Head Gasket

[TJ4Jim]

Looks like # 2 Son popped the head gasket in his 2000 2.5. Went out earlier when he told me something was wrong so we cranked her up and she was blowing white smoke out the exhaust. I told him to shut down, and then I got a high pressure bath from the radiator cap after she ran for about 30 seconds, so I'm guessing the radiator was pressurized by one of the cylinders. No water in the oil pan as it looks clean so I suspect the gasket was compromised between one of the piston and the cooling system. He is out there in the garage now stripping everything off so the head can be pulled. Must be 90 degrees out there right now.

 

[penk]

"learning experience."

geek. berlin, ma. 2000 TJ. http://planet-geek.com

 

[TJ4Jim]

"learning experience."

geek. berlin, ma. 2000 TJ. http://planet-geek.com

A good one.

 

[Jerry Bransford]

I hope it's just a blown gasket. My son cracked the block on the Grand Cherokee we gave him years ago when he overheated it and then added cold water to the radiator. It had the really good 4.7 V8 engine too. I won't even get into the life-changing chain of events that caused for him.

 

[TJ4Jim]

I hope it's just a blown gasket. My son cracked the block on the Grand Cherokee we gave him years ago when he overheated it and then added cold water to the radiator. It had the really good 4.7 V8 engine too. I won't even get into the life-changing chain of events that caused for him.

Yeah, I hope not, when I left this morning he had the head ready to lift off so we'll see when I get home later.

 

[TJ4Jim]

We seem to be looking good. Clearly there was a head gasket failure between cylinder 2 and 3 as you can see from the spotless pistons 2 and 3 which straddled the failure. I have to point out to all that if the builder has used a Felpro gasket this probably would not have happened as the Felpro is reinforced in the exact failure area.

 

[TJ4Jim]

Well good news, she is up and running.

I told him to run for about 2 weeks on the new oil then change it again just in case there was any anti-freeze infiltration into the oil (not evident)

 

[Jerry Bransford]

That's great news, nice job!

 

[TJ4Jim]

That's great news, nice job!

I went to bed last night and he finished up and got her running. Just need to re-torque the manifold to down pipe connection.

 

[Travis]

We seem to be looking good. Clearly there was a head gasket failure between cylinder 2 and 3 as you can see from the spotless pistons 2 and 3 which straddled the failure. I have to point out to all that if the builder has used a Felpro gasket this probably would not have happened as the Felpro is reinforced in the exact failure area.


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Wow, I couldn't even imagine myself tearing an engine apart. Then being able to put it all back together correctly. Nice job finding out what was wrong. Now, maybe I should learn some of this stuff!