mjeff87

Z05 is HOAT (Hybrid OAT). It contains an additional anti-corrosion additive. It's all I use in the 3.7L in the KJ with aluminum heads (when it's running, lol). All I ever used in the 2.5 and 4.0's I've had has been the plain old green stuff. Never an issue. 50/50 mix of either, using distilled water.

My wife's grandfather was a Seabee in WW2. He dispatched at least two enemy soldiers (that we know of) but steadfastly refused to talk about his service. I was almost ashamed to sit at the same table as him, but he never had a foul word to say, ever. He was the kindest, gentlest man you would ever meet. A Shriner, and in his retirement would dress as a clown and visit sick kids in the hospital. Incredible man, all 5'6" of him. Your grandpa looks mighty chill just sitting up on that earth mover. I'm sure he had some stories to tell, wether or not he chose to.

Thanks, and thanks to all you other Vets out there. Hope you are all having a meaningful day (I'm stuck here at work today.....don't ask).

Worst case is the timing is all screwed up on that side (I know it is, lol) and some valves made some new friends with some pistons and just bent. Hopefully that didn't happen, but if so I can get a new head for it, which is what I was going to do in the first place if the machine shop couldn't get the original stuck plug threads out. Just means I have to tear it all back apart, but now having done it once I can probably have it all stripped down in an evening. Only thing is I used black RTV on the monster timing cover instead of a gasket, and I know that thing is going to be a bear to get unstuck. I have to go out of town for work next weekend thru the following Wednesday, so I don't know how much I'm going to get done on it before I go. I do have the following weekend open for now, but we have to leave to go up to PA for Thanksgiving that following Monday, so yeah. My original goal was to have this thing back on the road by turkey day. That may or may not happen now.

Sadly......yes. Like I said, I "think" that little pin is/was the problem. When I saw it, I told myself I should just stop right there and order a new cam for it, but like an idiot I didn't. I just wanted it all back together and running. Rookie mistake. It's either that or one ( or two) of the timing chains somehow snapped, but I doubt that. If I'm lucky, the primary chain and the left secondary chains are still intact and in time, and it's just the right head that has the problem. I'll know more once I pull the valve cover off later on today (maybe). I've only got to take off about half of what I did the first go round to get the VC off, LOL.

Well.....epic fail. Got it all back together Saturday morning and it fired right off, for about a second. Then a bunch of horrible sounds happened, it chugged a bit then died. Hopefully the 3.7 is not an interference engine, because I think I know what happened (and can fix it if things inside didn't get munched). The end of the cam has a little "pin" sticking out about 1/4" that indexes into the back side of the timing chain gear and locks it and the cam in the proper timing position. While I was reassembling the timing gear/chain (for the second time last weekend...I got it on perfectly the first time but did not install the timing chain guides beforehand and they wouldn't both fit in once the chain was on, so I had to take the chain back off to install them and then put it back on the cam) I didn't get the gear lined up correctly with the pin in the hole and proceeded to torque down the nut on the cam. Once I saw what was going on, I pulled the nut and gear back off, but that stupid little pin got pressed back into the cam and only about 1/16" of it was still proud. No way to pull it back out, so I just lined up the gear on it, added a bunch of locktite and ran that nut down with 125 psi on my air gun. I prayed it would be enough to hold the gear (and cam) in the correct position, and hand-spun the engine over about 10 revolutions to make sure all was well and it stayed lined up. It did, so I just said a prayer and buttoned it all up. What I think happened was the torque of the engine was too much for what little bit of that pin left sticking out and it spun the timing gear on the face of the cam. I just buttoned things up at that point in disgust, and helped my buddy wrench on his wife's car for most of the rest of the day. Spent yesterday with the wife and cut the grass, and I'm now sitting at work (yes, we're off today for Veteran's Day, but a couple of us are working on a special IT project and had to come in today). I might go home after work and pull the valve cover and see where that timing gear is sitting. I'd almost bet my next paycheck that it is free-wheeling now and the cam is just sitting there, not being turned by anything. With any luck, I can purchase a new cam and timing gear and swap both out, without having to disassemble everything, again.

Strangely, that same fuse popped again on Sunday morning. I started it up, pulled it up the driveway to in front of the house on the street and shut it off. Came back in the house, the wife and I got back into it about 10 minutes later to go grocery shopping and the same thing happened. Keyed the starter, it engaged for about a second and then quit. I put another fuse in it and it's been fine all week now (I have a few more of those 20A fuses as spares just in case, lol). It's got to be something in the starter circuit, 'cause that's the only time it's happened is when cranking. I did have the battery box and airbox out a couple weekends ago when I put new motor mounts in it.....I'm thinking I might have pinched a wire somewhere in that rat's nest of wiring when I put it all back together. Once I get the KJ running again (hopefully tomorrow), I'll monkey around with it some to see if I can find the problem. It's either a pinched wire or my starter (or solenoid) is slowly trying to tell me it's dying. I really don't want to fiddle with pulling the starter on it, if I can help it......

