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Things to fix, whats 1st?

aroncull

NAXJA Forum User
Location
North Denver, CO
OK so some maintenance and others are fixes, I need some input on what i should prioritze on. What comes 1st?

-Header is cracker, really cracked @ the collector. Should i also change the 02 sensors while i am at it? its been cracked for 6 months or so maybe longer. When i do the header i will be replacing the intake manifold as well to a 2000 or up.

-radiator leaks, I have yet to overheat but it leaks and alot. I thought that when i do the rad, I think that i should replace the water pump possibly and the hoses are pretty bad off too. AND add a trans cooler and a trans temp gauge. phew thats a mouth full!

seams like everything is leaking under the hood!
-rear main
-oil pan
-valve cover
-radiator
-water pump
there is likely more i dont know where else to look.

- when i priced the valve cover gasket from auto zone it was $90 something. Is that about right? I am not sure if they had it right but it was for the gasket and not the valve cover itself.
I saw that the valve cover in the quadretec catalog [aluminum colored ones] have the gaskets as well and are $90 something there.. so whats up with that?

-Gas tank leaks and the fuel gauge reads wrong
it leaks at the gasket on top of the tank.
It only leaks if i park at a forward facing incline and the tank is full..
i sure dont want to get water in there though.
-replace fuel pump, filter and gasket.

Ok so a total list in no particular order.

-Cracked Header [cat back later, muffler is flowmaster 40 i think]
-Intake manifold
-Radiator and Hoses
-Water pump
-Hi temp Thermostat
-Trans cooler and temp gauge
-Rear main seal
-Oil pan gasketl [see above]
-Oil pump? [rear main, should I?]
-Valve cover and gasket or just the gasket?
-fuel pump, gasket, filter


Ok so the list goes on but these are the important ones related to maitenance and fixes.. not mods...LOL

Sorry for the long post

Aaron
 
hint:
200px-M-67handgrenade.jpg


j/k









Could be wrong, BUT.........
Think I would start with the cooling system.
prevent a meltdown.

Hows the oil pressure?
If you do the rear main...
might be a good idea/cheep insurance to do the oilpump while your there.

90 bucks for a valve cover gasket ?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Glad I dont go to autozone no more!!!!!

O'Reilly Auto Parts sells them for $29.99 for a 99XJ.
http://www.oreillyauto.com/EW3/Prod...keyword=valve cover gasket&descriptionId=3236
 
What appears to be a rear main leak could be the valve cover gasket leaking down the back of the engine. $ 90 for a valve cover gasket, hope theyr'e giving you a kiss and a cigarette aftewards, look around, you'll find way cheaper ones.
 
I'd do the front first, rad, water pump, hoses, tstat, pressurecap, belt, idler pulleys and maybe harmonic balancer, why not, you have the whole front of the motor open, now it's easy.. Before I touched it though I'd put in a 7 hour cooling system flush and run it accordingly then just take it apart. Once the pump is off you can flush the cleaner out thru that big hole the pump sits in...
As a quickie, check your valve cover bolts, valve cover does a good impersonation of a rear seal.
 
I'd agree that the first thing is the cooling system. Get the radiator and water pump right. This is the part of the whole system that is really unstable and likely to strand you or kill your engine. Everything else is more like an annoyance. If the gas tank is leaking, that should come pretty high on the list, but I wouldn't necessarily replace the fuel pump if it doesn't need it. If it's a later model with plastic tank and filter inside, though, you definitely want to do the filter while it's off.

Before digging too far into the engine, you should make sure where it's really leaking, and maybe decide how important it is to stop all the leaks completely. 4.0's tend to leak from various places, but once the real gushers are taken care of, it won't lose much oil even if it makes a mess on the driveway. Especially check the oil filter adapter. It's a nuisance to get the bolt out of the adapter, but the O-rings are under 6 bucks from the dealer, and once you get the bolt loosened, the job is dead easy. My 95 really did lose a lot of oil from that leak, which looked much like a rear main leak. Once that was fixed, it was back to a bunch of other small seeps and drips that are really not worth the effort to fix. But that really depends on how sanitary you like your engine to be. At 260K, I don't care whether my 95 is housebroken or not as long as I don't have to carry oil by the case. You should also make sure your crankcase vent system is working properly, because pressure will make it leak worse.

