WranglerMangler

So I’ve got a locked up 4.0 that was freshly rebuilt, 5 years ago then left with open injector holes. (Ghosty in the member project section for more details) I have the head off and the rotating assembly is stuck. It’s been soaking with a bunch of combinations of penetrating fluid for about 2 weeks now. ATF and acetone for 4-5 days now. I'm trying to get it to move with the harmonic balancer bolt and a 1/2” breaker bar. No luck. I'm afraid of stripping or breaking the bolt. I am getting little shavings off the big concave washer behind the bolt now and have not experienced that before while tightening all other harmonic balancer bolts in the past. So, how hard do you guys crank on this bolt? I’ve stuck a wrench on the end of the breaker bar now and have about 3 feet of leverage. I'm probably 250-275 lbs so I feel that I’m more than capable of stripping or breaking the bolt. Any input is appreciated Thanks!

I was having the same issue with the dash cutting out and “one” blinker coming on, on the dash. I would reach up under the dash and tap the fuse box with my foot and usually everything would act normal after a few taps while driving down the road. Dealt with it for years, until I finally figured it out. I bet your dealing with this: Most of my fuse terminals were not making full contact for obvious reasons. Just throwing it out there buddy. Good luck. Grab some really fine needle nose pliers or a pick and pull a fuse or 2 and see if you can “tighten” the connector by pushing them inward towards the fuse blade, mine were breaking off when I tried so I knew they were rotted.

Thank you for the kind words buddy. I need to get down there sooner than later!

Thank you sir. I appreciate it. She just keeps on running like a top!

Spotted in Lake Tapps Wa ‘87 sportruck 2.5L She’s seen better days. Got him a magnet. Just seemed like a set of wheels to the guy. He isn’t into the truck like we are.

Spotted in Cle Elum Wa ‘91 with a 2.5

Yeah, that’s a bummer. Thank you though! I appreciate the information. Local truck all her life!

About 2 weeks after installing new rear speakers, the stock receiver took a dump of course, I had a birthday coming up and figured I could weasel myself into a new one from my parents. Luckily Mom and Dad love me very much and got me a nice new Alpine unit. Tonight I finally got around to getting it installed. Will be nice to have a radio again! Next in the audio department is new front speakers, then possibly a small sub.

No real work tonight. Still raining too hard to go out and lay in the grass. Especially after standing out in the rain all day at work. Engine is still locked up, I switched my soaking fluid to a heavy oil mix 2 stroke gas. We’ll see what that does. Also dumped like 4 gallons of oil into the crank case, just to keep everything heavily oiled during all this rain. Don’t want the crank rusting since I just drained all the oil out.

I did just drain the pan last night, yes. Fortunately the oil came out very clean and Red. PO stated it still had Amsoil break in oil which is also red, no moisture that I saw. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the pan off tonight to have a better look. Thank you for looking out!

What happened to our pictures?!! There’s no way your daily driving this thing now without a single new post!!??

Well unfortunately I believe we are in for some head work on the old girl. Finally got all the valves removed tonight and it wasn’t looking good. Not exactly sure what it all is, just crud all built up over the years. After wiping off with a rag, it was still ugly. Such a shame. Not happy with what I’m seeing on the valve seats either. I was planning on removing the oil pan tonight but it started to downpour as soon as I got out there to work on the truck so I went in the shed to disassemble the head. A few of the ARP head studs backed out with the nut still on the top from bad corrosion. I ran a snap on thread fixer die down the stud and cleaned up all the corrosion off the threads. Custom valve compressor tool worked out well. Lol. Maybe the weather will cooperate tomorrow night. Want to get the oil pan off.

Awesome, thank you. I’m very familiar with GooGone. Great stuff. I just happened to have the WD40 on hand so it got soaked down. Will probably have to go to GooGone for final clean up of the residue mess.

