-- Badtux the Motorin' Penguin
2 days ago
Thursday, June 19, 2008
2 comments:
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A word to the wise Mr. Penguin . As an auto repair tech for the last 25 years I have had to repair ' jeeps ' almost as much as Fords . BEWARE any overheat condition . That 6 cyl has a weak head gasket setup . I suppose yours is a newer vintage than this but if you have a plastic coolant bottle at the passenger rear of the engine compartment then your jeep will be prone to some of the most serious cooling system air blockage in the industry . NEVER let any jeep 6 get much above half way on the temp gauge . Also the exhaust manifolds are weak and tend to crack . Engine main bearrings are another weak spot but I have seen them go for many thousands of miles with loud start up knock and very minimum main left at the journal . Cost him a block when we did take it apart tho . Steering parts will wear quickly even with frequent lubrication . Since you ride a bike , I give you credit for understanding traction spin and high center of gravity turning , you might be suprised how many chimps think the four wheel drive is inop because all they did was dig a hole when they got stuck .
ReplyDeleteJeeps are much longer lived than any Ford product and generally will do what you ask as long as you realize their weaknesses . As we say at the shop " keep the rubber side down and you'll do fine "
Happy Motorin ( 60 mpg on your rocket ??? Now I'm jelous )
w3ski
Jeep re-did the head and head gasket setup in, I think it was 2001. Still weak, but not a critical issue anymore. The coolant bottle is at the driver front in a Jeep TJ and there's no cooling air blockages, just a gigantic fan and radiator. At the passenger rear is the battery. The exhaust manifolds on the TJ were re-done in 2001 also for the same reason as the heads (emissions) and now are steel headers with mini-cats -- not likely these are going to crack :-). On the downside they are horrendously expensive when they rust out because you have to replace the whole header system all the way back to the main cat including the main cat because it's all welded into one piece with oxygen sensors all over the freakin' place (there's two upstream of the mini-cats and one right before the main cat, if I am recalling correctly from my last trip under the beast). Noted on the steering, it's common to have to replace tie rod ends every 30,000 miles or so on the beast due to the stresses placed on them by offroading. I inspect the steering components every 3,000 miles when I grease everything up and view them as expendibles to be replaced on an as-needed basis -- they're cheap as dirt and pop out of the knuckle with a quick whack with a 3 pound hammer (did it when I installed the Aussie Locker to make room to work), so (shrug). Same deal with the front sway bar links, especially on lifted Jeeps, these are a known weak point and must be treated as expendibles and when they go bad the handling *really* gets weird (gets a multi-stage effect where it wants to sway, then suddenly doesn't). With airing down and wide 32" tires and disconnecting my front swaybar links in rock-crawling situations and the front locker and rear LSD, I thus far haven't had any real traction issues offroad. As for the handling, Jeep's engineers obviously were more concerned about offroad ability than handling when they designed the TJ, for example the front axle steps rightward and the rear axle steps leftward when you go over a bump due to the way the Panhard rods are set up, causing the whole Jeep to wiggle (especially disconcerting on the short-wheelbase Jeeps, but I can feel it in my long Jeep too). This is an evil-handling beast on pavement, though there are some things I could do to improve that, but they are things incompatible with good off-road performance, so I don't.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention the rear seal, the Jeep I6's are famous for the rear seal suddenly deciding to go bye-bye and dumping oil on the clutch, which tends to result in both a seal job and a clutch job. Pretty much every Jeep I6 in existence eventually has this happen somewhere around 120K-150K miles. But most of them will go 300,000 miles between rebuilds with no problem, even the bearing problem you mention is rare and tends to be restricted to Jeeps that haven't had their oil changed regularly and often.
The good thing about the Jeep Wrangler TJ is that it's so primitive, you can fix it pretty much with a 3 pound hammer, duct tape, crescent wrench, and bailing wire. Sorta like the tie rod end example. Unbolt the big nut on the the top, give it a whack with BFH (Big F'ing Hammer), loosen the steering rod clamp, unscrew it from the steering rod, there you go. Screw new one in, give the Jeep a rough alignment with tape measures and welding rods, and you're all set. All in all, Jeep Wranglers generally don't have a problem getting to 300,000 miles if they don't rust out before then, and one thing about a desert Jeep -- it doesn't rust out :-).
- Badtux the Jeepin' Penguin