I'm impatient... engine blown?

McCracken

McCracken

Logan Can't See This
Joined
Jul 9, 2005
Location
With your mom at a nice seafood dinner
background:
Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited
4.0L inline 6
~165,000 miles
full on oil (just changed it, looks ok on dipstick)

I heard a slight ticking noise under the hood a while back. It sounded, to me, like an exhaust leak. I have one on the trail rig like it. Well, the noise got louder and I thought it was the manifold had cracked. It started sounding like a small diesel.

Well, fast forward to today and the wife pulls out of the driveway, goes 100 yards and BANG!!! The Jeep dies on the side of the road. Can't get it to start back but will turn over. I race home to check things out. I try to turn it over and the starter rhythm sounds different to me. Next thing I know a huge cloud of white "smoke" came out of the throttle body. If you hold the throttle wide open it will start and it sounds like a can of nuts & bolts being shaken. The car stumbles, shakes and makes all kind of sounds (popping, tapping, etc.). When you let off of the gas it dies.

So.... tell me how bad it is.
 
Pull the plugs and look at them. If they're bashed in it's dead. If not do a compression check.
 
Sounds BAD! Could be anything, from a lifter, to a rod or piston! Unusual for a 4.0. My best guess, is, a lifter went bad, which may have broken a valve, & damaged the piston. Yes, pull plugs, & do comp. test!
 
DO NOT START BACK UP.... Trust me pull intake manifold pull heads and find out what the problem is if you start it to find problem your gonna have more damage than ya want... Its extremely easy job on 4.0 just follow tighten and loosen pattern for torque and you will be good to go! do valves while apart youll be happy ya did!
 
Definitely need to take a look inside. I'd put money on one of the pistons being broke. The 99-00 4.0's in the GC's seem to have a problem with the pistons. I had one break right at 100k. Started off like you described, but luckily me and a friend (novacayne) caught it before it got too bad and scored the cylinder walls. Sounds like yours will be trashed...

Pull the head or oil pan and take a look :eek:
 
StrokedWJ said:
Definitely need to take a look inside. I'd put money on one of the pistons being broke. The 99-00 4.0's in the GC's seem to have a problem with the pistons. I had one break right at 100k. Started off like you described, but luckily me and a friend (novacayne) caught it before it got too bad and scored the cylinder walls. Sounds like yours will be trashed...

Pull the head or oil pan and take a look :eek:
Click to expand...

yeah I wish I had known. I had an older 4.0 that had the exhaust manifold issues and I thought that's what this was. Come to find out Jeep fixed that problem and that "ticking" noise was the piston. I did the compression test on Friday after work and the first 5 cylinders were golden but #6 had let loose and smashed the spark plug flat on the end. Compression = 0 psi :lol:

we pulled the engine yesterday and I'm getting the new one today. THis one has 75,000 on it so hopefully it'll last a little while :rolleyes:
 
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