Blown motor? Cracked head? Head gasket?

[Cobrajay]

Well, I went wheeling for the first time. A bunch of us took a trip to PA (rauschs creek). Jeep performed great until the end. Somehow all the water i had in the radiator just vanished. Didn't have any smoke or overheating allllll day. I was on the last trail and got stuck on some rocks and I over heated and I waited and cooled down and took off after that. A little while after, I hear a tick coming from the motor. Only ticks when I give it gas. The tick eventually gets louder as I give it gas and when we leave, I jump on the HW and it died and never started back up. I think I blew the head gasket or possibly damaged the head (cracked). I filled up the radiator today and tried starting it but got nothing. I had power and fuel but as far as spark..well....I pull all plugs and two or three of them had water on them. I started breaking down the motor and these are the pics so far.... 9/28/09

:thumbdown:




9/29/09 Water sitting on top of the pistons....lots of water

The cylinder walls are perfect. The pistons are clean. Two pistons are these marks on them. Don't know what its from. I turned the crank and all pistons move just fine. Dropping the heads and the manifold off tomorrow. I hope the heads come out ok. :hang:

 

[chris420]

When I cracked the head on my engine it took about 2000 miles to evaporate a half gallon of coolant. Your pictures show a lot of water in the engine. This leads me to beleave that your head gasket failed but I could be wrong. In any case I think you motor is shot. You should do a complete rebuild on the engine or order a crate motor from Mopar. You may have caused damadge to the crank bearings have you pulled the oil pan and looked at the connecting rods at all? I bought a crate motor form Mopar because I did not want to go through the cost of buying a new head and down the road have other problems due to the water damadge. You could also find a motor from the junk yard for a decent price or craigslist. There was a good show on Trucks spike TV with a 4.0lt stocker rebuild check out spike online.

 

[SurfXJSnow]

now that..... doesnt look healthy.

 

[tomcat]

you're lucky, this is what my tick and coolant leak were:

still ran, just a little rough