Make sure you change your oil often!

[Stumpy]

Pulled my 2.9 out today because it lost oil pressure. (And never ran very well when I bought it)

The past owner of my BII obviously didn't understand the concept of every 3,000 miles.

 

[KELLY88]

Holy crap! Man that's pretty gross. Well guess it's obvious now why the motor didn't run too well.

 

[compleckz]

just WOW.

4L swap? whats the plan?

 

[Shoeboy]

Thats worse then the solid block of dirt formally known as a K&N air filter that I pulled out of mine (its about 2lbs of dirt, and I was wondering why it lacked power). Thats just wrong. Lack of maintenance always just seems to amaze me, and then when theres problems, people blame the company and not themselves.

 

[Stumpy]

It's more amusing to me than anything. Not much you can do about the previous owners, but its going to definitely hurt the budget.

I really want to do a 4.0L swap, but that means finding a good running manual transmission explorer for a decent price... I could also swap in the D35 & 8.8 while I'm at it. But manual trans explorers are hard to come buy around here it seems.

Or I could find a BII or Ranger with a good 2.9 to swap in.

Or just rebuild this one.

It really depends on what I find floating around on craigslist, whichever I find first will probably be the path I'll take. But I really would love the extra 32% torque of the 4.0

 

[Dishtowel]

Something like this...
http://video.cardomain.com/clip.aspx?key=0A677B8790E2BF3F
But I think yours is worse.

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

"thats not gasket. thats shit"

one of the guys in my shop once worked on a 4 banger GM motor for a lady. he told me when he pulled the valve cover off, you could read the engine displacement in the crap that had built up underneath due to it being stamped into the cover.

 

[CTswampyankee]

WOW!!!! thats what i call sludge! how many miles were on it? Im suprized my 2.9 im running has 288k on it an looks new inside. The outside is a diff story. lol

 

[mhughes165]

that reminds me of this 302 i bought from a junkyard for $250, was supposed to be a REALLY strong motor, i pull the valve cover for hsits and gigles and i had a sludge deposit the exact shape of the valvec cover underneat....same thin on the intake, packed solid, i was like WTF

 

[88ranger2.95sp]

tasty.

 

[Evan]

Holy crap!

My 4.0L only had a thin coating of "gunk" when I tore it down after 215,000 miles.

 

[hihoslvr]

yeah, that'd be good spring time arts and crafts project for the kiddies: they could make smudge candles outta that gunk to keep the skeeters away this summer.

 

[BlackBII]

Thats not bad, a little engine degreaser and some blue shop towels and she'll be good as new! lol

 

[CJREX]

Should've just ran a can of SeaFoam through it.

That would have fixed it right up!

 

[Stumpy]

lol, thanks guys.

I don't know the exact history on the truck, but I think I'm the third owner.
The guy I bought it from originally bought it to build a wheeler (he recommended me to this forum) but never got around to it so it sat for 5 or so years.

It has 140,000 miles, the bottom end looks excellent, along with the wear on the cylinders.

I'm looking for a donor explorer now, I just figure I'll swap in the 4.0, D35, and 8.8 at the same time.