[feloniusj]

I have a 1969 CJ-5 with a dauntless 225 v6. This jeep only has 20k miles on it all original with the exception of a few parts, such as the starter, thermostat, temp sender, and a handful of other irrelevant items. I will go ahead and pre-apologize for the length of this post, I am an engineer by trade and could potentially over engineer my request for assistance .

Short background: after 10 years I finally got the title for my CJ5 from the deceased owners widow. I had it inspected and registered and started driving it on the weekends ( I live in Rockwall, TX about 30 miles east of Dallas). One day it starts hesitating really badly as though it wasn’t getting fuel. I would pull over let it idle back up to normal and then drive off again. Ultimately I rebuilt the carb. It was still the original Rochester 2G and I want(ed) to keep this jeep as original as possible.

After I put it back together I noticed that it was just dumping gas, I adjusted the carb, it started running great again (At least to me) but dumping gas like crazy. A buddy of mine who builds engines came over and was making fun of me for not noticing a dead miss while the engine was running. I just decided to do a full tune-up so I replaced the cap, rotor, plugs, and plug-wires. I labeled all of the cables and noticed that oddly, this thing was wired in this firing order: 1,2,3,6,5,4.

The first thing that I did was restore the factory firing order from my manual. 1,6,5,4,3,2. Of course it wouldn’t run. I determined that the timing was off from the mis-wiring. I also studied odd-fire v6 engines for about a week on the interwebs before I went back to messing around. It just didn’t make sense to me that this damn thing could run at all with the plug wires that “off”. (Turns out it can)

Eventually I get it back in time, yes I end up putting the prestolite distributor in 180 degrees off, then 1 tooth off, etc, like all newbs who have gone this way before me. But I eventually got it back in order and was able to get it to fire. I had a couple of backfires, adjusted for this, and had it running/idling but it was running like absolute garbage. I drove it to the front of my house and back from the alley and that was it. I put it back in the garage and pondered. I had smoke from the tailpipe that reeked of coolant and I also noticed, a minor coolant leak on top of the manifold that I have noticed from time to time before as well.

I eventually came to the conclusion that the guy that I bought this jeep from wired the cylinders the way that he did to skip one of the cylinders that he determined was having an issue. I was told that they had guessed that the engine had a stuck valve. I would have thought so myself with the backfiring after rebuilding the carb. They ended up igniting a fire under the hood at some point prior to my purchasing this jeep and I rewired the harness to get everything running again when I first bought it. Regardless I wanted it to run on all 6 cylinders and not take 10 gallons of gas to drive roughly 8 miles at a time.

I ran compression tests on all cylinders which returned an average of 150psi across all 6. Give or take a few. I know that isn’t dead accurate but its close enough for this post and I wasn’t detailed enough to write them all down at the time. Regardless it held compression fine on all cylinders, although I did not perform a leak down test.

So now to my pre-question over-explanetory background: I decided to and tore the top of the engine down (in the engine compartment). I wanted to determine if I had a bad manifold or head gasket. Once again, I am a bit of a newb on the tear-down/rebuild aspect, so I drained the radiator but I didn’t drain the block. So I popped the heads and made a huge coolant mess. This was about 2-3 months ago at this point. I cleaned the mess dried everything up and covered everything up so it wouldn’t collect particulate matter from my garage (I wasn’t very successful as you’ll see from the images).

With a machinists square and the typical garage tools + a piece of granite, I looked over the heads and I believe that they appear to be okay. Gaskets looked okay too, to the naked eye. I know a machinist will tell me they need to be planed regardless, but that isn’t the point of this novel. I determined that the coolant leak that I saw near the distributor was coming from my timing cover. I bought a full gasket kit to replace the timing cover, water pump, head gaskets, manifold, etc. I was pretty confident after speaking to a buddy of mine who runs a shop doing contract work for the city, that the new timing cover and manifold gasket should stop the coolant from leaking into the cylinder.

But then today I happened to look in the jeep engine compartment and I noticed there is coolant pooling up on top of cylinder 4. Only cylinder 4. This engine hasn’t been turned over, and I assumed after making the giant mess I made and cleaning it all up that the coolant was mostly out of the engine (although I still haven’t popped the freeze plugs to drain the block)...but low and behold, sitting, doing nothing, for a couple of months, coolant has seeped upward to the top of cylinder 4??? Baffled, I write this post.

