6Cylinder

$30 aint bad. Im paying $80 for a covered spot for one of my other projects and im bleeding money from that!

Be sure to get a car cover to save that nice body!

Ill let you know my final costs on rebuilding my block when i get it back from the machine shop. Ill basically be rebuilding/replacing everything that isnt broken, bent, chipped, or worn too much.

Stabsthedrama

Cool man good luck with that =)

Hopefully the shop will be able to get the pan dropped and everything looked at by the end of the day, it just arrived there from the tow. At least I have free towing, which I've used plenty with this thing already.

The tow guy even told my wife it sounded exactly like both of his 4.0's did when the pumps went on them (she only started it again for a few seconds) It seems like false hope, and from what I've read it doesn't seem like a very common failure for these.

She had driven maybe 2 miles after the noise started happening, so I really hope the bearings aren't toast or skirts or whatever else can get messed up. We shall see. If its just the pump that'd be pretty sweet. I know these things can take some pretty serious abuse, but an engine swap is not ideal right now, and won't be for quite some time until I have a garage. That's the reason I bought this thing. I got it at 132k... anyone that knows a 4.0 would automatically assume it'd only be maybe 1/2 into it's life if not more, with maybe a head swap sooner or later at worst.

6Cylinder

If youre hearing a knock or tick, something is loose. It could absolutely be a failed oil pump as the pump is just 2 gears that generate the flow of oil. Those gears can become out of sync and have clearance issues. Rods, crankshaft, and the cam have bearings that clearances can become too large on as well.

Just hope for the best and see what the shop says they found. Make an informed decision and get this baby back on the road!

Thanks for the good luck wishes. I have never owned a Jeep before and had mine for all of 3 days before I tore it apart. The drive home from the PO was the worst. Once it warmed up i saw oil pressure drop and my heart sunk. Kept telling myself 'its just an oil pump! its a bad pressure sensor! its just a clogged filter!' but i really knew deep down it wasnt. I have driven my XJ twice. Once to get home and once to change the title in my name. So suffice it to say im anxious to get it back on the road!

The machine shop is reasonable though. (these are ballpark prices as i forget what they said verbatim) $50 to pressure test, $75 to deck the top, $6/cylinder to hone, $75 to polish crank, and $110 to grind it if it cant be polished. Not bad to bring the block back to specs.

Good luck with yours! Let us know what comes from the inspection.

Stabsthedrama

From my rudimentary understanding of engine wear, I'm thinking the oil pressure is just causing loss of oiling, which is in turn causing tick (lifter/rod/whatever) and that's the noise being heard - I didn't really think the oil pump itself would actually even make noise. I figure it's a result of the low pressure. Definitely not a good thing, but I'm staying fairly optimistic. I just hope they can get into it before the end of the day, since the shop is closed tomorrow and I'd rather not be worried about this and not have an idea all weekend.

If I at least know it's fubar I'll start car shopping for her this weekend and figure out storage arrangements for the Jeep. I guess I'll take a quote from them for a replaced engine, but I'd just be humoring them. I'll bite the bullet with storage fees until I can do it myself. That way I'll know what was done and how, save money, and learn some things. If I feel like going crazy maybe I'll even build a stroker.

6Cylinder

You're very right its most likely a bearing issue but with any metal driven gear i leave open a possibility for it to cause a problem. In all reality the likely hood of it being the pump being out of clearance is very low, it still is in fact possible.

Do you think this shop is a good one? The one you took it to that is...

Stabsthedrama

People on this forum seem to take it for granted the types of shops and the prices around my parts (tristate area) - minimum of 75/hour for labor, trying to screw you in any way they can, etc. In those regards, this one is honestly a very good one, yes. In fact it's the same dealership the Jeep was purchased at new back in 1989!

It's a Jeep dealership/repair shop, and they're pretty reasonable. I've been to about 4 other shops with this and the truck for various little things that I either couldn't or didn't want to do, and I was pissed with every one but this one. I mean they only charged me $350 to do the RMS and pan gasket a few weeks ago, and that's damn reasonable as far as I'm concerned. At that point, they would have mentioned seeing anything out of the ordinary when they had the pan down (I would think) unless they really weren't looking at all. I suppose it could have been perfectly fine at that point, but I don't know.

