Is this what rod knock sounds like?

[jmask]

All of a sudden yesterday afternoon my TJ started making a nasty sound about halfway through a short drive. It sounds an awful lot like rod knock to me but wanted to get some second opinions. I'll probably be getting it towed to a shop next week to have them take a closer look.

2000 manual with 20x,xxx miles. Had her for about a year and no mechanical issues to date.

If this is rod knock, is it worth getting this high-milage of an engine repaired? Or would it be smarter to just swap it out? Thanks in advance

 

[Evan77]

Update?

 

[bromel]

My hunch is it ended up being a piston skirt.

 

[jmask]

Spot on. Shop said piston skirt or wrist pin. Got a new engine on the way that I’m going to try and drop in myself

 

[bromel]

At some point it would be a good idea to try and pin down if 4.0 piston skirt failures are more prevalent among certain years, because this is definitely becoming a trend.

 

[jmask]

For reference mine is a 2000 with about 204k on the clock. I’ve had it for roughly 1 year and 10k miles. I was pretty heartbroken to hear that sound coming out of my TJ - unlucky I guess