I should have been in Chicago on Sunday, but instead I sit utterly defeated here at my house in Troy, Michigan. I’m covered in oil and coolant; lack of sleep has sprouted saggy bags under my eyes, which now stare blankly into this screen as my fingers bang out the words you’re reading with little input from my now barely-functioning brain. I have been defeated. All day Saturday and Sunday — the entirety of my weekend — involved me, a former Jeep cooling system engineer, being absolutely decimated by an overheating Jeep Cherokee XJ. I’m thoroughly annoyed, I’m thoroughly tired, and the buyer of this Jeep Cherokee may be thoroughly screwed.
I cannot even think back to the last weekend where I wasn’t fixing something. Truly, I think at least 90 percent of my non-travel weekends between age 24 and 31 (well, in two months) have involved wrenching on a shitbox. That’s seven years of my youth occupied by the ol’ wrench.
You’d think that the result of a youth spent with machines and not people my age would be an ability to fix damn near anything. And every now and then, like when I — even encumbered by a case of trenchfoot — revived a 1958 Willys FC that had sat for decades, I do begin to wonder if I’m hot shit with a toolset. But more often than not, any budding cockiness is swiftly crushed by the wrenching gods before it ever sprouts; that’s what happened this weekend.
It was a simple cylinder head job; I’d conducted the job four times prior, so I wasn’t anticipating any trouble from the beautiful 1991 Jeep Cherokee five-speed that I’d sold to the family that had ordered the Jeep from the factory way back in 1990. Sadly, 20 minutes after the buyer left with the title (no money has exchanged hands, she was going to wire it to me) to head back to Chicago, she told me the Jeep had overheated.
It was a tough call to get, because the amount of work I’d done to this XJ since going through hell to buy it back in 2018 — just to get it into selling shape — is shocking; The fact that the Jeep still isn’t finished made my heart sink. I was inching towards freedom; soon I’d no longer be weighed down physically and emotionally by American iron, but the AMC gods thought differently, and shoved the 9/16 swivel-head ratchet wrench right back into my hand.
You’ll understand why I was so bummed when you look at this list of repairs I made prior to the sale in April:
- Replaced front left fender (which I had professionally painted)
- Replaced front left fender flare (which I had professionally painted)
- Replaced front left fender liner
- Replaced front bumper (which I had professionally painted)
- Replaced rear bumper (which I had professionally painted)
- Replaced front axle
- Replaced front axle u-joints
- Replaced front ball joints
- Replaced steering tie rod ends
- Replaced steering drag link
- Replaced steering intermediate shaft
- Replaced steering box
- Replaced control arm bushings on front axle
- Replaced front axle seals
- Replaced front axle disconnect motor
- Replaced front wheel bearings
- Replaced front brake pads
- Replaced front left wheel
- Replaced all four tires
- Replaced all four shocks
- Replaced rear leaf springs
- Replaced driver’s seat
- Replaced driver’s door check-strap
- Fixed rear hatch interior trim
- Replaced front windshield wiper motor/transmission
- Replaced engine computer
- Replaced radio
Holy crap that’s a lot of work, and for what? So I could store the vehicle (which I considered the most perfect Jeep ever made when I bought it, with plans to keep it forever) for four years and only drive it a total of maybe 50 miles.
This XJ Cherokee ownership experience has been a failure in every way. I haven’t driven the Jeep, I’ve spent years fixing it, and once I finally had all of those repairs done and I thought I could finally part ways with this mechanical menace that had haunted me for far too long, the XJ decided to come right back and kick me one last time. And this time I’d be on the receiving end of the most painful blow yet.
After the Jeep overheated 20 minutes into the buyer’s (that’s Tracy) drive, she drove back in the car she’d piloted to Michigan, and I’d agreed to mend the engine. I heard a fairly loud knocking sound coming from the bottom of the motor, but once I learned that this was just the water pump banging around a bad bearing, I felt at ease. I could replace a water pump. Unfortunately, the Jeep wasn’t running properly; a compression check confirmed that the cylinder head had failed, and a machine shop later confirmed that it had cracked.