This issue here is the ultimate point of this long-winded background story...is this a cracked block? Or could it still be happening because I have yet to pull the crankshaft damper and replace the timing cover gaskets? I was just re-exciting myself to go out and knock this project out until I saw this and now I am back to trying to decide if I need to pull the whole damn block and take it all to my machinist instead.

One final note before I post, I searched diligently, and didn’t find anything like this to compare to, I apologize if I missed a thread. I just felt that there is a lot of required background information for this cj. I have been working on my own cars for 20 years but I haven’t ever really had to tear down an engine for a rebuild so I am sure that I’ve made some mistakes hopefully nothing catostrophic, I am not a full-time professional, but I have enough common sense I think to get this thing fixed. Just looking for some guidance.

-=JB=-

Heres a picture of my CJ too just in-case you want to see what we’re working on here 😂

 

[John Strenk]

Could it of come from a coolant/heater line someplace?

 

[feloniusj]

Could it of come from a coolant/heater line someplace?

All of the lines are disconnected and moved away. Heater core is on the drivers side and cylinder 4 is on the passenger. I wondered myself if some container fell over and leaked in. But it was also covered with a trash bag.

 

[jeepdaddy2000]

First, I wish every poster went in depth as you did explaining what the issue was and, more importantly, what they did to fix it.

150 PSI as a solid compression. That is a good sign of of the state of the bottom end. While I'm a big fan of "if it aint broke, don't fix it", if it is sporting an original nylon cam gear, it is usually good policy to replace it.

I've seen that leakage before, Seems it was one of the intake bolts. Might seal the threads on the bolts and try again.

I know you want to keep it stock, but there are a couple of nice upgrades that make driving/maintaining a lot nicer.

 

[chromegrille]

Do you have access to a pressure tester for the cooling system ?
You might be able to determine where the leak is coming from.
Could be bolt area as mentioned above. Pressure test would reveal this.

 

[feloniusj]

First, I wish every poster went in depth as you did explaining what the issue was and, more importantly, what they did to fix it.

150 PSI as a solid compression. That is a good sign of of the state of the bottom end. While I'm a big fan of "if it aint broke, don't fix it", if it is sporting an original nylon cam gear, it is usually good policy to replace it.

I've seen that leakage before, Seems it was one of the intake bolts. Might seal the threads on the bolts and try again.

I know you want to keep it stock, but there are a couple of nice upgrades that make driving/maintaining a lot nicer.

Thank you JeepDaddy! I didnt want to post this detail originally because my memory isnt what it used to be, but as I recall the compression was between 150-180psi on each cylinder. Closer to 180 but again foggy in the memory arena…on that nylon gear, is that a replacement gear itself or does that require replacing the entire cam? Ill get the damper and timing cover off this week. I need to get this put back together so I can tear down my 427 that I just built lol.

 

[feloniusj]

Do you have access to a pressure tester for the cooling system ?
You might be able to determine where the leak is coming from.
Could be bolt area as mentioned above. Pressure test would reveal this.

I do not at this time. Since it is apart at the moment I was/am trying to determine if I should rip out the block or put it all back together. To do a pressure test I would need to reassemble the engine right? I havent ever performed this test so please forgive my ignorance. I really do not want to take it to the machine shop if I do not have to.

 

[chromegrille]

Yes. Assembled. I thought it was back together.
Might be able to rent one or buy one locally.

 

[bob4703]

That really doesn't look like a lot of coolant. If it were me I'd grab a shop rag and wipe the coolant out of # 4 and see if it fills back up. You probably spilled a drop or two here and there when you tore it down and gravity combined them in one spot. You could also put it in neutral and hand rotate the crankshaft and do a visual inspection of your cylinders.

In my teenage years when insurance was cheaper if you drove a six and not a V8 I had an F85 Olds with a 225 in it. I kept losing coolant even while it was under warranty. GM finally came up with a fix and it was a stainless head gasket. Your coolant is green which means it may have been in a while and could have lost some of its corrosion resistance. If you can find no damage, put it back together and enjoy it. But I agree with JD2000 about the cam and timing gears. GM used nylon to cut down on engine noise, but when I changed them on my engine I couldn't tell the difference. I definitely recommend taking the heads to a head shop and have them checked. You could still have the old-style valves for leaded gas. Money spent to hear a technician say, "I couldn't find a thing wrong." is well spent.

