I dont think I would survive 140° weather. It got up to about 130° at my parents AZ house and that was torture. Walk outside and instantly start sweating. No thanks! I would much rather it be 0° out.

 

It gets humid down in the river bottom. 130 there is not the same 130 as up on the mesa. You can get used to 130 up on the side of the hill, but there is no way to ever get used to it down in the bottom. I tried... can't be done by even the toughest of lifetime desert rats.

 

More progress done last night! Been driving around with a fresh bottle of flush in the system for 2 days (bottle #2). I drained and flushed the coolant system another 5 times last night and it finally stayed clear. No more brown nasty rusty water. Before I filled it up for the final time with green coolant, I put my thermostat back in. Everything works great now. It actually warms up all the way but still runs a few hairs below the 210° mark. Perfect.

Last thing on my list now

- Get new blend door control box

 

Well maybe not everything is going too good haha. I took the Jeep out to get lunch and on my way there, some smoke started coming out the vents. Smelled like coolant. Only lasted about 10 seconds. Last night I was having a problem getting one of the heater core lines to stop leaking at the core itself but I did get it to stop, I think. I have a feeling it is leaking again and dripping water back into the heater box. No drips on the ground and my carpet is dry. On my way back from lunch, it did not have any smoke coming out of the vents. I wasnt planning on working on the Jeep tonight but looks like I will be doing just that. Fun.

 

You already have a custom cut bypass hose... lol

Man that sucks, that's how my luck works.

 

Haha I did but I threw it away already. It was a bit on the crispy side. I have plenty of leftover hose to make another one if needed.

I am hoping I can just move the hose around and tighten the clamp again. But at the same time, there is a chance that there is a pinhole in the core itself where the hose slips on which would makes sense to why I am having a hard time getting the hose to seal. Guess we will see.

 

Made it home last night with the inside of the Jeep smelling like coolant. Still no wet carpet though. Turns out the hard line going into the heater core has a pin hole right where the foam on the firewall is. So I fixed it and no more leaking heater core!



After that, I let it run for a bit to verify that its not leaking and all is good. While I had it running, I decided to plug in my scan tool to see if all the system checks passed so I could smog it. Nope. Cat efficiency below threshold on one of the banks. Short and long term fuel trims were good at about +2%. I dont have the best scanner so I cant see how fast the o2s are switching but I do see they are switching. Now here is the odd part. Both o2 sensors after the cats read 99.7% on my scanner. If I unplug them, they stay at 99.7%. It doesnt throw a code for them being unplugged either. So I got something odd going on. To add to everything, every now and then at idle and only at idle, it feels like it has a misfire. Its not consistent. I took my old injectors from my 99, cleaned and flowed them (on an actual injector machine) and put them in. No change. All spark plugs were fresh with the rebuild. And another thing, if you stab the throttle off idle, while in park, it has a very small but noticeable delay. Sounds like it bogs then goes. If you hold the rpm at 1200 and stab the throttle, it has an instant response like it should. I verified the tps to be working as it should. I think I got some electrical gremlins on the loose.

Does anyone think think this could be partly a cam sensor timing issue? When I dropped it in, it was at tdc on the compression stroke and the timing mark perfectly lined up at 0°. I pulled the cap off the cam sensor, shoved a drill bit through the hole on the side, lined it up with the notch in the rotor and dropped it in. At that point, I tightened it down and pulled the drill bit out. Did I miss anything? Any way to even check timing?

 

Solderseal? lol

Can you use a light? does it have a tab with timing marks at all? I always just use my scan tool while it's running to see what the advance is doing.

 

Cant use a light. No spark plug wires to clamp around... stupid coil rail. I might just convert it over to use LS coils haha. I looked at the timing on my scan tool but it doesnt stream live data fast enough. I could see it jump around from 6.5 to 8 degrees at idle which seems low to me

 

Ok so I am going to rule anything mechanical out of the equation. Got to be something electronic. I also figured out my scan tool can graph in real time. No matter if I twist the cam sensor, timing jumps from 6-10° at idle consistanly. Also, I plugged into my other Jeep and secondary o2s read the same.

Compression test hot engine

1 - 149
2 - 151
3 - 149
4 - 151
5 - 149
6 - 150

Cant get much better then that and I only have 100 miles on this thing. Its not even broken in!

 

That's what mine runs, about 8 at an idle. And yep, as you know the computer compensates for the changes you make at the cam sensor. I have had mine off a whole tooth either way and the computer adjusted the timing to fit. So it appears your issue might be somewhere else. Intake sensors maybe? Can your scanner read these in real time also like mine does?

But your compression readings are great! Looks like those minor differences are just the valves and rings still seating.

 

Not much to report on the Jeep. Havent had much time to work on it lately. I need to put some more miles on it to see if anything clears out or gets worse. I did get to tinker with it last night for a little. My check engine light was not working which was driving me crazy since I didnt know if it was on or off until I plugged in my scan tool. So out came the cluster and in went a new bulb. All fixed. Next up was the bulb for the gear indicator. Another thing that was driving me crazy cause I couldnt tell what gear I was in at night. So again, replaced the bulb and it works again. Then I moved on to my front right running light. I got it working last week just to find out it stopped working again. Turns out the piece that holds the bulb is broken internally. I have power and ground to that plug but missing a ground on one of the post where the bulb plugs in. So I will be sourcing one of those out and hope that fixes the issue. I will double check tonight by pulling the working one from the drivers side and testing it on the passengers side.

 

Who likes to hear bad news? Well I got some. About every 100 miles my check engine light has been coming on. Bank 2 cat efficiency. So I thought that it could be my ridiculously zinc heavy break in oil but that should throw a code on both cats, not the same one every time. Thinking some more, the worst cylinders from the cracked head were the back 3. So I have a feeling that the bank 2 cat had a bit too much junk go through it when the head was cracked and the PO was driving it. That meaning, it looks like I get to buy a new pair of pre-cats! Yay for me. I am going to try swapping the o2 first (pretty sure they are the same from bank 1 to bank 2, maybe even the same as the one past the 3rd cat?) but I highly doubt its the sensor. To make things even better, since I live in the wonderful state of CA, I have to get CA approved cats which are not cheap. Stupid CA!

 

Punch em out until your next test. lol

 

The only problem is, that is right now. Well, I have until June.