is my engine locked up?

ok so, for the past few days when i would go to crank my engine it was kind of sluggish starting. i didn't think too much about it until today. i checked my oil today and noticed some water on the dipstick. so i go to walmart; everything was running fine. when i get back out to leave, it wont start. it clicked like the battery was dead. i had a friend jump me off, but i realized the gage said it was charged. i took the battery out to take it in to get it tested. they said it was a good batery (407 cold cranking amps). i just replaced the starter about 6 months ago, so i don't think it is that (but hopefully it is).
so this brings me back to the water on the dipstick thing. i have been leaking a lot of oil from the rear main seal since i got the jeep. i put in about 2 quarts every couple of weeks. i have never noticed water on the dipstick before. this has got me worried. i left the jeep there for the night. its dark now so i can't look at it right now, but what do you guys think? blown head gasket? engine locked up? what do you think?

water on oil dipstick is not good

how is the anti-freeze in the radiator? is it up?

A little water on the dipstick could be from condensation. If there's foamy scum on the dipstick, it's more worrisome. But if you suspect a bad head gasket it would be worthwhile checking the compression or at least running a vacuum gauge on it. Sometimes a bad gasket will cause intermittent hydrolocking in one cylinder. When that happens, it will seem to stall the starter, but once it gets past that one cylinder it will crank fine. Any sign of diminishing coolant, or white smoke from exhaust?

ok so i have been losing coolant, but i was thinking it was from a leak that i have at the drain plug on the radiator.

Other than the obvious water, how did the oil look? Did it sorta resemble a chocolate milkshake?

Something tells me you've got a bad head gasket....

Pull the plugs and see how they look, then try cranking while the plugs are out. I bet you have a cylinder with antifreeze in it and it will come gushing out.

With a leak like that, the engine will last forever! Never-ending oil change

Blaine B. said:

With a leak like that, the engine will last forever! Never-ending oil change

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haha. thats what i tell people. me and my dad were supposed to go look at it and do the spark plug thing today. but, for some reason he had it towed to the shop intstead.

on a completely unrelated subject.... anybody got a low mileage 4.0 they wanna sell?

How simple is a compression test? I saw a compression tester at auto zone for not too much maybe $30 and was curious to give it a shot. Im assuming you just screw it in to where the spark plug goes and then disconnect the main wire to the distributor and crank it using the battery?? I think ive been slowly losing coolant and im a little worried. Would having a slightly bad head gasket make it seem to drive normal but with a loss in performance?

Drive normal and loss in performance should not be used in the same sentence! A local guy's 01 XJ just blew a head gasket yesterday at about 108,000 miles.....it was abrupt! Although I don't if he had a prior power loss from it, when it did go his coolant temp shot way up and his engine was "shaking around" and steaming. For some reason he continued to drive it for about 8 minutes, he said. No no!

I'd say yes, though, a small head gasket leak would give you a loss in performance without any other warnings/signs.

BBeach said:

How simple is a compression test? I saw a compression tester at auto zone for not too much maybe $30 and was curious to give it a shot. Im assuming you just screw it in to where the spark plug goes and then disconnect the main wire to the distributor and crank it using the battery?? I think ive been slowly losing coolant and im a little worried. Would having a slightly bad head gasket make it seem to drive normal but with a loss in performance?

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compression testing is....simple but you have to check all the cylinder's the same way.
for example if you pull the #1 spark plug out and check it for compression and the pull all the rest of the plugs out before checking the rest you will not get a true reading.

Pull on plug at a time or all before you test or block the throttle wide open....or not. the compression ####are not as imported as the comparison between cylinder are.!

Pic a method and stick with it......at least till you have compression of all 6 cylinder.

O, and add a battery charger to it ,and have a fully charged battery before you start!
Make sure that you crank the eng over the same amount of times, x amount of sec., x amount of revolutions EXC. for each cylinder.

flash.


O and look around for green moss.. coolant leaks are way more common around the eng. and eng compartment then a head gasket.

now if you ran it low and over heated the eng.......then you have reason to suspect that the loss of coolant could be from a bad head, head gasket.

Flash said:

compression testing is....simple but you have to check all the cylinder's the same way.
for example if you pull the #1 spark plug out and check it for compression and the pull all the rest of the plugs out before checking the rest you will not get a true reading.

Pull on plug at a time or all before you test or block the throttle wide open....or not. the compression ####are not as imported as the comparison between cylinder are.!

Pic a method and stick with it......at least till you have compression of all 6 cylinder.

O, and add a battery charger to it ,and have a fully charged battery before you start!
Make sure that you crank the eng over the same amount of times, x amount of sec., x amount of revolutions EXC. for each cylinder.

flash.


O and look around for green moss.. coolant leaks are way more common around the eng. and eng compartment then a head gasket.

now if you ran it low and over heated the eng.......then you have reason to suspect that the loss of coolant could be from a bad head, head gasket.

Click to expand...

I was always taught to pull them all. It's easier on the starter and produces full speed cranking, and also doesn't load up any cylinders with fuel. And yes, count the revolutions.