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How long does she have?

chris94xj

NAXJA Forum User
Location
columbia mo
This is my first post here, someone over a jeepforum.com suggested I visit here sometime. Well my xj has given me years of loyal service with 240,000 miles, but I think she has had enough. I am burning/ leaking oil at an alarming rate, probably a quart and a half every 3 weeks or so. Leaks just about everything else, coolant, differential fluid, tranny fluid is brownish black.

I just cant keep up with fixing everything anymore, on top of that Im a poor college student and dont even have anywhere to work on it. I cant decide If i should fix it all or sell it when the engine blows. It has some sentimental value as it was my fathers and he passed away about a year ago, so I really want to keep it. How can I squeeze some more life out of this thing until I have the money to fix it? Any tips or comments would be greatly appreciated.
 
First, find out if it's burning or leaking it. If it's burning that is bad news, but leaking... just keep it full! When you have time/money, fix the leaks. My MJ currently leaks about a quart every 150-250 miles but runs like a top.

Any bad noises from the engine? Any blue smoke from the tailpipe? How's the oil pressure?

If it's a 4.0L engine and it's not making any bad noises and hasn't been hydrolocked, it'll probably do another hundred thousand no problem.
 
I pretty sure its burning an leaking, I put another quart in today and opened the oil cap and can see smoke rising out of it. There are no weird noises coming from it and no smoke at the tail. Yes its the 4.0 straight 6. Oil pressure is about 30psi idling and about 40-50 when cursing.
 
No smoke at the tail makes me think it's just leaking it. Smoke rising out of the oil fill cap generally is just blowby vapor and regular crankcase vapors, unless it's a significant amount. Oil pressure sounds fine too, all of mine are at 40psi running and 10-30psi idling depending on temp and which one I'm driving.

I'm betting you'll be fine for a long, long time. Find the coolant leaks, repair as necessary; replace any seals needed on the diffs (leaking from where? cover/fill plug? pinion seal? wheel seals?), top off fluids as necessary.

The tranny could probably use a fluid flush, but if it's not slipping and lurching and shifts fine, just don't drive it like it's a racecar and it should hold together till you have the money to deal with it.
 
Have you bothered looking underneath the Jeep to see if it is leaking or not? Usually you can tell it is leaking if she marked her territory with a huge black stain on the pavement. If you have the time, definitely try to fix the leak. Oil isn't expensive per say but it does add up eventually to the cost of a seal.
 
No smoke at the tail makes me think it's just leaking it. Smoke rising out of the oil fill cap generally is just blowby vapor and regular crankcase vapors, unless it's a significant amount. Oil pressure sounds fine too, all of mine are at 40psi running and 10-30psi idling depending on temp and which one I'm driving.

I'm betting you'll be fine for a long, long time. Find the coolant leaks, repair as necessary; replace any seals needed on the diffs (leaking from where? cover/fill plug? pinion seal? wheel seals?), top off fluids as necessary.

The tranny could probably use a fluid flush, but if it's not slipping and lurching and shifts fine, just don't drive it like it's a racecar and it should hold together till you have the money to deal with it.


That's great to hear, thanks for the help!
 
Have you bothered looking underneath the Jeep to see if it is leaking or not? Usually you can tell it is leaking if she marked her territory with a huge black stain on the pavement. If you have the time, definitely try to fix the leak. Oil isn't expensive per say but it does add up eventually to the cost of a seal.


Yes I am sure it is leaking oil, it looks like the oil pan gasket. It doesn't look to hard to replace and I'm getting tired of putting in oil every couple weeks or so.
 
A lot of leaks look like the oil pan gasket. First thing should probably be to make sure the pan is not just coming loose. But it helps if you can clean things up a little and trace the oil. It's pretty common for the oil filter adapter to leak from aged o-rings. Because that's pressurized, it can leak pretty fast once it gets going. Aside from occasional difficulty getting the bolt loose (several threads here about that, and the tools needed), it's a pretty easy job, and the O-rings themselves are cheap.

but as others have said, if it's just leaking, just keep adding oil until you have time to diagnose it, and as long as you keep ahead of the leak, it will be fine.
 