That brought me to this past weekend.
I had a freshly-shaved cylinder head ready to go, along with a new cylinder head gasket, new head bolts, a new water pump, a new thermostat, and a bunch of other replacement parts that typically accompany a head-job. After lapping the valves and swapping the valve stem seals for good measure, I threw the new head gasket onto the cleaned-off deck:
Then I maneuvered the absurdly heavy cylinder head onto the engine. I’ll admit that I didn’t get it aligned perfectly, and had to slide both the head on top of the gasket as well as the gasket on top of the deck. But the surfaces were smooth, and everything slid easily until I could get all my head bolts tightened up.
There’s a specific sequence one has to follow when tightening cylinder head bolts. It’s all about making sure that the head squishes down evenly on that gasket. I followed protocol, and then fastened up a new water pump and thermostat, hooked up the intake and exhaust manifolds, bolted up the power steering pump, slid the belt back on, connected the ignition system, filled the cooling system, and did a whole bunch more to get the Jeep finally ready to fire up.
After an initial ground strap issue, the Jeep followed the request from that ignition switch in the gray Saginaw Steering column and sprung to life. The motor sounded good. So that’s it, right? I’ve fixed the failed cylinder head, now the Jeep is ready to go to a new owner.
No.
As I said before, this Jeep is a menace. You see that list of nearly 30 parts I’ve already had to replace? This XJ is going to make sure the count hits 50. It is on a mission to take the remaining scraps of my youth and turn it into busted knuckles and oily bedsheets.
Despite my new water pump, thermostat, and radiator cap, the Jeep keeps overheating, especially at a long standing idle. Steady-state conditions where I keep speeds below 50 mph, it’ll run cool seemingly indefinitely, but crank the speeds up to 75 or come to an idle, and the need whips clockwise towards the dreaded red.
After buying a special funnel to ensure that the system was completely deaerated, I broke out a bunch of tools to determine what’s going on. The first was a radiator pressure tester. I screwed it onto my radiator, pumped the cooling system up to my radiator cap’s 13 PSI rating, and waited.
The needle fell, indicating that I have a leak somewhere. Sadly, that leak does not appear to be external, as even a close inspection of the radiator, water pump housing, and thermostat housing shows no dripping ethylene-glycol mixture.
The second tool I used was a “block tester” (shown on the left), which basically involves pouring a blue detection fluid into a cylinder, shoving that cylinder into the radiator, and sucking air from the cooling system through the blue fluid. If there are combustion gases in the coolant, they will turn the blue detection fluid yellow, meaning there’s a head or head gasket issue. My test fluid remained blue.
I also broke out my compression gauge, finding all cylinders to read between 100 psi and 120 psi — these are below the 120 to 150 spec, but maybe the gauge isn’t reading right. What’s more important with compression tests is consistency across all cylinders, and my engine has that, and does not burn any oil.
That brings me to the real problem: The motor does gain oil.
Yes, my oil reading on my dipstick is increasing. Between that and my lack of cooling system pressure, I suspect an internal problem. Do I have a cracked block? Did I somehow screw up my head installation? Maybe my bolts bottomed out or my gasket scuffed during installation? I don’t know the answer to these questions.
I may send an oil sample out to Blackstone Labs to have them confirm that it is indeed coolant in my oil and that I am indeed utterly screwed. Until them, I’m going to make a few other adjustments, maybe add some fuel injector cleaner to my fuel (lest I have an injector that’s leaking gas into my oil), tighten some hose clamps, and possibly thread a mechanical temperature gauge into my cylinder head for a more reliable reading.
This Jeep has been a nightmare since I bought it off that used-car lot in Indianapolis in 2018. I was lured by its beauty, its manual transmission, its awesome vent windows — but as they say, it’s what’s inside that counts, and this Jeep is rotten to the radiator core. Just yesterday while trying to suss out this cooling issue, I learned of a failed upper control arm weld, so I’ll be replacing that, too.
