifolds off:





I took the head off and got to looking at cylinder #2 and a nice big hole was in it. Aluminum was on the cylinder wall:







Pulled the piston out to see the damage:

















I went to order parts and on the way back picked up a Ridge Reemer to clean up the top 1/4" of the cylinder walls.







I finished all 6 cylinders to looking like this:



Haha just a pic of one of my workbenches. I'm proud of my organization



How the Jeep sits tonight:

 

You are in deep! Your engine forced you to miss some good wheeling. Check the trail reports section.

 

Haha yeah I really wanted to go but this thing keeps begging for attention. Hey at least I'm learning alot. Winter break and being 21 doesn't help things get done very fast. I'm anxious to get it all back together. Parts are coming in 2 days so hopefully by the end of this coming weekend I'll have it runnin again! Pics soon to come. If anyone has questions on how I did anything PM me and I'll try to help ya out!

 

Parts came in and I just pulled all the pistons out. I am replacing all the rings and a new piston. I also got new valve seals. All the other pistons and cylinders look good and I will be honing out all the cylinders soon. Other than the time required, this rebuild isn't so bad at all. Pics (as always) soon to come.