Spent some time today cleaning up the cylinders, Started with shop towels but ended up getting a little more aggressive with some green scotch bright. Before: After: Not sure if it’s pitting left or I just need to scrub it more. Fingernail can’t feel anything. Figured I’d pull a lifter just to check the condition. Got a peek at the cam too. So now that I’ve got most of the rust cleaned up in the cylinders, I feel comfortable enough to try to make the bottom end turn over. Grabbed a wrench and went to the harmonic balancer bolt. It didn’t move as hard as I could crank on one wrench. I doubled up another wrench and was still unable to get the bottom end to move. I cranked on it pretty hard, and still got nothing. Guess it’s going to be off with the oil pan and out with the pistons as well. Knew it was all too good to be true! I got a couple valves removed tonight and most of the corrosion was wiping right off with shop towels. There are a few spots of duct tape residue on the cab of the truck, looks like the back window was out at some point or for some reason, something was duct taped to the truck? I soaked the residue spots with WD40 and am hoping they kinda melt off. Seemed to definitely loosen it up so I’m going to let it sit overnight. Hopefully just wipes off with a rag. Usually I leave any stickers put on by PO’s but I’m not into the parts catalog stickers. Think they’re going to meet the razor blade here soon too.

She looks great! Good call not removing the stickers, where else are you going to see a Dole for President sticker! Keep up the great work!

Yes sir. It’s been too long.

Got the head off today and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Started off with assembly lube still on the fasteners. Cylinder 5 had obviously been open for the last couple of years. I’m glad I never moved the crank while the purchasing the truck. I brought the tools to, but am now thankful I didn’t. .030 over pistons, just as PO said. It’s nice not being lied to by people on the inner webs. A couple of rust boogers on the bottom of the head. They came right off with a mini screwdriver poke. This rust basically wiped right off with a shop towel Before: After: Still need to do some cleaning up but I’m happy with what I found today. After initial clean up, came out decently. Still planning on removing each valve and cleaning them. Still need to do some work on the cylinder walls too. Only went after the rust today with aggressive blue shop towel sessions. Now that I’m this far, my friend mentioned that I’m at the point of pulling the block out to clean it up, and I keep thinking about how right he is. Lol. Might pull it out and repaint it. The last 5 years hasn’t been very nice to the custom paint job. Maybe I’ll get the head back on, then repaint it in frame before installing the new wiring harness. Idk yet. One thing at a time. Next is going to be removing and cleaning the valves up.

Congratulations. An extremely worthy candidate. Love your guy’s videos.

Got home tonight and decided I was going to remove the engine bay wiring harness. Went fairly smoothly. Before picture of the rats nest of wires This auxiliary fuse panel was screwed to the firewall. Believe it was for the dual electric fans and possibly a HID headlight set up. Thinking I’m going to run the fans into the new under hood fuse box through a relay. After removing all of the aftermarket mystery wires and factory harness, it looks much better. Can’t wait to find a donor XJ! Clump of harness in the bed. It was actually in decent shape for living through a fire. Next step is removing the head so I can clean the valves and maybe do a home brew port and polish while I’m there.

Thanks, still need an 86, 87 and ‘90 too! Keep finding these damn ‘88s!

I’ve been dying to know what is hidden beyond the injector holes left open for the last 5 years. Tonight I took off the intake and exhaust manifold and found this: I guess the head is coming off. About what I expected. Hopefully the pistons are ok. Most of the debris wiped out with a shop towel but there’s still some surface rust on the valves. Soaked everything down with a heavy dose of WD40 for the night. Probably going to start removing the Renix wiring harness and cleaning up the engine bay tomorrow night after work. I'm thinking about just getting another donor XJ to complete the harness swap, that way I have time to be gentle with all the electrical plugs and get everything from under the hood without being in a rush at some dudes house on a part out. 1994 2wd 5 speed Cherokee is what I have in mind for the donor vehicle. I’m most familiar with that HO configuration and it would have an external slave AX15. Staying 2wd with this one. I don’t want to go Obd2 with the truck either.

Is there any reason not to do the 1 pc axle conversion? I’ve had that little collar piece broken in my hand and there’s no way I would consider that and the other 2 axle pieces nearly as strong as a single piece axle? It definitely takes longer than 20 minutes to do and requires a new seal and a $20 junkyard shaft but seems like a sensible upgrade, If your going for reliability and strength. I only did the upgrade after breaking apart the collar so I was in there anyway and have not had a problem with the 1pc since. Just my .02

Flatbed looks great. Good job. Awesome truck.

I’m a big fan of the old Warn M8000s and the Warn 9.5CTI. I probably won’t be purchasing any of the new cheap Chinese Warns any time soon. Winch isn’t the place to cheap out. Just my .02

You don’t do the 1pc axle conversion? Seems to be a much less complicated than the 3pc system?