Picking up new radiator hoses tomorrow from NAPA. Bought a gallon of distilled water to mix into the Zerex coolant I have. Picking up a filter and oil tomorrow to do a second oil change once I get it running (I have a filter and some sacrificial oil already in it to fire it off, will change it all out again once it's all good ). Just need about 2 hours Saturday morning to get it all back together and we should (hopefully) have lift off

I'm resisting the urge to work on it when I get home from work (5:30-ish) every day this week so far. I've gotten this far so far, I don't want to rush things just to "git 'er dun". . Trust me, taking the time on this to do it right will pay off in spades.....I never want/need to have to go back into this engine so far ever again. I should have it all buttoned up and fired off sometime on Saturday. Stay tuned...

This. One should be able to take apart most any vehicle with this set, LOL. Seriously, I asked my wife for it for Christmas

Spent way too much time this weekend working on getting this thing all put back together again. So far I've got about 15 hours into it, but some of that is my being anal and deep cleaning everything before I reinstall it. I've got the engine all sealed back up again (mostly), and need a couple more hours to finish it off. I doubt I'll work on it any this week after work, since it now gets dark around 2:30PM, so I'll probably finish it on Saturday. I still need to put all the front engine accessories back on, reinstall the injectors/fuel rail (I put new o-rings on all the injectors), the electric fan, air cleaner housing, and about a million little electrical connectors. Then refill the cooling system, and change the oil. One of the really nice things about the timing cover on this engine is when you unbolt it and pull it off the front of the engine, all of the trapped coolant still in the block gushes out and right down the front of the engine and right into the (open) oil pan beneath. So, yeah, an oil change is high on the list of stuff to not forget to do. LOL.

I can half blame myself for not taking it apart before dropping it off, but c'mon man......that's just no bueno from a machine shop. That's some Bubba and Cletus level work there. Good news is they only charged me $25 to get the stuck/stripped pipe plug out and half-azz clean the cover. LOL.

Thanks. Mine wasn't leaking.....in fact, I had to pry the cover off the head to get it loose. It had a good seal, lol. I do have a new cover gasket for when I put it back on. Boy howdy am I cheesed off right now. I took my timing cover to a different machine shop (closer to where I work) to have them get that stupid stripped bleeder screw out that's been leaking for awhile now. (I have a separate thread on that on here somewhere, too). I forgot to unbolt the t-stat housing (plastic) and pull it and the stat before I went there. I wanted them to fix the bleeder and also to hot-tank it to get all the grease and grime off of it, and asked them to pull the housing/stat before they tanked it. The guy said they would be fine, no need to pull either. Whatever. I just picked it up and brought it back to my office, and for fun I figured I'll just pop off the housing so I could check things (I'm going to put a new t-stat in it, even though the one I have is only about a year old, just because. Imagine my surprise/shock when I pulled it and saw this on the back side of the stat. All those nice, clean shiny bits of metal stick to a magnet, which means they are not aluminum, which means they didn't come from inside my engine. My cooling system is spotless. They must have been inside the hot tank solution at the shop and got stuck inside while they were cleaning it. Good thing I decided to open it up, otherwise I'd have filled the system up with new coolant and shot all that crap the whole way thru my cooling system. Jesus I'm pizzzed off right now. Will not ever use that shop again. Idiots.

I had (maybe still have) a delete pulley in my parts pile, I think...it's all down in my shed. I can take a look for it tomorrow and if I find it you can have it for the cost of shipping. Short of actually finding one, though, you could just leave your compressor bolted up for now, just pull the electrical connector (and relay) so you don't accidentally engage it. Or you can grab a spare one from the junkyard for a few $$$ and bolt it in (if you want to take yours off for a rebuild).

Normally, I'd agree with you and that's what I usually do. However, for now on this, I'm going with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" method. I guess the good thing is that everything is fine on that side, and if something does happen, that head is about 75% easier to get off then the passenger side. Plus, now having stripped the engine I know where all the fasteners are, what size they are, and how to get to them. The biggest problem I had (aside from the stupid zip tie on the back of the head....) was pulling the harmonic balancer. I had to go to three different stores to rent a 3-jaw puller that was the right size (not too big, not too small) to get it off. I'll post a closeup pic of it tonight.....it's quite a funky thing. It doesn't have the usual threaded holes in the face to use a regular HB puller. That would be too easy, LOL.