Also, forgot to mention - this same exact symptom happened maybe 3 months ago, I posted here about it. The oil light randomly came on in a parking lot, and it would just whir and sound like a bike wheel with a baseball card in it (somewhat loud tick that would increase with RPM) - I shut it off, turned it back on, it was gone. When I got home (few miles) I turned it off and checked the oil. There was barely any. Now before anyone calls me an idiot - I was monitoring oil levels DAILY at that point, since the RMS/pan gasket needed to be done. Sometimes it wouldn't leak for a few days, other days it would just DUMP randomly. Apparently that was one of those days. I put oil in it, and it was fine ever since. This is why I promptly had the rms/pan done. Since then it hadn't leaked any. It burns it BARELY, I mean like a qt in a month or two at the most, down from about a qt a week before I had the RMS done.

Ever since I got the Jeep (over a year ago) the oil light would flicker at idle every once in awhile when warm just barely, and go away as soon as RPM's would go up. I changed oil pressure switch, and again only ever used WIX filters.

6Cylinder

Sounds like an interesting problem for sure! Dang it, now im getting anxious to hear what they find!

HEAP of JEEP

I guess if you trust the shop, and feel that they are doing things right, then that is what matters.

I'm curious though, did you ever check your oil pressure with a mechanical gauge? I know the sending units do go bad, but it sounds like you've had a pretty long run of oil pressure issues with this vehicle, and I'd be curious to know what pressure you really had.

Firestorm500

When I said $1000 I wasn't trying to upset you. But no matter what you've put into it, I don't see a whole lot of people willing to pay more than that on a 26 year old Cherokee with a blown engine.

If it was a Wrangler, that would be a different story.

My Dad always said, "Son, if you want to play, you've got to pay."

In addition, when the shop had your oil pan off, they weren't looking at the bearings. You can't see inside where the wear surface is, until you tear the engine apart. "Looking" at them from the outside won't help. Somebody once mentioned that the majority of the oil pressure comes from the cam bearings.

That flickering oil pressure light for around a year or so was giving you plenty of warning. All the premium oil and filters in the world will not add material back to the bearings.

Stabsthedrama

So was I, which is why I bought an oil pressure gauge the other day. I was away at jobsites for like the last 2 weeks, and I was going to check the pressure this weekend. I guess it didn't want to wait.

I was for sure concerned about it ever since the beginning, but the fact that I was going through so much oil (burning and/or leaking) was my first concern. Having conquered that, and realizing I was in fact not burning oil (or very little if anything), I saw that the oil pressure was still flickering from time to time, and then bam.....this happens.

HEAP of JEEP

Yeah, stupid work always getting in the way of the important stuff... like working on the Jeep!

I'm curious too, about what the shop will find.

HappyPappy

Sent you a PM.

Stabsthedrama

So, the shop confirmed the engine is fvcked. Said it's unclear what caused it, but at this point who cares.

It's one of those ifs and buts and candy and nuts sorta thing - shoulda coulda woulda with the whole oil pump thing. Maybe that wasn't even it. Maybe it was inevitable. I took care of her the best I physically could. It happens.

Good news is he quoted me a used engine (~100k miles, he said there's a few around) at roughly $1400 all said and done.

To me, after some shopping around (and I've looked around in the past out of curiosity, since I knew there were issues with the engine such as low compression and a lot of blowby) it seems like a good deal. Sure, I could "get another xj at that price" but why take that gamble on a cancer-ridden POS with high mileage? My XJ is spotless and every part outside of the engine is basically swapped out.

To me, it's worth it.

Thoughts?

extrashaky

If by "all said and done" you mean that price includes the motor itself and the labor on the swap, that sounds like a pretty good deal.

HEAP of JEEP

Agreed. Very decent price for a shop if that really includes everything and has some type of warranty on the engine they'll be putting in. At least get 90 days from them, but if they'll give you longer, that's even better.