New Project(s):

[Sir Sam]

My dad decided he wanted to pickup a CRD as a daily driver for LA. kind of funny since I had about the perfect one a little while back as a flip that we just sold anyway.

So now here we are, I was looking at a couple of options. I looked at this red one thursday night but we couldn't agree on price. My dad talked direct with him but he thought he had a guy lined up to go pay full price if we didnt want it. Surprise craigslist people are full of ****!

He and my dad worked out the price and I went down today to pickup the Jeep.

2005 KJ CRD, 153k miles. 2.5" OME lift, 265/70/16 good year duratracs on some black wheels. Very clean, I like the color, somehow missing the front skid?????? and I got it with the stock wheels with almost new Michelin tires.

 

Rented a uhaul tow dolly and drive out to eastern CO to pick it up:

 

Got to troubleshooting, not running on cyl #2, swapped injectors with MJ, still not running, swapped injectors with #1, still not firing, checked wiring continuity - good. Swapped ECUs, no change.

So it seems its fuel, lots of diesel around, but its not igniting, next up is a compression test.

 

[DirtyComanche]

So, stuck valve?  Hole in the piston?

[Sir Sam]

1 minute ago, DirtyComanche said:

So, stuck valve?  Hole in the piston?

 

Possible, however the next most likey issue is a bad rocker or two. The rockers are a designed failure point, since this is an interference engine if the belt slips or breaks the valves hit the pistons and the rockers break. However with heavy EGR use the bearings in the rocker rollers tend to wear out and collapse, sometimes spectacularly. This can cause an engine to actually backfire out the intake in very bad manner.

 

I am thinking this engine has some bad rockers on #2 cylinder. In which case it will get new ARP head studs, rockers, and a timing belt job, as well as a ECU tune to delete the EGR - should be bullet proof for the next 100k untill it need a belt, and for the rest of its life with those engine mods.

 

I've been running the EGR delete on my daily driver CRD for 12 years and my rockers have ZERO wear, but i also used  15-40 when jeep called for 0-40.....which was way too thin.

[krustyballer16]

I just picked this up Wednesday. Decently clean. A few dents and a little bit of rocker rust. It's got the 3.7L in it with 203,000 miles and a blow head gasket. It's been wrecked on the front drivers side (can tell by new headlight and fender flare and good dent) something in the front end is wore out cuz the tires are wore bad.

Gonna change head gasket and check heads and check front end and drive it around.

I got it mainly for mock up for bumpers and sliders for a set for Pete on here. But his is the later body style, like your red one. Of course...

 

Do you know if the frames are the same and it was just front end body panel changes?

 

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

[Sir Sam]

15 hours ago, krustyballer16 said:

I just picked this up Wednesday. Decently clean. A few dents and a little bit of rocker rust. It's got the 3.7L in it with 203,000 miles and a blow head gasket. It's been wrecked on the front drivers side (can tell by new headlight and fender flare and good dent) something in the front end is wore out cuz the tires are wore bad.

Gonna change head gasket and check heads and check front end and drive it around.

I got it mainly for mock up for bumpers and sliders for a set for Pete on here. But his is the later body style, like your red one. Of course...

 

Do you know if the frames are the same and it was just front end body panel changes?

 

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

 

Crap I typed up a reply this morning but must have forgot to submit.

 

The frames are the same, grill, bumper etc are different, if you look at the ARB bumper for the KJ it was designed for the 2002, it will fit the 05+ plus, but it blocks the fogs and there is an odd gap to the flares.

 

The sides are the same, but the 05+ has a plastic cover over the rockers, where the 2002 just as the metal rocker.

 

I have a set of rock rails and the clearance with the plastic rocker covers can be an issue.

 

 

 

 

Pulled the intake off, looks like a really messed up set of rockers, this is what happens when you used the oil Jeep recommended(mobile 0-40) instead of a good diesel 15-40(like the engine manufacturer recommended), and have EGR active. EGR is basically the death of these things. My Jeep with 155k, same miles as this one, had ZERO rocker wear with the EGR off and 15-40 Delo diesel oil.

 

[Sir Sam]

Krusty these are the rock rails I have, another guy local to me has a set very similar that i think were made by rock lizard.

 

 

I don't really have any good photos of them installed since I took them off of a jeep I was flipping, but they interfered with the plastic cladded on the rockers it seems like:

 

 

 

With it removed there are some little holes the plastic clips went into.

 

Overall I think its nicer without the plastic cladding like the 02-04 had.

 

[Sir Sam]

I got the rockers off and head cleaned up a bit, looks like on #2 cylinder, which was the problem cylinder, there is a valve that is missing a keeper. I can see one keeper, but the keeper cap isn't sitting right and the top of the valve has worn. I need to make some sort leverage bar with a U shaped end to compress the spring so I can get the keeper out. If the valve end looks good where the keeper rings are I can replace the keeper(s) and cap with spares I have here. It the valve end looks damaged I will need to pull the head to replace the valve.

 

 

[Sir Sam]

Ok, so the plural of these projects is this one I picked up from this thread:

Its  about 10 hours each way, I left work at 3:30 pm on thursday, took  friday off, and got back at 9pm friday evening. Got about 25mpg on the  way out, about 16-17 on the way back, not bad considering I was towing  at 75mph.

Lots of corn, going further north there are sunflowers,  soy, potatoes, wheat, grass.......most of my drive was not on  interstate, and actually fairly interesting considering where I was  driving.

Pheasant SD:

Getting a sandwich:

More sunflowers:

Home:

Got parts on saturday at a local junkyard, intercooler was just full of oil, and had some stress leaks:

This  was after draining a quart or so, and rinsing with a gallon of  gasoline, I let it sit overnight with the inlet down to drain more,  think I finally got the bulk of it out:

Got it back together enough for now:

"they circled the problem....lolz am i right?"

After  that I got back into working on the red one, I got a spring compressor  setup and got the old keeper out. Turns out half the keeper was missing  and the other half split in half, making 1/4s. I replaced it with 2  spare keepers and a spring retainer. The grooves in the valve for the  keeper looked perfect, so I don't feel the need to replace the valve.

It was made out of a random bit of strap steel that had previously been my VW van alternator bracket!

[Pete M]

wait, if half the keeper was missing... where did the missing bits... go?    

[Sir Sam]

45 minutes ago, Pete M said:

wait, if half the keeper was missing... where did the missing bits... go?    

 

I think down an oil return hole to the oil pan. Nowhere I can see, the grooves cast into the oil pan mean it will stay there until someone pulls the pan. 

 

The pickup tube has a screen strainer so its so it’s not like they will ever get sucked into the oil pump. 

 

Ill drain the oil and see if anything comes out, but I sort of doubt it will. 

[Sir Sam]

Got Ruby emissions tested and plated, loaded an 811 stage one tune, and reinstalled the stock wheels for the ~3000 or so highway miles it will see between CO to CA to CO.

Got a few pics before I took the big wheels off. Next time it is back in CO I will work on the pinch seams since they eat into the tires, and hopefully get a few other things like the rock rails installed, LED foglights added, steering wheel radio buttons, and roof rack cross bars.