Exhaust manifold is probably a good idea, depending on how badly it leaks, but the rest I would think is really pretty much optional. There's no pressing reason to do the oil pump if it's delivering good pressure now, and ditto the fuel pump. I'm not sure why the intake manifold, but that is presumably a performance issue, more a mod than maintenance. Trans cooler is always a good idea, but again it's not a thing you need to address right away unless you're planning to tow something big.
 
I'd fix the leaks first - those are usually the biggest issues, and mask others.

As far as your valve cover gasket, try these numbers at the local...

1987-1995 4.0 - Fel-Pro VS50022C, or equivalent
1996-2004 4.0 - Fel-Pro VS50458R, or equivalent.

I'd be surprised if either cost you more than, say, $15.

5-90
 
5-90 said:
1996-2004 4.0 - Fel-Pro VS50458R, or equivalent.

I too, went to autozone to find this part.

They looked it up and said it was $60, and that they didn't have one - but the AZ a couple miles away did.

I went across the street to Advance, and they too wanted $60.

I went down to the AZ a couple miles away, they looked up the same part, and it was $30

:huh:

You ever wonder why the parts stores are all so particular about you entering a zip code when you search for parts online ....
 
Last edited:
Awesome guys thanks for the support!

OK so i will go for the front of the engine 1st as well as the valve cover gasket. then i will go for the fuel system.
If i wash the engine down with engine cleaner/degreaser i will hopefully find the leaks as they seem to be coming from both sides of the engine bay and the front for the coolant [duh!]. Now i am not even a shadetree mech at this point. I have done, wires/plugs, oil changes and all other bolt on's like bumpers and rockers, skids...

Ayways i have read and reread the process for swapping out the rad, the water pump and installing a tranny cooler and guage. [jeepin.com thanks Jason!!] RichP i see you recommend that i also do the "pressurecap, belt, idler pulleys and maybe harmonic balancer"

Not to sound like a total newb but the pressurecap:
which one? not the one on the rad? I figured the radiator will come with a new one... maybe its.. well i dont know please advise.

belt: i figure you mean the serpentine belt as i dont think there are anyother belts in there [whoa heavy newbness flowing] ;-)

Idler pulley's? um yeah i dont know

And last but not least the Harmonic balancer, I know nothing of this thing...

Ok so 1st i will say that i will search the forums and google for the above items as well as the hayes manual i have. But i wanted to mention that i have no experiance with these repairs. Looking for advise on whether i should attemp some of these other things... um yeah ill post more later.. sorry for long answer

Thanks again guys

Aaron
 
You don't mention any year so I'm just basing it off my 98.
The new radiator does NOT come with a new cap. Make sure the lower hose has a spring in it, actually if you get the hoses from the dealer, upper, lower, both heater hoses the heater hoses will already have the new clamps on them.
The harmonic balancer is all the way at the bottom of the motor, it's the bottom most pulley, the consist of a core, rubber center webbing and then the pulley, the rubber rots/breaks/degrades and the pulley will start to move in or out, bad thing, move in and it eats the timing cover, out the rad shroud. Once you have everything out of the way and you can look at it you will see it has a woodruff key, remove the key first and don't loose it, it keeps the harmonic balancer from spinning on the end of the crankshaft...
Three good investments, Factory service manual for your year XJ, about $90 or so, heavy duty big long $30 1/2' twist type torque wrench, AA and most parts stores sell them, big long 18" to 24" long 1/2" breaker bar, you don't use a torque wrench to loosen stuff, only tighten. Large bottle of copper based anti-seize, the aluminum silver stuff is OK but the copper is better and generally needs to be ordered, though your local NAPA might have it in stock.
Idler pulleys, on my 98 there is one and it's the one used to adjust the belt, they are just a bearing inside a wheel, cheap to replace, about $15 at the dealer. On our non air conditioned TJ's there are two.
 
aroncull said:
Awesome guys thanks for the support!