Have mercy Jeep gods. Let this just be a bad injector and a loose hose clamp. I don’t want to lift that heavy cylinder head off that engine. I really, really don’t. More importantly, I want to deliver Tracy a reliable Jeep; she’s in a pickle right now, as she was expecting this machine to work, and has no other car to get around. So the pressure is on.
Agree with this. The oil level explanation seems very plausible and those CTS fail regularly and in bizarre ways.
get the title back and let her buy something else while you figure this one out.
“…she’s in a pickle right now, as she was expecting this machine to work…”
Why in the world would she do that?
lol!
ALRIGHT…. lets be sensible here:
We are talking about a Jeep XJ.
We are talking about a very sensible man… who has gone a bit crazy… and now he thinks… like the rest of us who get so fixated in a spot that we cant figure out which way is up.
I SPENT 4hrs.. staring at my drill bit after I just drilled out a Disc Screw.. worrying if I had permentantly fucked up my whatchitwhoosit. Logic and Sense had both taken a vacation, I was left with OH FUCK and or Im going to Hell. Neither of which… mind you is going to get my wheels back on and my car going again.
In short… because I am very OCD, ADHD, ADD… among a dozen other things….
What kind of Pickle?
Dill, flavored.. relish, 1/8″ sliced, 1/4″ sliced, are we talking pickle chips, pickle slices…
Ugh I hate repairs gone wrong. I had a ‘67 El Camino that would overheat constantly.. after rebuilding the cooling system and building a proper shroud on the radiator it still had the same issue. We sold it not long after that, I miss how silly it was as a vehicle but by god did I hate messing with it.
As you well know David, I have an endless capacity for idiotic questions. Today’s is, did you gain oil after it got warm? I have a TDI wherein every time I change the oil and refill it right to the dipstick mark, as soon as the oil gets good and hot I get a reduce oil level warning. It’s clearly expanding enough with heat to trip the warning. You may not actually be gaining oil. End of dumb question 1.
Dumb question number 2 is, could the old water pump have thrown a chunk(s) of metal which are blocking flow? I don’t know if the flow direction goes from the pump to the radiator or to the block, but if it goes to the radiator, then I’d just buy a new radiator and swap it out. You’ve replaced just about everything else. It could also have sprung a pinhole leak and if it’s near the top of the radiator, you’ll never know it. If the flow goes to the block, then maybe use a bore camera to look for blockages.
Just trying to help.
Starting to think this is a a radiator flow issue. Seen this happen a lot. May be time for a new one.
It took me years of similar “adventures” to cure my “love” of British sports cars. I’ll never look at one again. I still loving wrenching, but the thing I want most is a pristine, rust free chassis to shove an LS into. Maybe even a Jeep, but it would have to be rust free or have a rust free aftermarket body on order.
I enjoyed my time with rusty old British cars, most of which was wrenching on them in a garage, a driveway, or all too frequently, on the side of the road. I enjoyed the adventures, but I didn’t enjoy that time nearly as much as I would’ve enjoyed driving a more reliable vehicle.
I love your dedication to rusty old Jeeps, but I have a feeling that before long, you will decide that driving is more important than being on your back with a tool in your hands. I have confidence that your writing will be just as great for this site, even if you never save another car from the crusher.
Mostly, I think you need to stop idolizing your Craigslist finds, and exercise a little patience. Pick better examples. Don’t worry, they’ll still need plenty of work done on them. And finish at least one up before moving on to the next.
Very well said. Something magical happens when any of these three happen. I think it mostly has to do with more appreciation for the value of your limited time:
1. You get married
2. You have children
3. You cross into your 30’s
For me the hook is his quixotic quest to do everything as cheaply as possible … even if it costs more in the long run. Don’t change DT.
Props for using quixotic. Not quite defenestration levels of awesome words but still quite good.
I am slowly starting to feel this way about my eternal project car, a 1972 VW Super Beetle. I’ve had it since I was 11, and I’m 29 now, so it’s not like I’m going to get rid of it. It’s been a running, driving project for most of the time, excluding the cheap repaint I had done in high school and the engine rebuild I did a few years back. I love doing my own work…but I think I’m going to draw the line at welding. It has extensive rust, enough to make David proud. It’s probably safe enough for just driving around town, which is all I do with it.
