So my cherokee's a loud mother trucker. I know people say that's normal but I'm trying to figure it out. It's always ticked and early on I found out it was the exhaust manifold. Well I replaced it and it's still a ticking. Had a mechanic look at it and he says I installed the manifold right and it was my injectors ticking. Is it normal for an injector tick to sound just like a cracked manifold tick? It mostly only ticks on cold starts or when accelerating so I feel like it could still be the manifold but I mean I wanna trust the mechanic.

Any suggestions?

 

Your first mistake was trusting the mechanic find out how check your injectors, and confirm/reject his idea. The clicking manifold was due to a crack correct? Not likely your new manifold could be damaged again unless you had some serious motor mount issues and/or the exhaust couldnt flex enough.

 

Hahah yea I'm waiting to get it back and I'm gonna check some lifters. But yea the manifold was cracked and I replaced the motor mounts before I put in the new manifold

 

IF I would assume that the motor mounts are bad.

Just my .02

 

When was the last time you changed the oil?

 

changed the motor mounts

ehhh maybe 1000 miles ago

 

When did the ticking start?

 

It was ticking when I bought it. Got it in march and I figured it was the manifold. Fixed that and after I fixed it i could still hear a faint tick but now it's a lot louder sometimes.

 

better hope that crack wasnt bad enough to burn a valve

 

that doesnt sounds good. what all could that mean?

 

actually ive never had a problem with my compression, isnt that a sign of burnt valves?

 

My XJ (also a white '98. great taste by the way) had a ticking issue. I had put a newly remanufactured ATK longblock in it. It had new exhaust manifold and intake/exhaust gaskets, newly rebuilt Neon injectors, new belt, new cap and rotor, new oil pump, etc. etc.

It drove me crazy trying to figure out where the noise was coming from, and I was scared s**tless that I had gotten a bad motor. Two weekends of work down the drain...

Anyway, I got myself a mechanics stethoscope from Harbor Freight for a few bucks. Finally traced the noise down to the distributor, which was the only item that meshes with the engine internals that I carried over from the old motor. After that I bought a rebuilt distro from from Rock Auto, installed it, and I have been tick free ever since. That stethoscope was the best $4.99 I'd spent in awhile.

 

Maybe a loose tourqe converter bolt? Theres plenty of write ups and video clips of the sound around here

 

Bad compression that doesn't change with oil added to the cylinder would point to a leaking valve. If your compression is fine and the motor doesn't have a miss or stumble that repeats cyclically , I wouldn't worry about the valves at this point.

The injectors do tick. Sort of a "singer sewing machine" sound, lol. Also on the "things that tick" list is the purge solenoid on the firewall. Sometimes that's a noisy little sucker.
The King of Tick is the lifters. My 96's are quite noisy when the motor is cold, my '99 did it new from the factory.

 

thanks for all the tips guys

good thing a harbor freight is right down the road, now i have a few other things to check