Fun While It Lasted

Bummer, the Jeep had a great 4 month run and then I got the phone call. Grandpa, there's a hole in the engine (actually, the oil pan).
Any ideas what would have caused what looks like no oil on crank journals 1 and 2, while the rest of the engine looks ok?

 

Plugged up oil galley within the crankshaft.

 

Holy smokey.

 

Sorry, man!

 

Man that got hot before it broke a connecting rod...

 

Really hot.

There had to be a lack of oil pressure to that journal, either because of a plugged passage or a worn bearing with way too much clearance.

 

This is what happens when you keep running the engine with a spun bearing. That didn’t happen all at once.
I once bought a Commando that had a rod that ventilated the oil pan. The engine still ran, but only on 4 cylinders (it had a Dauntless). The guy drove it off the beach like that.
I bought it for $35, filled it to full on the dipstick, and hammered the metal most of the way back to shape on the hole ripped in the pan, and drove it home (about 6 miles). It clanked loudly a couple times, but got me there. It left a medium puddle where i parked it, and now had a chunk out of the lower block pan-rail., still in place due to a pan bolt.
Both rods on that journal had the big ends still bolted around the crank, and the beams of both rods were broken off. One rod took out the lower chunk of a cylinder too.
Lots of good parts on that one!
-Donny

 

That was a bargain. Have you ever seen a crank get that hot through the counterweights? You would think
the oil splash would keep it cooler than that.

 

Time for a new Timex

 

That is UGLY.

 

boy oh boy

 

With a hole in the pan there wasn't enough oil let to cool it down.

When I divorced my 2nd wife I let her keep the two year old 92 Jeep Cherokee, and I kept my 67 Ford F-100. I kicked her out of the house in December. The in-line sixes in those Jeeps, and the inline fours, have an unusual crankcase venting system with a very small orifice tube vent, and a larger hose going to the air box. Very important with those engines to keep clean oil in them. If that tiny vent tube gets clogged they will suck oil into the air box.

That woman was hard on any vehicle. In the middle of Winter she would start up a car and her hand went from key to shifter in one movement.

By Spring time, when she came to pick up the kids for her visitation one time. I heard that engine rattling like a can full of gravel tied to a bicycle wheel, and walked out to the driveway and told her to shut it off. When I checked the oil very little showed on the stick, and what did show was black and gritty. I saw about a dozen empty bottles of the cheapest oil money can buy in the cargo bed. The "recycled" oil they used to sell in connivence stores, and it wasn't even the right weight oil. I refilled the engine with good oil and lectured her about using the crap she was using, and asked how much oil was she having to add. She said "The oil light comes on every two days". I opened the breather box and found it nearly full of that black gritty oil, and told her to bring the car back to me when she could do without it a couple days. She didn't, and two weeks later she pulled into the drive way to pick up the kids it was the same story. I had heard her coming for a 1/4 mile.

Same thing, no oil showing on stick, air box full of oil. I let her take the kids in my truck, and spent the evening cleaning out the thoroughly clogged vent, then pulled the valve cover to see something I never saw before. The cover came off leaving a solid mass of crud molded to the shape of the inside of the cover. I shoveled most of that off with a garden trowel, pulled the oil pan and cleaned up the rest with pressurized solvent flushing out the engine. I buttoned it back up, and again filled it with good oil.

When she brought the kids home Sunday evening I told her what I had found and told her I wasn't going to fix it if she didn't follow my instructions. By that point enough damage was done to that engine I knew it wasn't going to last long in her hands. Over the Summer every time she showed up it sounded worse, but she didn't care as long as it still moved down the road. That fall she called me to tell me it had had made a big noise and quit running while she was on the freeway. She had it towed to her house, and asked me to come look at it to see what was wrong.

I went over, crawled under and saw an oil pan that looked like a hand grenade had went off inside. There were pieces of piston skirt, and rods hanging out of the holes, and one hole the size of my fist in the side of the block. She asked "Can you fix it?" After I quit laughing I told her it would have to have a new engine, that one couldn't be fixed. She asked me what something like that was going to cost, and didn't like the answer.

A week later she called and told me her dad had helped her buy a new car, and asked if I wanted to buy the Jeep. I said "I already bought it once, and wouldn't give much for a Jeep body with a bad engine".

She called me a couple weeks later to tell me she had tried to sell it through a classified add in the paper but got no offers other than a guy who ran adds for buying junk cars. I didn't make an offer, so she said she would sell it to me for $300, which is what she said the guy who ran adds for buying junk cars had offered her. I expect he offered her less, but I went ahead and bought it.

I towed it home that evening and pulled the engine. The next day I called I a guy I knew down in Georgia who only dealt with Jeep Cherokees. He had a large lot full of wrecked Cherokees. He said he had one that had been rolled, but still had a good engine and I could come down and hear it run. I went down there the next day, the car was low mileage, and the engine sounded great, so we made a deal and the day after I went back and he had the engine on a pallet ready to load on my truck. By the end of the week I had that engine installed, and the car cleaned up so it looked like new.

The look on her face next time she came for the kids was priceless. It pissed her off.

I drove that wagon for the next ten years, while she destroyed at least three other cars her daddy bought for her. Every time I saw her I mentioned how good that Jeep ran.

 

Definitely. And there was absolutely no doubt a well expressed warning issued that should not have been ignored. But then it wasn't on the phone------

 

Geez.

When my wife said her dad made her run parts, change oil and watch him rebuild her engine after she put a hole in her oil pan, I was able to check that box on the marriage requirement list. I still tell my kids to warm stuff up in the winter even though it's probably not as important now.

 

Every car my wife has driven would get comments about looking good...

 

You were quite generous to an ex-wife. Must have been for the children.
My '64 Dart slant 6 had the same gunk when I took the valve cover off. It went right back on.

 

That's funny. F-IT, not worth the effort.

In my oil shop days, I remember one time, we kept trying to fill this car with oil and it would just overflow. I stuck my finger in the fill hole and it was solid sludge. I think we eventually got oil in, but the theories were all over the place on how it got that way.

We concluded that Penzoil (perfin based) and lack of oil changes were the culprit. Our boss was a con artist and even though he exclusively sold Penzoil he claimed the formula changed and he's selling good stuff. I don't know if any of this carries merit but that's what we thought at the time.

I do wonder why you don't see this anymore? Experts?

 

This was late 1970 so the car was 6 years old. Purchased from an older couple my grandfather knew. PCV related or non-detergent oil.
My best guess would be there were no standards established yet on oil formulations. Big brother dropped the ball.

 

I sourced another 225 from an old boat. Hopefully it was not the anchor. Everything else besides the crank and two rods still looks good.
The grandson was over and help disassemble everything.
I guess it was my fault for putting in a radio that went to 11.