Honestly, I just want to drive the damn thing. I’m tired of replacing worn out 50 year old parts, or trying to get just a little more life out of some of them. If I had the money now, I’d gladly pay someone to put everything else right on the car, namely the rust. I wouldn’t mind adjusting those awful drum brakes if it wasn’t an experience that involved getting showered in rust and filth. The yearly tune up wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to get under my car and look at the rust that’s slowly eating it.
People tell me that the Beetle must be easier to work on than late-model cars. But I’ll take a late model car over the Beetle most of the time. Because I’m not battling RUST and age-related failures that come from driving a car about 40 years past it’s intended service life. So what am I doing? Saving money, and halfway hoping my father decides to help me out with the rest of the restoration when he retires.
This is the correct advice. I’ve had 4 project vehicles and the ones I’ve had the most enjoyment out of were the ones that I could drive.
-My 1969 Scout had a rust free body (yes really, it was stored in a barn out west) and chassis but no motor. So it sat as I tinkered until I sold it since I could never afford a complete motor and related accessories.
-My 1956 Lincoln Primere ran and drove and stopped. Was rusty to the point that if I started a teardown it would have ended up a full restoration which I could not afford. That car was fun to cruise in and get ice cream with the kids. Looked crusty but was a sweet driver.
-My 2002 2wd Tacoma truck was rusty but drove fine. I spent 4 months over a winter repairing the entire frame. Still runs strong with 278K and does lots of work, autocross and more. My boys learned to weld on that truck.
My 1993 Honda Del Sol is a true basket case. Not much works and it’s rusted and ugly. But for the local autocross course it’s fine and cheap. Fun with the top off for short trips. But there is no point putting money into it due to the horrible condition I got it in and I’ll probably let it go soon. It seems to have been put together from a scrap shell and rough junkyard parts.
It’s starting to remind me of my cursed green Mitsubishi Lancer (Mirage).
-Original engine overheated on highway so bad, that it lost compression.
-I then imported another Lancer with a friend, from a neighboring country (Austria) for parts and swapped the engine.
-Replacement engine overheated on highway a few weeks later.
-Had the head rebuilt, new head gasket, new timing kit, water pump, new radiator, new hoses, new electric fan, thermostat, temp sensor, the works.
-Replacement engine overheated on highway so bad, that it lost compression round #2.
-I then swapped in another (junkyard) engine, new timing kit, water pump, etc.
Guess what happened next?
Engine overheated on highway. At this point I gave up.
The car drove fine under 60-65 mph but the needle started going up immediately when driving faster than that. I still don’t know to this day what was wrong with it.
All my other Mitsubishis were fantastic by the way.
The best explanation I could come up with, is that the Green Lancer was cursed.
Ahh, the yin and yang of DT and Torch.
Torch buys a questionable Changli just for fun and somehow ends up as a brand ambassador on the company’s marketing material.
You buy a questionable XJ out of misguided loyalty and have single-handily become example no.1 of why to never buy an XJ.
Meanwhile, both endeavors have resulted in much rejoicing (and, I assume, gallons of celebratory drinks and laughs) from the sellers.
This place makes me chuckle. 🙂
You can’t catch a break, can you? If it didn’t provide content for this site, I’d wonder how you even keep at it rather than sell it off as-is.
Anyone else suspect this lady “Tracy” is just David in a wig. He’s created an alter ego in an attempt to resolve the tension between the need to shrink his fleet and his compulsion to live as a Jeep nut.
To paraphrase a scene from “Spies Like Us”…
“Tracy?…..Tracy”
“Tracy!……Tracy”
“Tracy?…..Tracy!”…..etc etc. 🙂
From the movie, Tootsie.
“I BEGGED you to get therapy!”
Tracy Durden. The first rule of Rust Club is you don’t talk about Rust Club….
