drhoward1988

What part of GA are you in? I could possibly make a ride up and help out

Radi

+1
Keep the head bolts in order too, they are not all the same. Front head bolt on driver's side needs sealer too.

Hopefully whoever 'rebuilt' the head screwed up the gasket installation, leading to simple gasket failure. Head gasket failure isn't that common on a 4.0, there's usually a (larger) underlying problem.

highmileage

Addressing the head, pending what caused the gasket to go in the first place a machine shop may be a good investment. Sixty or a hundred bucks to make it flat again, as long as none of the valves are burnt or sunk you should be alright with just a milling.

lashonda

It is worth mentioning that the inside of my radiator was all clogged up, looked like someone mixed some stop leak into the antifreeze. Turns out the head was rebuilt 50,000+ miles ago. Something is fishy...I want to say the guy knew what he was doing when he sold it to me. I did nothing to the Jeep other than drain/refill the coolant (proper amount filled, all hoses tightened up correctly), and fill it up with a full tank of gas right before the HG blew. The guy told me that he put a water/solvent mix into the radiator to clean it out. Pretty sure it was more than just water and solvent.

I would pull the head myself but I'm unable to do so in my current situation. No garage, truck usually sits in my dorm parking lot. No tools or resources to do it currently. If I had a garage and another vehicle I'd be all about tearing it down myself.

Firestorm500

HG was already blown when you bought it. By getting the sealer/gunk out of the engine, you let the crack open back up.

Big David

75 miles north of ATL sounds like my neck of the woods. What county is the Jeep in? I know of a shop you could take it to.

lashonda

The Jeep is currently in Silver Creek. Was quoted $1650 for the swap with a motor that has 87,000 miles miles on it. Waiting for him to call me back with a price on just the labor...I'm going to have to source my own motor. Here are some pictures of the Jeep as it sits at the shop waiting. At least the view is pretty nice.



I want to say (i.e. I hope) the motor amounts to $1,200 of that $1,650. I was told that this mechanic uses a specific engine supplier because he has worked with them in the past and always gotten a good motor out of them along with a little 6mo warranty. I was also told that the supplier he uses is pretty pricey. Found a used 4.0 with 151,000 miles on it in Mableton for $400 that I'm considering picking up. It would be awesome to have it all done for under $1,000.

Big David

Silver Creek is 2 hours away. $400 sounds like a good price for the motor. I wish you luck, it's hard to find a good shop that does good work.

lashonda

Yeah, I looked up Murrayville and it is a distance away.

Fortunately this guy is an old family friend. He swapped the motor in her brother's current Ram a while ago and the swap went problem free. I'm still waiting to hear back about the price of just the install.

lashonda

Update.


Guy quoted me $700 to install the motor.


I searched craigslist again for a 117k 4.0L that someone was offering installed for $1,000. Instead I found a shop that is within a couple of miles from my school. (the current shop is currently ~40 miles away from my school)


Guy quoted me $1,695 to have a 71,000 mile motor installed. Unlimited mile warranty, freshly painted and cleaned motor, all exterior seals replaced, new plugs filters fluids, 30yr old local company, was going to give me a loaner while the work was being performed, all in all a better situation than working with the mechanic that my gf's parents use. I'm going to squeeze in some new motor mounts during all of this, mine are shot. After talking with someone over the phone I learned that this shop just so happened to donate a car to be bashed up for a canned food drive at my University.


It is more than I want to spend, in the long run it'll be worth it. I was originally planning on getting rid of this Cherokee in a year or two...but now with all of this motor work I plan on holding on to it for a long while. I'd love to convert it to 4wd down the road if I could.


Now the weakest link is the transmission. To my knowledge it is original 243,177 mile transmission. Any idea of the average life of these transmissions or anything I can do to hint towards it's condition? I'd hate to dump all this money into a new motor and have the transmission go out right after. It shifted smoothly...didn't seem like anything was wrong with it if it makes any difference.

Firestorm500

If you're scared of it, rebuild it while the engine is out.

lashonda

All depends on whether or not this shop wants to keep my old motor as a core charge or something. This is something I'd love to do though.


Whenever the transmission goes out I believe it will signal the bell to begin the 4WD conversion..

Firestorm500

If you really want a 4X4 why not sell yours like it is and buy a lower mileage 4X4?

You'll probably be money ahead in the short and long run. And you'll get what you want.

I wouldn't spend the time and money converting. You still have to buy the parts.

A good time to let yours go, I think. Your first loss is the cheapest.

PDEM87

I am with Firestorm. Throw an ad on craigslist and see what you can get out of your jeep as is. You might be suprized. Meanwhile, keep your eyes open for a 4x4.

lashonda

This is something I've been considering. I haven't really been able to find a decent "low mileage" XJ, and I've been without a car for almost a full year now. I'm not willing to try to sell my car and go without a car for a continued period of time. My girlfriend didn't care that we had to use her car for everything for the first couple of months...but after month 10 you can imagine that it would get old.