Cracked block?

I am furious with my mother right now. I replaced the engine in her grand cherokee a few months go because she drove around with a rear main leak and didnt mention it to me until the engine blew.

So I donated the engine out of my cherokee that was up for sale.


Today she blew a heater hose and kept driving.

She called me and said what happened I told her to get to towed and I will be there to check it out.

Replaced the hose and filled the radiator up and I get a steady drip from underneath the crank pulley. I can see it pooling on the lip of the oil pan and dripping down. Everything else is dry.

When I ran it to build pressure in the system it was flowing out.


I am going to go dig my repair manual out if I can still find it but does this sound like a cracked block? It is not the water pump I did that when I swapped the engine and its dry.

Stupid question - drip of what? You don't mention.

Two possibles there - either coolant or engine oil.

Engine oil - probably a blown front main (could have happened due to excess heat.)

Coolant - if it's the 4.0, could be a water pump leak (gasket could have dried out due to the leak and the heat, then dripped/ran down the front of the timing cover after refill.) As I recall, there aren't any coolant passages down there through the timing cover - the water pump screws directly to the engine block.

If it's the V8, then it could be a cracked timing cover, since I think the MOPAR engines use the timing cover as the rear of the water pump housing (but don't hold me to it - it's been a while.)

I'd still check the waterpump relief hole. its a possibility

Sorry it is coolant, Thought I mentioned that but all I said was I filled the radiator...


Tommorrow I will tearing the front apart as most of my tools are at work.

Hopefully it is just the waterpump. I like to expect the worse though so I am pleasantly surprised to something much easier and cheaper as the problem.

And it is a 4.0


It doesnt look like theres a water jacket there either. So hopefully it's just the water pump.

Thanks for the quick replies.

Sounds like the weep hole on the water pump to me.

This has been just amazing...

The weep hole in the water pump was leaking.. on a new pump too *scowl* I don't know if the over heating did that or it just went very prematurely.

So I get it all back together, fill it up and it's leaking again.

Thermostat housing. Pop in a new gasket silicone both sides get it all back together. Leaking again.

There was a small hole in the lower rad hose in the inner layer of the hose. Coolant was being forced inbetween the layers of hose and spraying the back of the water pump. I had the water pump out again and resealed with a new gasket and with that together I could see a tiny stream of water coming up from the outlet.

The entire cooling system except for the block is now new(replaced rad when engine was dropped in). I am going to pop the new hose on in a few mins and I look forward to a leak free engine so hopefully I never have to see it again before it gets traded in a on a new one.

Steev said:

Today she blew a heater hose and kept driving.

Click to expand...

time to tell her to fix her own shit if she's that dumb.

scorpio_vette said:

time to tell her to fix her own shit if she's that dumb.

Click to expand...

Not to ragh on your Mother but, X2