I don't know what would have bent the knuckle. It's not like I demand a lot out of my Jeep, but I guess anything's possible.

And yeah, I wish I knew that before buying though. I'm still happy to re-route the electrical in a much better way.

 

Got that 12-inch LED light bar installed on my bumper tonight:





This bad boy puts out over 5000 lumens, and it outshines my TruckLite LED headlights. I love it.

 

Oh I love to see new toys added to this jeep

 

More pictures, this time in the light:

 

Yeah, I'd say it's probably an unlikely scenario, but still might want to check it just to rule it out if anything.

 

I fixed a slight wobble at 55 mph by tightening the castle nut on my tie rod. It must have had to be re-torqued after installation.

I returned to the regular stock injectors for another test.

I'm very happy with this LED light bar too.

 

Engine temperature isn't going over 110 when driving for hours on end, so I believe after some research that the thermostat is stuck open.

Might just have to replace that, but at least the engine isn't overheating. Would rather it underheat than overheat.

 

Yeah better for the gas mileage to suffer than the head... that's for sure.

 

Finally got to that engine heat issue.

Since it was getting really bad with the engine getting hot while idling, I decided to investigate. I took off the cap of my radiator and found that there was a lot of green muddy buildup in there:



I had already bought a new thermostat for the Jeep, because the one that was in there already was staying stuck open:



After taking off the thermostat housing from the front of the engine, I tugged on the old thermostat, which was stuck open, and the whole thing just BROKE. Yeah, I think it was definitely in need of replacing:



It was pretty nasty in there:



I cleaned up the gasket area real well on both the thermostat housing and the engine head before applying a little permatex to the gasket and re-applying. Then I tightened in the new thermostat.

Now one more thing... with the thermostat replaced, and the obvious need to get all that crud out of my engine and radiator, it was time for a full flush and engine cleaning. To help with this, I installed a T connection in the top coolant line to make it all easier:



I then emptied the coolant system and filled it up with a mixture of water and oxalic acid to eat away at the crud. I ran the engine at 1500 rpms for 2 hours straight with this solution, and then drained it and added water and sodium carbonate and ran the engine for 10 minutes to neutralize the acid. Then, I flushed one more time and added all new coolant and water to finalize the process.

The Jeep is now operating at 190 degrees with a very nice idle.

 

Now with that out of the way, I'm pricing out options for a motor rebuild.

I believe my knocking noise could be wrist pin play.

I'm also in the market to put a 50-inch LED light bar on the roof pretty soon!

 

Eeewwwww wrist pin play, no bueno

 

Yeah that's definitely what I think it is. Pretty nasty. I'm gonna run it until it blows up, which might take a while. Then I'll worry about a new engine.

Until then, I've put my existing money into a 50-inch LED light bar. For $300, I got a 50-inch CREE LED 30,000 Lumen light bar. Not a bad price.



I also ordered some roof gutter mounts from these guys:

http://www.inspired-engineering.com/...Code=IE-v2xj50

Excited to get this installed when it comes this week!

 

That's pretty good oil pressure for a hot idle right?

 

yup looks good. 13psi minimum

 

At least I know my engine noise probably isn't due to bearings then. I've been warned that a drop in oil pressure would signal bearing issues.

I think it may just be a valve tap or a very light wallow in the wrist pins. I'm still just going to run it until there's a real problem. The cost to re-build my engine was quoted much higher than just throwing in a replacement ATK motor.