OK so i will go for the front of the engine 1st as well as the valve cover gasket. then i will go for the fuel system.
If i wash the engine down with engine cleaner/degreaser i will hopefully find the leaks as they seem to be coming from both sides of the engine bay and the front for the coolant [duh!]. Now i am not even a shadetree mech at this point. I have done, wires/plugs, oil changes and all other bolt on's like bumpers and rockers, skids...

Ayways i have read and reread the process for swapping out the rad, the water pump and installing a tranny cooler and guage. [jeepin.com thanks Jason!!] RichP i see you recommend that i also do the "pressurecap, belt, idler pulleys and maybe harmonic balancer"

Not to sound like a total newb but the pressurecap:
which one? not the one on the rad? I figured the radiator will come with a new one... maybe its.. well i dont know please advise.

belt: i figure you mean the serpentine belt as i dont think there are anyother belts in there [whoa heavy newbness flowing] ;-)

Idler pulley's? um yeah i dont know

And last but not least the Harmonic balancer, I know nothing of this thing...

Ok so 1st i will say that i will search the forums and google for the above items as well as the hayes manual i have. But i wanted to mention that i have no experiance with these repairs. Looking for advise on whether i should attemp some of these other things... um yeah ill post more later.. sorry for long answer

Thanks again guys

Aaron

New rad. will probably not come with a pressure cap. New ones are cheap, so just get the correct one for the model.

Belt - yes, the serpentine belt. You need to take this off to do the water pump anyway. Now's the time for a new one unless you know the history of yours.

Idler pulleys: When the belt is off, give them a spin to test for play or roughness. The little pulleys are pretty cheap and failure is expensive. If they're all right, they're all right, but if not, just go ahead and do it.

Harmonic balancer: That's the big pulley on the front end of the crankshaft. These use a rubber core between the hub and the outer pulley sheave, and over time this rubber can deteriorate, causing it to wobble, and eventually even to fail and come apart. Check it carefully. Opinions differ on replacing this routinely. I have had 3 Jeeps of my own, and a couple of others in the family, including 3 that went well over 200 thousand miles, without ever experiencing a harmonic balancer failure. My current 95 has over 260K on its original one, and the 99 shows on sign of problems at 152K. Others, however, have had the sheave come loose and kill the engine, wear through the front timing cover, etc. etc. So I would not recommend automatically replacing one that's clearly not rotten, but check it carefully. Unfortunately, since your water pump is already bad, you may not be able to distinguish what wobbles and what does not just by looking. A healthy harmonic balancer may show a little bit of wobble when running, but a severe wobble or obvious mistracking of the belt at the crankshaft pulley should be looked at most carefully. It's not a terribly hard job to replace this, and though not cheap it isn't cripplingly expensive, but it does require a puller, a seal replacement, etc. If it is bad, the best time to do it is when you have the radiator and belt off already, since you'll have to do that to replace it later too. But if it looks all right, I'd leave it alone.

When you do the water pump, beware of the threaded-in fitting for the heater hose. This can be a real bear to get off the old pump, and when you do get it off, make sure you very carefully clean the threads and thread it in properly, and make sure it isn't mangled and deformed. My son did his water pump recently, had a terrible time getting the old one off, and because he didn't clean up the old threads with seized-on aluminum in them, chewed up the threads in the new pump, which then leaked. He ended up having to get another pump and a new pipe nipple. And he's not that bad a mechanic usually! You might even consider getting a new nipple right from the start. It ought to be included with the pump but it isn't.
 
awesome guys!
thanks again.
Ok so how about the header.. when i get to that should i also do the o2 sensors?

