Head Gasket??????

[Big Willy]

Just a question I need confirmation for. For the past week and a bit the ZJ has been ticking. It sounded like I had a crack in the header because it would sometimes sputter and sound like air escaping. This morning Donna was coming back from Timmie's in the Park and the ZJ lurched a couple of times. She pressed the gas to rev the engine. On the second time the engine backfired, a dark grey puff of smoke came out the back then the ZJ went dead and she pulled it over to the side. When I got out to it I tried to turn it over and nothing would turn over at first. The second try I got it to rotate once then nothing. We checked the oil level and noticed the there was way more than there should be and it had a greenish hue to it. The coolant reservoir was completely bone dry too. The were no holes that I could see in the engine and nothing is leaking anywhere. Oh I should also mention that the rad was replaced about 3 months ago too.

Now my questions are; could this be a blown head gasket or something totally different? Do I need a new motor or can this be fixed. Is it generally expensive to to fix or would it be cheaper to just replace it? I wont be doing the repairs myself {it's too complicated for my skills, lol ). I just want to get a bit of info before I take the old girl in. Plus its going to suck having to drive the Honda until the ZJ is back up again.

[projectnightmare]

Sept 13, 2008 8:07:58 GMT -4 Big Willy said:

We checked the oil level and noticed the there was way more than there should be and it had a greenish hue to it. The coolant reservoir was completely bone dry too. (

Having seen enough 2.9 Fords do this exact thing, I'd be leaning toward cracked head. Not being there to ~see~ it in person, hard to say.

[newbiejeeper]

sounds like the head is gone to me.. same thing happened in my civic...

[Creepy]

running it with the coolant in the oil eats the bearings.

sounds like you need to pull the head, looking for blown head gasket or magnafkuxing the head if the crack isn't obvious.

the motor can survive a blown head gasket, but if you were running it around with coolant in the oil, be prepared to be told the engine needs bearings. or buy a junky XJ and swap in the longblock.

don't put a bunch of money into a fawked motor, you can get the 4.0 longblock relatively easily.

[Hawkes]

To add to what others said, I would think the engine was/is hydro locked, that's probably what caused it to stall, and why it won't turn over quick, and could mean bent connecting rods. To see you could pull all the plugs and the coil wire and turn it over to see if antifreeze gets ejected from the spark plug holes.

[Big Willy]

I was talking with APJ's this morning and they are going to take a look at it for me. Either option of the head or engine replacement is going to suck. I'll post up and let you guys know the results.

[Big Willy]

Well the motor's toast! But Andre has another with about 180k on it for me. He is getting her done now. Should probably get some hooks installed while I am at it.

[Creepy]

yep, just fire another one in there.

[Stevens]

Must have been 10+ liters of greenish, brownish, gunky goo that came out of the oil pan (and yes those are the proper technical terms!).