It's new to me, but clearly not actually new.

WWDiesel · **Posted:** Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:51 pm

Gypsy62 wrote:

Thanks, G!
Yeah, I spent an hour-plus attempting to defeat that lower-left motor mount nut before "discovering" a favorable access from aft and above the front drive shaft. A simple deep 19mm and a zillion 1/4 turns, but that approach does permit your left hand to keep the drive located while the right cranks the nut off/on.

Thank God for universal impact sockets, air impacts, and air ratchets when it comes to replacing motor mounts and a host of other PITA to get at nuts and bolts on these Jeeps! :-)r

thesameguy · **Joined:** Sat Oct 01, 2016 8:24 pm **Posts:** 652

I really expected a battle on the motor mounts and it just wasn't a big deal. On the first page of this thread someone posted a link to PDF versions of the shop manuals - they have all the torque specs for everything. Unfortunately, they're useless when it comes to those bottom nuts as there is just no way to get a torque wrench anywhere near them! You could use a crazy combo of universals, but of course sticking those in the middle defeats the whole purpose of the torque wrench. Whatever - German-spec.... gudntite.

I'm not worried about blocking off the EGR - a plate a few mil thick between the valve and block leaves everything in place and nobody is the wiser. A prefab plate is available on ebay for $25 - I will probably just go that route. It's worth a few extra bucks to save me the time in cutting one myself.

Just gotta work out how I'll do the tune (DIY vs. GDE) to prevent the CEL. Right now I am in a holding pattern as the shop that's doing the RMS can't take it until this Thursday. I half-considered just tearing into it this weekend, but I have plenty other things to do to keep me busy... Maybe knowing I'm paying someone to do the RMS on the Jeep will guilt me into doing the one on my Falcon.

thesameguy · **Joined:** Sat Oct 01, 2016 8:24 pm **Posts:** 652

Apparently flex plate bolts are difficult to get, so that's been a hangup in me getting the RMS done - but things are finally underway!

You can see oil having been spun out by the flex plate, and the streams out bolt holes where it was pooling. It's not visible in the picture, but the plugs in the back of the head are bone dry, so it's pretty certain the RMS is in fact the problem, and I have not wasted a ton of cash on this effort.

The guy doing the work is Joe, and I like Joe - and Specialized 4WD in general. We talked for about an hour - he was fascinated by the Liberty and had spent the last few nights reading up on it on the internet. He said "I'm pretty cheap and I generally don't like to pay people to do work I can do, but honestly if this was my Jeep I would have paid someone else to do this." He showed me pictures from the Rubicon of stuff other people had done with Libertys and I showed him soot-plugged intake pipes and then we talked about common rail diesels, EGTs, and boost. Really cool - it's been a long time since I've encountered enthusiasm at a shop.

He powered up the forklift, and we put the 545RFE in the back of the my Saab. He said "I figured you'd bring a pickup." I said, "Nah, this is better."

This morning I dropped it off at California Transmission, the place that's going to check out the clutches and replace the pump before it gets put back in.

Maybe another week before I get it back... then I gotta do ball joints and tie rods and then maybe, just maybe, I can start driving this thing!

thesameguy · **Joined:** Sat Oct 01, 2016 8:24 pm **Posts:** 652

I didn't want to say anything before all was said and done, but here's a solid endorsement for Bobby at factorymoparparts.com. It's always sketchy ordering parts from a catalog website, but I had zero problems. Their pricing on the "euro" torque converter and transmission pump for this project were excellent - $410 and $312, including $100 cores on each. Shipping was slightly delayed as the parts came from distant warehouses, but I had both in approximately two weeks. I got factory boxed MOPAR parts (both remans, obviously) as expected. I sent the cores back last Monday, and received the core refund today. My out of pocket was about $600, as return shipping cost me $80 - but that's great money for a pump and TC. I will definitely use them again.

The Jeep is still laid up - the shop is in no hurry, but that was our arrangement so it's fine. They had the same problem a few others here have had - the flex plate bolts into the hub were impossible to remove. Several Snapon torx bits gave up their lives, heat didn't work, a hammer didn't work. Eventually they ended up slotting them with cut off wheel and then hitting them with an air chisel! After tension was taken off the heads, they spun out by hand!

Once the flex plate & hub were off, they found the o-ring in the carrier to be damaged, like maybe it had gotten pinched. I have some slight worries about what that might mean for crankshaft play, but the tech said there was no other sign of issues so maybe just a time-based failure. New o-ring is due today, then reassembly. Might have it tomorrow, but probably not til next week. *Then* I get to do ball joints and tie rods. Then, maybe, Dog willing, put some miles on it.

GordnadoCRD · **Posted:** Fri Feb 03, 2017 1:02 am

thesameguy wrote:

Got the motor mounts and the transmission mount done yesterday, changed the oil & filter, and filled the transmission. I took a couple pictures down there -

You can clearly see the places I've cleaned up, and you can see all the gunk under there. When I was first under there, it looked like most of the sludge was around/below the turbo. The bellhousing was pretty filthy, but I assumed oil had just leaked down there. However, this mess is on the driver's side and it's still pretty high up there. The turbo isn't in play over there, nor is the CCV, not even a front or rear engine seal. Maybe this issue is the valve cover gasket leaking?

Here you can see some remnants of the previous mess, but I got it pretty well cleaned up... maybe down the road I will get it steam cleaned or something.

Tonight I will put the engine bay back together, install the new MAF, replace the alternator pulley, and replace the window regulator. At that point, I think it's reasonably roadworthy. I want to get a few miles on it so I can complete the rest of my to-do list.

Well I finally found the source of my oil mess on the driver's side. It didn't get whipped around from the mess on the passenger side as I had thought, but I couldn't spot any place it could come from on the driver's side.

Turns out it's not even engine oil.

I don't yet know how this is possible, because the pinion yoke seal isn't leaking, but somehow gear oil is finding it's way past the pinion and pinion nut, to the internal cup portion of the pinion companion flange. It then is being held there by the back plate of the CV joint, and not leaking out until driven, due to centrifugal force.

It's new to me, but clearly not actually new.

Who is online