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Stock XJ Cherokee Tech. All XJ Non-modified/stock questions go hereXJ (84-01)
All OEM related XJ specific tech. Examples, no start, general maintenance or anything that's stock.
Picked up a head gasket set yesterday. It leaks too bad to wipe it down every once in a while.
Matter of fact, when I was hand cranking the motor over I could hear air being forced out from between the block and head right in that area where the dye is at. Gonna grab a new set of head bolts today probably.
I havent yet. I suppose it wouldnt hurt. Jeep runs fine, but I'm sure has less get up and go than it used to. I guess it has happened slowly enough that I cant notice the difference in the way the motor operates. Just seeing the oil and hearing the air leak.
I had #1 plug out while I was getting it to TDC.
Could hear the air squeeze out in the middle of the head, and it was loud as the engine was turned over then faded away pretty quickly. Gonna start on it tonight.
I'm skeptical that what you're hearing is air leaking out the passenger side, versus air pushing past the rings or the valves as they open. That side of the engine is the push rod galley which opens up into the valve cover. If you had that bad of a leak, you'd be blowing out the PCV lines.
I can see how it's possible that the sound I heard could be the valves opening an air being pushed through. It was my wife doing me the favor of laying down there and cranking on the motor while I stood up to watch number one get to TDC, so the degrees of turn were small. So I only heard that sound once and I wasn't going to ask her to keep cranking over and over because she couldn't hardly do it in the first place. I feel like either way at this point the head is coming off and the gasket is getting changed because I can see a clear and definite oil leak between the head and the block on the passenger side evidence via 2 bottles of oil dye.
It's goin'... Only about 6 hours of work into it. Head is off and trying to get this gasket material off the head. Seems like melted plastic. So maybe I had an overheat at one time on this motor.
Guess I'll take it to get checked for flatness.
Will a wire wheel get that crud off? Looks like some oil making it to the outside.
Got it all back together last Friday. Cranked up within about 2 seconds and has run perfect since. It was pretty easy to be honest. I took all week just because of work and Thanksgiving and all that, but about 10-12 good hours of actual work. That old gasket was a real **** to get off the head and block. I could tell where it failed and separated allowing the oil to seep through. Overall it wasn't a horrible project. Thanks y'all!
Getting to the head is the worse part... Both intake and exhaust manifolds need to be removed, then the fuel rails and all.....removing and marking all the rocker arms and push rods so when you replace them they go back to the same location. More importantly, if you are removing the head, take it to a machine shop to check how warped it is. A new head gasket may not be enough to fill the warp gap. Then if they machine the head flat, I do believe that a thing called preload on the push rods come into play, but some one else will have to go down that rabbit hole with you for a solid explanation. Probably many Y-tube videos on removing the head.....check them out...
Preload is not necessary in the 4.0L straight 6 engine. There are hydraulic lifters in this engine and they are self-loading (if that makes any sense). All you need to do is torque the rocker bolts to spec.
11-04-2023, 08:09 PM
