Refresh or Rebuild: One Cooked 4.0

Wow, sorry for the very late update, but it took me way longer to get it running than I expected. Nothing to do with the Jeep, just related things. Like jabbed my head on the transmission crossmember stud when changing the trans fluid and filter. Tore my scalp from stem to stern. You know, there was a solid half-second there I felt my head and thought I was fine, and then just a waterfall of blood. Drove myself to the ER with a towel wrapped around my neck and practicing meditation while driving to prevent from hyperventilating and passing out. All in all, it ended up healing really well and pretty dang quick. Can't even feel the scar and it's not noticeable through my hair. That said, worst part of the whole experience was finding out that removing all the staples isn't covered under my initial visit and my government employee insurance sucks. Ended up having my brother remove them at the kitchen table. What an awful experience.

But then other stuff popped up, like finding out my brother has been driving his 2.3 Ranger for at least 20k miles with only a quart of metal shavings as its lubricant. He's been complaining a lot lately that it has no guts. Best I can figure without pulling the valve cover, is that he now has circular cams. Motor sounds beautiful though. Debris was all silver, no copper or gold, so I think the bearings have somehow miraculously survived while the cams were starved for oil. Possibly helped or hindered by the fact that according to him, the temp gauge stopped working ages ago and the truck's heater never gets hot. Apparently been that way for even longer than the "oil." Verified the truck never got above 138*F even on the highway (on a 90*F day). Changed his thermostat and temp sensor, which became a fiasco. Turns out Mazda/Ford pulled an AMC era Jeep move and just used whatever sensor, and the connector for it that fit, that was sitting in the bin. Had to modify the plug to use the "correct" sensor, which is a different design but compatible.

Also had to go out and scavenge a few minor junkyard parts and random bolts and hardware from Fastenal. But in the end, I got everything finally buttoned up, turned her over and broke her in. To be fair, I first fired her up 2 weeks ago. Motor had the bare minimum together required to physically fire. Just wanted to make sure she was actually going to live. Made the world's worst racket on start-up, but went away after a second or so and ran smooth. Only ran the motor for 10 seconds or so. Has the original cam but new lifters, so I decided to break it in just to be safe. Fired up instantly, heard a single loud clunk, and then ran smooth and quiet. Even bouncing it between 2-2.5k rpm for 20 minutes right after starting didn't phase it. Turned her off, fired up, clunk again but quieter, and back to a great engine.

She needed fuel anyway, I've been running her off the bottom-of-a-tank of nearly 7 year old fuel. So I head down to the gas station (~7 mile round trip) and rip on it the entire time. Gotta make sure everything seats properly, including seals. Best way is to burn them in. Has great power, great throttle response, absolutely beastly for what she is. Get back home and decide while I'm at it, I better make sure she's fully with it. Being what it is, I live 100 ft from open desert and it's all BLM so nobody is building past me. So I just ran her out a little ways into the hills and made sure the transmission and transfer case were also with it. Close enough that if she throws a rod, I can just walk home. But she did great--had that single loud clunk on startup, but it got quieter with every start, and the last few times, it went away completely. I'm going to fire it up again tomorrow and check if it does it. The clunk didn't sound like a usual engine damage noise though, makes me think the new header may have just been percussively adapting itself the first few times the engine started.

It may just be me being hopeful, but I think I have a keeper. Hopefully I can remember to post a video of it running tomorrow.