Only if you overheat the engine, then the heads warp (because aluminum), and the valve seats tend to relocate themselves. I'm absolutely anal about the cooling system and watch the temp gauge like a hawk. Knock on wood, I've never had an issue. The bigger problem with the 3.7 are the lash adjuster (lifter) keepers. They like to work themselves loose and then pop off, thereby rendering that cylinder dead. Again, I've not had an issue with mine, and all the ones on the head I pulled are nice and seated. I might pop the valve cover off the other head and check those on that side too, since I had to buy both cover gaskets as a set. Turns out noone sells just a single gasket, or at least noone near me does. Probably could get just one from the dealership, but my NAPA had the set for $57 (Felpro), which is a steal because everyone else was charging $95-$100 for them. Kinda funny, because NAPA is generally the most expensive place on earth.

swap the fuel pump relay, see if that solves it.

Yep, I didn't touch the driver side head. In fact, that's the only thing left still bolted to the block at this point. That, and the starter LOL. Everything else is lying on my garage floor.

^^^why, oh why, do design engineers do stupid crap like that? Started gathering new parts for reassembly this weekend. Dropped the timing cover off at the machine shop today to have them extract the stupid coolant bleed screw (which is stripped and seeping coolant) removed and also to hot tank it to clean it. Got a timing cover seal set (Felpro) which includes a new crank seal and water pump seal along with all three water passage seals and 2 tubes of RTV black for the cover for $7.99 afterapplying all of my speed perks discounts. Went to my local Indy parts place and got a set of head bolts, head gasket, exhaust manifold gasket, intake mani gaskets,and new exhaust manifold studs/nuts for $127. All that would have been $250+ at any of the chain stores. Had to go to NAPA for the valve cover gasket....$57 for both gaskets (I only need one of them....) but the kit comes with new grommets and fasteners. I'm right around $400 now for everything so far, which is about 100 less than I budgeted. Still need new injector o-rings and upper/lower radiator hoses though, so I'll probably end up right around 500. Need to do an oil/filter change once I get it running again too. I already have 3+ gallons of coolant to refill the cooling system, so0 cost on that. Alternator, water pump and thermostat were all recently replaced (by me) so there's no need for them.

Live and/or work anywhere around the DC area (including down here in Richmond...we're becoming a suburb of DC). If you see a Diplomat plate on a vehicle on the road, get as far away from it as you possibly can.

I doused the whole back side of the engine and firewall with the garden hose yesterday.....I'm still getting one little drop of oil when parked overnight, and it's driving me crazy. I wanted to clean off the back side of the engine so I could try to find out where the leak is coming from. Turns out that Focus starters apparently don't like getting wet. Went to start it up after hosing and it cranked for about 2 seconds then quit. Odometer and trip odometer read all dashes, so I knew it was some kind of power issue. Ended up being the big honkin' 20A maxi fuse under the hood for the engine that popped (and I didn't have a spare, and my wife was out of town in her car which meant I was stranded in my driveway). I used my leafblower to dry off the engine as best I could, then I bent up a jumper wire for the fuse slot and she fired right up. That got me down to the Advance Auto to buy a new fuse. I bought 2 of them, just in case I'll keep the extra one in the center console.

Got plenty of Bud Lites....haven't smoked a butt in a couple months. Maybe a good idea for Saturday.

I forgot to mention, when I was busy at the engine disassembly party two of my intake manifold bolts were not even finger tight. Not sure how or why they backed out, or how long they've been not tight, but I'll make sure they're all snugged up on reinstall. Maybe a dot of blue locktite on each just to make sure. I dropped the head off at the machine shop (about 5 miles from my house) late yesterday afternoon. They just called me and said that it was all ready to be picked up. I wasn't expecting them to get it fixed THAT quickly, lol. $100, which I'm happy to pay the man, I'm picking it up after work today. I might even get to start putting it all back together this weekend. My back is absolutely killing me from getting it all out (leaning over the fender and grill working inside the engine compartment.

I used anti-seize on mine. It was a hot mess (a little bit of it goes a LONG way), but that worked for me. Also, the cable is held by a small metal connector that attaches to the top rear UCA bolt (or somewhere close to that area). Check to see that it's tight (or not missing). If it's not secured there, the whole cable/housing will slap around underneath and cause jumping. Your mechanic might not have reattached it there, or it could be loose.

Yeah, the clutch is a real PITA to replace. I feel ya on that one.