On my way back from Harbor Freight the Jeep cut out on me. Smoke spewing from the hood. I opened it up and it's all coming from where the block meets the head. I'm presuming it's a head gasket failure so when I get home I'm gonna pull the head and check it out. Wish me luck.

 

Wish you luck!

 

Thanks brotha. Bad news bears once I got into things.

 

Well, my crazy deal on the Jeep now is making sense. Monday it **** the bed on my way home. I let it cool down and got it started and made it back home (probably 1/2 mile). I parked it in the garage and ordered a top end gasket kit, head bolts, lifters, and pushrods. My goal was to tear apart the motor Tuesday and Wednesday, parts arrive Thursday, install Thursday and Friday, and be back on the road by the weekend.

Tuesday-

Time to get my hands dirty. I popped the air filter lid off and the filter is damp. WEIRD, but I kept going. Intake off.

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Remove fans and drain coolant. Loosen and remove belt. Three bolts out and put your power steering box to the side. Make sure it's upright or it'll leak fluid. Ask me how I know.

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Undo 4 bolts and a wiring connection and your A/C compressor is off. I left my hoses connected and just set it to the side.

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Disconnect vacuum hoses, heater hose clamp, and undo valve cover bolts. I poked holes in a box to keep the right bolts in the right place. Pull valve cover up and reveal your valve train. 12 bolts gone and you can remove your rocker setup. I kept the rockers separated in bags, while the bolts are poked through a box. Empty head:

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Labeled spark plug wires and removed spark plugs. Cyl 1 is bottom and Cyl 6 is top

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This is as far as I got on Tuesday. I didn't have the right tool to get the head bolts out. Lame.

Wednesday-

Run to home depot. Buy a 1/2" drive 13mm deep 12 point socket. Get home and wonder why it still doesn't work. Look down the socket and realize that the splines only go down a half inch then the hole gets too small to fit over the thick head bolts. Run to Harbor Freight. Nope. Same thing. Run to sears. Nope. Same thing. But wait. Check out the 3/8" drive 13mm deep 12 point socket. NO NECK DOWN!! Run home. It fits. Grab your breaker bar and the top part of the jack for leverage. Break the bolts free and mark on a box which goes where. Throw away those used head bolts!

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Remove exhaust bolts where the manifold meets the down pipe. I hope you've been lifting weights because this sucker is HEAVY. Head is off and on the bench. At this point I was so stoked to have the head off, but so tired from work. I went to bed at this point.

 

Thursday-

Get home from work and break the head down.

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Get excited because gasket kit and head bolts are here. 7 retainer bolts off (hard to get to) and intake is free! 2 nuts off and exhaust is free. Que naked head

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How to clean up and prep for reverse. Peel head gasket off the block. Mine left chips stuck to the block so I used a razor blade to scrape it clean.

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Pull out the old lifters with a strong magnet and grab your new lifters that have been soaking in non-synthetic oil overnight. Plop the lifters back in their home.

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Go over block one more time to make sure it's clean and set the head gasket down.

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Time to clean and check the head for cracks. Mine's a 99 so 0630 casting is less prone to cracking, but might as well be safe. Luckily I checked it over well. First I checked the top because that's where most crack. We're in the clear for now. Turn it over and scan the bottom. Sh*t. Big ole crack from water jacket to water jacket between cyl 4 and cyl 5.

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Get pissed and start searching for re-manufactured head. There's a couple around 450 + shipping on ebay, but they're coming from Florida so it wont get here for at least 10 days. Clearwater heads are again in FL and I don't really want to wait that long or pay that much. I won't have this Jeep long, so we're looking for something to get us back on the road. Then it hits me. 0630 are way less prone to cracking and I think this one is kind of a fluke anyways so I'll just hit the Pull-a-Part tomorrow and grab another 0630 head, clean it up a bit, and slap it back on the motor. Good enough for government work.

 

Great job though! It'll be worth it

 

SUBBED!!! this is gonna be an interesting build.

 

Thanks guys. Jeep is up and running again Story to follow!

 

Friday-

Oops! I played hookie from work and went to the local pull a part. 4 Cherokees, but all older than '96. Bummer. Check computer for Grand Cherokees. 4 GCs: 3 '00+ and 1 '97. Bingo. Let's hope it has a 4.0. Grab my tools and a wheelbarrow then walk all the way across the yard to the Chrysler section. I immediately chuckle at how torn apart these Jeeps are. People obviously have been picking at them like vultures. I got to my target and someone was kind enough to pull the motor for me, grab the front accessories, and leave the block and head. Thank you Jesus. I'll spare you the gory details, but I forgot my jack handle that I slip over the breaker bar for extra torque. Crap. This is what I ended up using. LOL

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Pay the man. Get home. Start cleaning. I gently wire brushed the head until I thought it was good enough. Bath in brake parts cleaner. I wanted to get the Jeep done so I stopped taking pictures and knocked it out. Went to start it up and it revved straight to redline. HOLY SH*T. Either a sensor is seriousl messed up, or I have a ridiculous vacuum leak. I got super burnt at the PaP, so I called it a day and fired up the grill.

Saturday-

Woke up super early, hiked 6 miles with 2000ft elevation change, got home and wife says she needs a nap. RAD! Time to conquer this thing. Checked where the intake meets the head and what do ya know, it didn't line up with the dowels properly and there's a huge gap . Pull everything off, adjust so it's flat. Torque bolts down. Everything back on and fire up. She runs! She's a bit smokey, but that's normal. I let her idle til she hit operating temperature to make sure coolant was flowing properly and we're in the clear! Not even a CEL or any hidden codes! YAY!
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Sunday-

Front wheels are off so I'll put those back on and take her for a test drive! My pile of parts is, well, piling up. Ugh, bad joke. I'll update again tonight with driving results and my parts waiting to go on. Cheers!

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Test drive was awesome! Everything in the motor department checks out to my standard. Suspension and steering is a whole different story. I was driving about 55mph and hit a small bump in the road and the whole front end shimmied until I slowed down. Ugh. At least the motor work is done for now right! Hopefully these next few weeks I'll get her driving comfortably, correctly, and most importantly: reliably.

My parts pile: motor mounts (missing metal sleeve), transmission mount, upper and lower control arms, extended front bump stops, front and rear shocks, wiring harness, LED headlights, hatch struts, and 3 10" electric fans (just waiting on my ashtray panel and shroud).

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I think I'm going to order Rusty's steering bracket and brace combo. It's cheap and a nice upgrade.

 

Got home from work and got my headlight upgrade tackled. We all know how crappy the stock headlights are at night and it's a must-do modification if you enjoy safely driving at night. Anyways! I bought cheap LED 6x7 lights off of Amazon. The brand is Avec, which I've never heard of, but for ~$40 I'm seriously impressed.

Old vs. New

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Installed, but off

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Low beams

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High beams

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They're certainly not Trucklite bright, but they're leaps and bounds ahead of stock nastiness. I'll try to get some pictures of the light pattern at night, but I didn't take any before shots. Oh well.

 

Don't worry about the before pics. We're all pretty familiar with the crappy output from OEM lights.
We've all listened to our wives/girlfriends/SO's complain about how unsafe our jeeps are at night, because we can't see anything. Then they complain when we spend money to improve it.

 

That's what I figured. This is the truest thing man! We just can't win

 

Wow $70 sounds a lot better than $360 for trucklites lol. I think I may order them! Hopefully no issues when it snows with accumulation, that is my main concern

 

Yeah I don't know how they'd do in snow. From what I've felt, they don't get very warm. But for how cheap the whole thing is, I'd give them a try.