97 wrangler OM617 swap
 

Howdy boys, kinda new to the site. Been a member since January, and trolling since way back. I've learned so much from this and other sites, i decided it's time to give a little back. So, here it is: About 4 years ago, I pulled the faulty 4.0 six, and the AX-15 5 speed out of the jeep and swapped in a 5.2 (318) Magnum with an automatic (44re). With 4.10 gears and lockers front and rear, the rig would 4wheel with the best of them. I didn't do a lot of work to either the engine or tranny, pretty much put em in as is. After 2 years started having trans issues. Rebuilt the trans, ran for a little while, trans issues again. With gasoline prices going up and the weak transmission, I started looking around. After about a year of researching, I arrived at diesel being my choice and the OM617 being the engine I wanted. Weight, durability, economy, and availability. And Price! Since I still have my AX-15, that's going back in as well. I started watching the internet for motors and cars to see where the price point of things were, looking not only locally but checking as far away as was practical. I decided I really didn't want to mess around with a whole car, and bought an engine that a guy had out in LA. More on that later. I have some photos I need to up load, and will add them asap.

Sorry i haven't done any photo uploads yet. They have gone from my phone to my tablet and are now in some kind of limbo till I get things figured out. I am giving myself a two day deadline to get this together despite my technotardedness!

Good luck with your build!

Thanks for the shot in the arm. I'll try to get my act together and make people proud!

The start
 

This is my 97 Wrangler on a trip in the Chiracahuas. I apologize for the goon with the grin, for some reason the real picture of just the jeep wouldn't load. So all you get is the jeeps ass, which could be either part of the jeep, or the goon!

Heart Transplant
 

So here's what we start with, 5.2 liter Magnum V8, coupled to a 44RE automatic. In hindsight, should have used the manual AX15. Had nothing but trouble and leaks from the 44RE. But when it was good, it was a blast to drive and 4wheel. I had discovered a leaking head gasket on the OM617, so I pulled the V8 to sell for cash to continue the build. My wife was thrilled to see me doing this in our driveway AGAIN! Trying to get better at uploading Photos. So far only half of them seem to be liked by the uploader machine.

Empty engine bay.

Once again, I apologize to members and administrators for my inability to post more than one photo at a time. And if anyone can offer explanations as to why some photos load and others do not, I'd be happy to learn. Moving on. So concurrent to the engine yank, I was working on getting to the head gasket. As you get into one of these motors, you discover just ho well they are put together. There was some wear on the valves and guides, but everything else was in good condition. When I felt the slop on the valve guides I panicked, but replacement is as easy as driving them out and driving the new ones in. I measured the existing guide height with a depth micrometer and carefully drove the new ones to the correct height. I can't show the pictures of the new guides because they are apparently unacceptable, but here is the engine in the stand!

Trying some more
 

Ok, so now that I have finished a surprise bathroom remodel the wife sprang on me, I am back to the jeep build. As i mentioned before, the OM617 had a leaking head gasket, so I was in a state of dis-assembly. So cleaning was a priority. Discovered that a good scrub in a tub with diesel fuel for solvent, followed by a water rinse, followed by a quick spray with brake cleaner would yield some pretty good results. Any stuff left baked on came off pretty well with the help of a HF soda blaster. It did a pretty damn good job! Pictures to follow.

So after cleaning things up a bit, time to put the head back in place. If you don't already know, that sucker has some mass to it! I made the job a little easier with some paracord loops running through a 5"-6" piece of PVC

Ya know, I'm no engineer, and I'm sure there is a real good explanation and reason behind the whole stretch bolt thing, but who needs problems at this point. Sheesh! managed to get this guy out at least! This is a rocker tower bolt.

here are some pictures i tried to load before

I've been putting the engine back together, now that it isn't such a greaseball, and everything looks pretty good as far as timing goes. My question to anyone out there is this: I've got the crank pointing TDC, and the timing marks on the cam are pretty much lined up, how do I know if the IP is in time? How do I know I'm not 180 out of time? I'll be posting pictures later today. Any input would be appreciated.

there are some good MB timing threads on peachparts.com form, and superturbodiesel.com forum as well

if you take your pics and reduce the quality the size will make the site happy and you will not sacrifice the size, you can use photo shop to do it pretty easy. Hurry up and finish up i have a 81 i am going to be doing.:jump:

I'll try that later today. Thanks!

trying this picture thing again!

Meh! Not so good.

I open the pic with ps then hit the save as button and then it asks the quality and i put it at the lowest and save it.

I've been effing around with these photos for way to long trying to get them to load on the reply, or show up in my email. I'm loading all photos onto photobucket and try to link it up. I'm going to have to get some one a lot more tech savy to help me with this part.

That being said,here is a rundown of what I would like for my thread to chronicle. First off, I don't have a big shop and lots of room. My shop is my garage and driveway. I do have a fair amount of hand tools, a compressor and some air tools, cordless drill and impact driver, a tiny drill press, sawsall, 4 inch grinder, and a Ready Welder. The point here is if you are thinking you need a big shop and every tool under the sun, well you don't. Sure they are nice, but you don't have to have it all to do one of these projects.

The first thing I discovered was that cleaning an old diesel engine is dirty work. I went through a few cans of brake cleaner before I discovered that diesel fuel is an excellent solvent. I went to Home Depot and picked up a concrete/mortar mixing tub and used that as my solvent tank. along with the tub, get a variety of different shapes and sizes of scrub brushes. You throw the dirty part in the tub, give it a scrub, rinse it with water, then give it a quick spray with brake cleaner. comes out pretty clean. I did buy myself a Harbor Freight soda blaster and it really did a good job on the real stubborn stuff. So, clean parts that needed it got a coat of paint, and the aluminum stuff is staying raw. I may powder coat the valve cover at a later date.