Is that copper or silicone (orange color) in the picture of the head gasket? In any case you most likely borked the new head gasket when you slid it to align them.
Have you tried ohming out the coolant temperature sensor? Maybe there’s a bad ground or a faulty sensor giving you grief. Sometimes it’s the simple things.
That was my first thought. What evidence is there of overheating other than the temperature gauge? I would measure the engine and radiator temperatures in different places with one of those handy aim and pull thermometers to see if it seems too hot.
So sorry for this never ending shit show David. Now that I am old, wish that some of the stupid car/engine related shit we dealt with had never happened. Mostly because life is short, happiness is fleeting, and most of our problems are self inflicted. I know you are a Jeep brand type guy, but sometimes it’s better/easier to just move along. My fear is that if she even wants this thing when it finally gets fixed, will you spend the rest of your life dealing with the repercussions of passing it on to someone else? Some vehicles are like bad girlfriends, best to walk away and let the next poor bastard deal with the pain…Wish you luck, seriously.
I wired the electric fan backwards on one of my cars. It would stay cool at idle. It would stay cool at high speed. But anywhere in between, the backwards blowing fan would cancel out the air coming through the grill, and it would overheat.
Took me MONTHS to figure it out. I replaced the entire cooling system. I was so desperate that I even pulled the heads and opened up the coolant holes in the head gaskets. All because the fan plug had crumbled and I stuck the wires in…. backwards.
For idling i guess it depends on the engine configuration, happened to me on a Citroën C3 with 1.2 turbo, engine compartment is tight and turbo and cat just behind the fan. At idling it overheated to the point of boiling and throwing out the coolant.
I drove one of them for a few weeks. It didn’t malfunction in any way, but I certainly didn’t enjoy it.
I think they’re great small cars with the at6, confortable, but inside room could have been better. In terms of perfomance, engine and at are a good duo.
I see why you’re angry, Bob. That sounds exactly like the kind of sh*t I would do. Self sabotage. Once I somehow reversed the A/C lines going to the compressor. At least that mistake made itself known, and I mean right quick!
I had a 1973 Mini – the kind with the radiator on the passenger side (of a right hand drive car) that had louvers in the wheel well that allowed air to pass through the rad and out through the well. The fan was a pusher fan – until I installed it backwards and created a hot-running Mini. It took some time before I discovered that I had screwed up.
Back in the ’80’s, guy I worked for bought his kid his first car.
Fox body Mustang. Needed cooling system work so the father/son project began.
After they were done, the car did the same thing you described.
They couldn’t figure it out so I poke my head under the hood. We’re all standing in front of the car, staring down at the motor, doing that rev rev thing we always do while pondering what might be screwed up.
That’s when I felt the wind blowing on my pants.
While they were freshening up the cooling system they had replaced the stock fan with a generic flex fan. They had bought a standard V belt driven fan.
Problem was, serpentine belt driven fans turn the opposite direction.
Is the cooling fan on backwards?
I was about to comment that until i read about the oil level going up and coolant leak. Though new water pump may be leaky for a few km when installed.
I wish I had a good suggestion on what to troubleshoot the failure to maintain cooling system pressure.
My goodness, though, that hurt to read. Pour out a quart of 40 weight and say 10 Hail XJs. May the Ghosts of AMC past have mercy upon you.
Dude, that sucks, though I have faith you’ll get to the bottom of it. This far in, I wouldn’t give up now.
This is just speculation, and doesn’t help address what is going on now, but with the history on this one, any chance that during the shenanigans trying to buy it, one of the salvage yards/repair shops pulled the original motor and threw in another junked engine?
The date code on the valve cover lines up, as does the casting date in the original cylinder head.
Did you check the temp with an IR thermometer at the thermostat housing and compare to the gauge’s reading? Simple way to check cluster gauge’s accuracy before mounting a new gauge. Also, some vehicles are sensitive to the orientation of the thermostat’s small vent/pass-through hole (it should be facing up).
I was wishing for a better outcome of the weekend than this. It’s defeating when a something you enjoy turns into an obligation, and other people are depending on the repair getting done. I hope it’s something simple.