Im sure ill have more Q,s later.. thanks!
Aaron
 
Matthew Currie said:
When you do the water pump, beware of the threaded-in fitting for the heater hose. This can be a real bear to get off the old pump, and when you do get it off, make sure you very carefully clean the threads and thread it in properly, and make sure it isn't mangled and deformed. My son did his water pump recently, had a terrible time getting the old one off, and because he didn't clean up the old threads with seized-on aluminum in them, chewed up the threads in the new pump, which then leaked. He ended up having to get another pump and a new pipe nipple. And he's not that bad a mechanic usually! You might even consider getting a new nipple right from the start. It ought to be included with the pump but it isn't.

That's why I just replace the damn thing with brass. As I recall, it's threaded 3/8" NPT, and you can get a short brass nipple from the hardware store (or do what I did - go whole hawg and just replace most of the heater hoses with copper and brass...)

Don't bother reusing that steel nipple, and I wouldn't bother replacing it with black pipe or galvanised cast - just get brass. You'll feel better by the time you're done...

5-90
 
I replaced the valve cover gasket on a '91 about three months ago and got it from a
AutoZone in TN. It cost me $3.99!!! It was a cork gasket that I was not very happy with, and have since learned Napa has one that is metal and rubber for about $40. Also check the oil filter adapter (3 o-rings from dealer---about $10)
 
Sorry guys wa pouring crete this mornin...
Yes it is a 1997 4.0L I6 125K that is leaking everywhere but not alot.. just as much as well....a Jeep LOL

From Advanced Auto last night i got
Valve cover Gasket $29.99 [ Price match to Autozone ]
List had it @ $62!!

I also got a Breaker bar 1/2"
and a torque wrench 1/2"
10" extender
Gasket Scaper
and some other odds and ends...

Yeah im going after the valve cover 1st... that way i get a little practice and also clean up the engine a bit....

thanks guys!
 
Just be careful removing that valve cover, keep a shop vac handy with a crevice tool on it [the narrow pointy one for getting in cracks]. Once the cover is off any pieces of sludge that break loose HAVE to be vacumed up or they will end up in the oil pan and block the oil pump pickup. If you decide to clean the sludge up from the valve train area work the shop vac and a PLASTIC scraper tool together.
If the cover is stuck on with RTV use a sharp knife to cut the stuff, don't overly pry on the cover or you will warp it.. One thing I would recommend, get a small bottle of permatex "Indian Head Gasket cement' little 2 oz bottle with an applicator in the cap. put the new gasket on the freshly cleaned cover, put a thin coat of the indian head on one side and stick the gasket on, let it dry, it will help improve the seal.
When you do the water pump take the new gasket, put indian head gasket cement on one side and glue it to the water pump, it does not have to be put on thick, just evenly. Then once it's dry put a thin coat on the other side then install the water pump.
Also, when you remove the water pump, you need to loosen the idler pulley, thats the little wheel under the power steering pump that the belt rides on, the adjuster for that is that silver bolt that looks out of place, that bolt moves the idler pulley up and down, you want to move it down, up tightens it. Then once the belt is free and off remove the idler pulley and don't loose the washer. Now reach down under that bracket, you will feel a bar that goes back to the engine block with a nut on it, remove that nut, that will allow that whole bracket to move out of the way. If you get lazy and try to slip the pump into place you will tear the new gasket and the pump will leak [ask me how I know :D ] and you will be left having to get another gasket. Also once the old pump is off and the block is nice and clean from the gasket scraper, stick a towel or two in that hole and soak up all that water in there with the cylinders, you don't want to get the gasket wet either or it will fall apart...
 
RichP- Thanks for the heads up.. ill post my reactions when i pull the cover off...
got a few more things to pick up at teh store before i move forward..
Have anythoughts on the O2 sesors when i do the header [Banks TT]
Its still a way off but i like to figure stuff out ahead of time as much as possible..


Thanks!
 
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