- Joined
- Apr 16, 2005
- Location
- Sharon, SC
My son Lane has been infatuated with the adrenaline rush of mall crawling ever since he met the world famous Jay C at an ECORS race about 4 years ago.
I tried my best to discourage this infatuation...but like all parents I only made it worse. Soon my 13 year old was wearing Oakleys, forgetting to bend the bill of his new ball caps, and using words in ways I'd never heard of like bra (not as an article of clothing)...and then the kicker he began asking questions about what "product" to put in his hair.
At 13 he is a good kid and I wanted to help him along. So we made a deal. First I buy you an Axial Wraith and you build it yourself..then I will match you dollar for dollar as we build your first car a Mad Mall Crawler that can hit American Eagle and Aeropostale in the same trip.
So the Wraith is done, and been broke and rebuilt more times than an ECORS race car at The Flats. His money saved he set his sites and a Jeep. I tried to convince him that a full size K5 made more sense for a 6'3" 13 year old, but he said Dad, "Old chicks dig body damage...young chicks dig bling". I was skeptical until his birthday party. He had 28 friends come over, 11 were dudes, 17 were young ladies (including all 6 of the middle school cheerleaders). So while I dont understand it I cant argue with the age based results.
A Jeep it is.
Mom demands safety first and loves the idea of posh things like ABS and airbags...so a TJ seemed like a good starting point.
We picked up a TJ needing some love a month or so back off the board and have begun fixing it up for his first ride.
The motor was making a funny noise that was so obnoxious you couldnt hear the Brantley Gilbert pop country he needed to blare at the mud bog so we started looking into the source of the noise.
We started out doing a compression test and learned that Cylinder 5 was BARELY out of spec.
Since my beer belly was too big to prevent me from getting a good look under the hood I decided to just pull the motor out and have a closer look.
I am trying to teach my son right from wrong here, and well, something isnt right.
I'm an electrical guy not a mechanical guy so I am not the sharpest knife int he drawer when it comes to these type of issues. I'll attach a few pics and see if anyone can spot the source of the noise.
This picture give the first clue. Something Definitely isnt right. Half of the spark plug boots are orange and half of them are black.
I'm starting to think I know why #5 was slightly out of spec. If you look really closely you can see a very slight cut in the head gasket. We will definitely need a new head gasket before we bolt this sucker back together.
Sometimes things dont show up right in pictures so I took a close up of the nick in the gasket I was describing to my son.
We are trying to decide if we should buy a new gasket or just try some of that gasket maker and let it seal it up.
Any thoughts from the local experts.
@MichaelT
I tried my best to discourage this infatuation...but like all parents I only made it worse. Soon my 13 year old was wearing Oakleys, forgetting to bend the bill of his new ball caps, and using words in ways I'd never heard of like bra (not as an article of clothing)...and then the kicker he began asking questions about what "product" to put in his hair.
At 13 he is a good kid and I wanted to help him along. So we made a deal. First I buy you an Axial Wraith and you build it yourself..then I will match you dollar for dollar as we build your first car a Mad Mall Crawler that can hit American Eagle and Aeropostale in the same trip.
So the Wraith is done, and been broke and rebuilt more times than an ECORS race car at The Flats. His money saved he set his sites and a Jeep. I tried to convince him that a full size K5 made more sense for a 6'3" 13 year old, but he said Dad, "Old chicks dig body damage...young chicks dig bling". I was skeptical until his birthday party. He had 28 friends come over, 11 were dudes, 17 were young ladies (including all 6 of the middle school cheerleaders). So while I dont understand it I cant argue with the age based results.
A Jeep it is.
Mom demands safety first and loves the idea of posh things like ABS and airbags...so a TJ seemed like a good starting point.
We picked up a TJ needing some love a month or so back off the board and have begun fixing it up for his first ride.
The motor was making a funny noise that was so obnoxious you couldnt hear the Brantley Gilbert pop country he needed to blare at the mud bog so we started looking into the source of the noise.
We started out doing a compression test and learned that Cylinder 5 was BARELY out of spec.
Since my beer belly was too big to prevent me from getting a good look under the hood I decided to just pull the motor out and have a closer look.
I am trying to teach my son right from wrong here, and well, something isnt right.
I'm an electrical guy not a mechanical guy so I am not the sharpest knife int he drawer when it comes to these type of issues. I'll attach a few pics and see if anyone can spot the source of the noise.
This picture give the first clue. Something Definitely isnt right. Half of the spark plug boots are orange and half of them are black.
I'm starting to think I know why #5 was slightly out of spec. If you look really closely you can see a very slight cut in the head gasket. We will definitely need a new head gasket before we bolt this sucker back together.
Sometimes things dont show up right in pictures so I took a close up of the nick in the gasket I was describing to my son.
We are trying to decide if we should buy a new gasket or just try some of that gasket maker and let it seal it up.
Any thoughts from the local experts.
@MichaelT
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