I got to a point in my life where I had dependable cars, but missed wrenching. So what better way to always have something to wrench on than to buy an MGB? But it’s never been an obligation to work on it, and it can sit and wait if it needs something.
Absolutely agree. I’ve had a couple British roadsters, but I’ve always had a reliable daily. I call it The Enabler Car (TM).
It Enables me to get to work.
It Enables me to have a fun car that needs TLC.
It Enables me to give that TLC when I want to, not when I have to.
Dude, I’m sorry, this thing is a POS. Let it die. push it off a cliff.
You may not personally suffer from the Sunk Cost Fallacy like so many of us distilled fools. 🙂
Seriously. Give Tracy her money back, and sell this thing as-is to someone else who wants to fix the motor.
Nothing a gallon of gas and a match, or an LS swap, wouldn’t fix. I need to put together a list of everything I have replaced on the ol shitbox in the last year of ownership, I think I can give your list a run for its money! Mine still runs poorly, but seems to be decently reliable and at least doesn’t overheat so I have that going for me!
“Nothing a gallon of gas and a match, or an LS swap, wouldn’t fix.”
Are you crazy!?!? That’s $5 in gas up in smoke!
I thought you collected good running 4.0Ls. Why wasn’t this an engine swap and done? I know you might say hindsight is 20/20, but I thought it from the very beginning, and especially when you were having the head shaved and everything.
Swapping a motor due to a head gasket failure is generally considered overkill. And I’m still holding out hope I don’t have to do that.
I hope you’re right, but you’d have been done and probably could have come out cheaper at this point, not even considering your labor.
Besides, my thinking was you’d rebuild the engine later, and have it ready to go into the next one?
Good luck with it, I feel your pain.
Hindsight is 20/20!
Oh, I suppose it’s against the Wrencher’s Code to do something as logical as swap the shit engine out with a good one.
It’s that Wrencher’s Code that has taken away this large chunk of your youth and will continue to do so as long as you faithfully pursue it.
That said, I thought I had fun in my 20’s but in reality I was a complete asshole. So you’ve spent your 20’s hunched over rustbuckets. Nobody’s hurt which is more than I can say.
Oof.
My sympathies, I’ve been there. What’s worse mine was 100% my fault so hopefully you don’t have to run that gauntlet.
Do you have another engine to install if worst comes to worst?
I’ve seen it twice myself, both times on a Toyota 22RE (both 80s 4Runners), the ones that NEVER BREAK AND ARE BULLETPROOF AND INDESTRUCTIBLE and they’re just like any other engine. Any engine prone to self-destruction at the slightest overheating, and any engine with nightmare timing chain issues.
Both times it was a cracked block that was discovered after the head was replaced. Both times the engine had 150k or less. Both times there was a quick engine swap and it was sold asap, which is what should have happened the first time.
I bought a first gen CRX for a few hundred bucks that someone had spent big money redoing the top end, only to have the bottom end fail almost immediately. It was so clean and low mileage, I should have done an engine swap and kept it, but some kid trippled my money on it, so off it went (yes, he was WELL aware that it needed an engine).
Well aware it needed a B18C#?
Came for this and I am satisfied.
Been waiting for this update all weekend
Crush it for beer money
Did you re-torque the head bolts after warming it up and letting it cool? Bit of a hail Mary.
For the next time, you can cut the top off of two spare head bolts if you have them and use a grinder to slightly taper the tops. Then screw them in a couple threads and use them as a guide to allow a more vertical placement. Sounds like you might have scratched up the water jacket sealant on the head gasket. Might be worth a quick change if you have a spare one.
I also always use copper head gasket sealant as a just in case. Not sure if it actually helps, but the last 2 engines I built using it haven’t blown up yet.
The independent mechanic that did my head gasket back in college had sets of all-thread he used to guide gaskets and heads on. Can’t slide that way.
It was one of the most genius but entirely simple solutions I’ve encountered.
I thought about that, and may give that a shot.