I agree with what everyone said. just keep adding until you have time to fix it. As for the trans, be careful when changing bad fluid. on a trans with that many miles, it sometimes will run just fine on the old fluid because it is actually used to it. new fluid changes the environment inside and it doesnt like it and it go boom. If the oil is still reddish/clear, than i would go ahead and change it. but if its pretty gross and brown, just leave it.
 
I agree with what everyone said. just keep adding until you have time to fix it. As for the trans, be careful when changing bad fluid. on a trans with that many miles, it sometimes will run just fine on the old fluid because it is actually used to it. new fluid changes the environment inside and it doesnt like it and it go boom. If the oil is still reddish/clear, than i would go ahead and change it. but if its pretty gross and brown, just leave it.
That's an urban legend to some degree... I have never killed a transmission with new fluid, nor seen it happen. Generally people bring a vehicle in that's already giving them transmission issues and see if a flush fixes it, and it doesn't because the tranny was already too far gone.

A new AW-4 around here runs 75 to 150 dollars on the NAXJA classifieds or 120 or so at the junkyard, untested. Try it, if the transmission blows up anyways, toss a new one in. Hell, if you have space, buy a new one to keep as a spare and stick it in storage, having a backup plan is never a bad thing.
 
Just do a drain and fill on the tranny. I doubt the oil pan gasket is leaking, but rather the valve cover gasket or rear main seal. These 4.0 engines all leak, but they run for a long time. My '93 just hit 242,000.
 
Your CCV system is likely plugged and contributing to your oil loss at the engine seals and likely if you check the air filter it is saturated.

There is an orifice in the rear of the valve cover, use a still wire to make sure it is open, then the vacuum line that runs to the intake manifold, blow through it to make sure it is clear, and then check the port on the intake manifold, use the stiff wire again.

Also make sure the filtered fresh air intake to the front of the valve cover is not collapsed or blocked.

Other than that, like the others said, clean up the mess and monitor things so you can locate the problem and only fix those things needing it--a little money goes a lot further when you don't waste it on unnecessary repairs.
 
According to the guys who rebuilt my Chevy transmission, it's not new fluid that old boxes don't like, but the power flushing, which can dislodge stuff that's best left where it was. I'd go for a simple drain and fill (skip the filter too), which will only replace part of the fluid, but freshen it up some.
 
According to the guys who rebuilt my Chevy transmission, it's not new fluid that old boxes don't like, but the power flushing, which can dislodge stuff that's best left where it was. I'd go for a simple drain and fill (skip the filter too), which will only replace part of the fluid, but freshen it up some.

this is all true but i wouldnt skip the filter... you dont skip the filter on your engine do you? changing the filter wont dislodge anything so might as well change it to be safe
 
this is all true but i wouldnt skip the filter... you dont skip the filter on your engine do you? changing the filter wont dislodge anything so might as well change it to be safe
The filter on this one is a flat metal screen, rather than a proper filter, and it rarely clogs. In addition, the pan has to come off and the dipstick tube pulled apart. I did it once on my 87 when it hit about 175K miles, and found a tiny bit of stuff in one corner -maybe a quarter teaspoon full. The rest of the filter was clean as a whistle, and I had wasted nearly 30 bucks on the filter, as well as struggling with the rusted dipstick tube, etc. I wouldn't bother with the filter if things are working all right now.
 
Yeah, the filter on the AW-4 is just a screen, don't bother unless you like cursing the dipstick tube as it plays hard-to-get for several hours. It's good to drop the pan if you want to find out how much metal is sitting in the bottom of it, but I've only seen it two ways - nearly clean, tranny doing fine; and full of chunks of metal, pickup magnets looking like chia pets, flakes of friction material everywhere... tranny barely working, overheating, slipping, etc.
 
i've had a couple jeeps with well over 300k on the odometer, and although they did leak a little bit of oil, they still ran great, and are still running great for the people i sold them to. the only thing i've ever done to a 4.0 that messed it up was hydrolocked it in deep water, and it still ran for a good 40,000 miles after that until i pulled it out in favor of a newer one! i did have one that i hydrolocked and it never recovered form electrical problems that insued, though, even after a motor swap.
just keep plenty of fluids in yours and drive it like a jeep with 240,000 miles on it, and just keep an eye and an ear out for things going bad, and you'll have your xj for a long, long time, brotha.
 
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