In the earlier post I showed the cylinder head off the engine and kind of chronicled that chore. Heavy dude! While I was that deep into the engine, I gave everything a good look. I pulled the upper half of the oil pan and checked the main bearings, and they were in excellent condition! I cleaned out the oil pump and replaced it's chain guide and replaced the rear main seal, then put er' back together. Anaerobic gasket maker used here. I repainted the front pulleys and the harmonic balancer a nice gray color. I then took a black Sharpie and redefined the timing marks. I put a light coat of copper coat on the head gasket and put the head back on. This engine uses stretch bolts. Yeah, good old stretch bolts. This means one time use only. So , be prepared to drop some dough on new head bolts if you do this job. I did not replace the rocker tower bolts and managed to break one. Really happy about that! Fortunately there was enough sticking out to get my stud remover on it and crank it out.

Ok, Here we go...........http://s36.photobucket.com/user/markpb1/media/20140217_153508-1_zps378f91ca.jpg.htmlThis is the V8 in the pre-pull stage.

http://s36.photobucket.com/user/markpb1/media/20121215_102311_zps7d04189c.jpg.htmlA better picture of the Jeep, not so bad with my face out of the shot!

http://s36.photobucket.com/user/markpb1/media/20140217_182919_zps3d837e05.jpg.htmlAll ready to pull!

http://s36.photobucket.com/user/markpb1/media/20140309_190308-2_zpsc6b7c575.jpg.htmlMy God I can't believe I'm doing this AGAIN!

Is it me or did not ONE of those pictures load? files too big?

Try this
http://s36.photobucket.com/user/markpb1/media/20121215_102311_zps7d04189c.jpg.htmlMy jeep on a trip to the Chiracahua Mtns.

Now dammit! I could see the photo in the preview!

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e37/markpb1/20121215_102311_zps7d04189c.jpg
My Jeep.....if this works!

ok, I got nothing. Some coaching on photo posts is needed to get them to appear here I guess. If you click on the title bar at the top of the photo it links to the picture. I'll keep posting photos in the order they should appear. maybe at some point I'll figure out how to get them to show up on the page.

OK in pb go to the pic and click on img and copy the addy then in your post paste it in and all should be good.

I did exactly that. What you see is what I got. Were you able to see the pictures when you click the title?

Ok go to advanced and click on the paper clip and their is a bod that says "Upload File from a URL" paste your pb link in their and hit the upload button and that should do it and just post as usual after that. i did one from my desktop the first one, and pb link is the second. click on either pic and see how big they go.

thanks, I'll give it a try as soon as I get a chance. Sorry for all the dinking around.

ok. here it goes.




Well I'll be dipped in shit! It worked!

That's my jeep, by the way.

Here are some Photos of the start of the project. Get that V8 out of there!

So I bought this motor off a guy in California. It was a greasy soot ball when I got it. I cleaned it up and discovered a leaky head gasket. I took the head off and went through it had the valves and seats ground and replaced the guides and seals.

Sorry I haven't done anything with this thread for a while. here are a few more photos. A quick note: if you are trying to torque a stretch bolt, and it keeps turning without reaching the initial torque value......FREAKIN' STOP TURNING THE BOLT! The first pics are a rocker tower bolt I was snugging up. Next I was trying to mimic Evenglass with my EGT sensor location. My initial attempt put it up too high on the manifold, causing the sensor back to hit the block. I had to drill and tap closer to the flange.

For a change of pace I moved away from the engine bay and started working on the fuel lines. The Diesel doesn't need a fuel pump at the tank so I had this idea to gut the jeep fuel pump housing and put both the delivery and return lines in the empty housing. I ended up attaching the lines to the outside of the housing, relatively close together. I hope that doesn't come back to somehow bite me in the ass! I also ran all new 5/16 fuel lines, and marked one with orange tie wraps to I.D. the fuel return.

I started cutting the old motor mounts off with a cutoff wheel. Slow going. Broke out the DualSaw, 20 seconds of cutting, done. Took me longer to get the thing out and plugged in than to cut the mounts. Let me add this though: the DualSaw has cut everything I have asked it to, but it is definitely NOT a precision cutting tool. All cuts are freehand, and it leaves a big path. It did, however, get the job done, pronto!

Just a quick note here; if you are starting a build, take a lot of pictures of what you are doing. Even if you don't post them in a build thread on this or some other website, they can come in handy. I just used one of the fuel tank pictures to figure out a wiring problem for my fuel shutoff valve.

Looking good man. That broken bolt sucks.

Thanks EG. I gotta say, the logic of the stretch bolt eludes me. I'm absolutely certain they make perfect sense to the Mercedes engineers, but they are a lot smarter than I am.

Got the new motor mounts welded in the other night. If you guys are starting one of these swaps on a 97 or later tj, I know this is something we all want(ed) to see.The engine needed to be shifted forward to avoid clearance issues with the steering bracket. This positioning is good and bad for me. The automatic trans I had with the V8 sat in the same (more forward) position. this caused the transfer case to be shifted forward a couple of inches leading to new drive shafts. Now the AX-15 sits in the same location, so the drive shafts need no alteration, but it poses shifter interference issues. But, I think I got that worked out in my head! Additionally I think you can see the off set of the mounts. The passenger side sits a little behind the drivers side. Both sit on the curve of the frame, though the passenger side more than drivers. I apologize for the glare, I might get some day time shots for clarity .