Good luck!

 

[pedal2themetai]

HI YEOW long post... LOL... Sorry but I didn't read it all just the last 3 paragraphs, Too long of a story well stop most people from reading the post.. just my .02.. 90% of the time you well get coolant from the head or block the runs into the cylinder after taking it apart.. You can't really get all the coolant out of the motor when it is in the car/truck/Jeep.. I would not worry about it..
good luck
tim

 

[pedal2themetai]

Your coolant is green which means it may have been in a while and could have lost some of its corrosion resistance.

Good luck!

AAAh NO.. 90% of all coolant is Green... The Crapy RED stuff is GM Crap.
Just my .02
good luc
tim

 

[bob4703]

The last I bought was orange.

 

[pedal2themetai]

HI, Prestone Has been around for ever and its always been green comes out of the jug looking yellow but in the radiator its green.. Orange/ Red same.. Not good I've seen that stuff plug up a coolant system..
good luck
tim

 

[devildog80]

If you look at your pic of the coolant on top of the cylinder, top right you have a heater hose laying there. Says heater hose right on it!
Look at the surface of the piston, you can see the wet trail from the end of the hose where antifreeze dripped from it, down to the puddle.
Clean it up and move to the next issue

BTW....nice looking rig!

 

[feloniusj]

If you look at your pic of the coolant on top of the cylinder, top right you have a heater hose laying there. Says heater hose right on it!
Look at the surface of the piston, you can see the wet trail from the end of the hose where antifreeze dripped from it, down to the puddle.
Clean it up and move to the next issue

BTW....nice looking rig!

ROFLMAO…Was way too late of a night. Thanks for pointing out what I should have noticed.

Also I knew the post was long…TBH I would have TLDR’ed it too. But I know how some forums are and I didnt want to leave anything out that I could be flamed for. On the other side however, I way over engineered this problem. I had those hoses zip-tied to the hood on the other side.

My garage door fell the other night and slammed the hood shut. Id lay odds it popped the zip ties and it flopped over and drained out.
I cant believe that I didnt notice.

I did work on that ridiculous garage door until about 1am though and when I finally got mad enough to quit I noticed that coolant. Thanks for all the help guys.

 

[feloniusj]

That really doesn't look like a lot of coolant. If it were me I'd grab a shop rag and wipe the coolant out of # 4 and see if it fills back up. You probably spilled a drop or two here and there when you tore it down and gravity combined them in one spot. You could also put it in neutral and hand rotate the crankshaft and do a visual inspection of your cylinders.

In my teenage years when insurance was cheaper if you drove a six and not a V8 I had an F85 Olds with a 225 in it. I kept losing coolant even while it was under warranty. GM finally came up with a fix and it was a stainless head gasket. Your coolant is green which means it may have been in a while and could have lost some of its corrosion resistance. If you can find no damage, put it back together and enjoy it. But I agree with JD2000 about the cam and timing gears. GM used nylon to cut down on engine noise, but when I changed them on my engine I couldn't tell the difference. I definitely recommend taking the heads to a head shop and have them checked. You could still have the old-style valves for leaded gas. Money spent to hear a technician say, "I couldn't find a thing wrong." is well spent.

Good luck!

Its all original, that said I run ethanol free gas with an octane booster and lead additive. It ran way rough before I started doing that.

 

[VelvetCustoms]

@devildog80 I've read this thread 4 times b/c I thought, surely this is so obvious that I'm missing something. But you said what I was thinking.

 

[John Strenk]

@devildog80 I've read this thread 4 times b/c I thought, surely this is so obvious that I'm missing something. But you said what I was thinking.

That was exactly what I was thinking in post #2.

 

[jeepdaddy2000]

I thought we were talking about this......

I also noticed, a minor coolant leak on top of the manifold that I have noticed from time to time before as well.

The antifreeze pooling on the cylinder could have come from the hose or the block when the head was removed.