Untimely demise of a 3.6 Pentastar in a Wrangler

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The_Eric

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So yeah, I've been getting some interesting problems in the shop lately...

Our mailman stopped in one day complaining of high oil consumption- 1/2qt in 75 miles. It is a linear burn, in other words, it won't just slurp the first half a quart off, then stop, it keeps going. I asked him the usual questions but he couldn't answer. Told him I'd look into it and get back to him. Looked for bulletins/TSBs, but found nothing pertaining to his specific situation. Well, a few weeks later he shows up again complaining of a leak. Couldn't find the exact source but knew it was coming from under the intake. We scheduled an appt, I rounded up some seals and hoped for the best. When it showed up the first thing I was inspect the air intake system...

Found this:

Yes, I know the breather hose is off, I did that. That's right... All the clips were loose! One was M.I.A.



Looking further I saw


And finally:



Called him up right away- he told me to fix the leak.... Okay.

This guy was leaking. The oil filter housing/oil cooler. $227.00 list price.


New housing came with everything- orings, bolts, sensors, even an oil filter!


Surfaces are prepped and ready. I must have sopped up a quart of oil from the valley! It would leak out, then slosh rearward under acceleration and make a huge mess!



So that's where I had to leave it... New cooler and air filter. Owner couldn't replace the engine yet. He didn't know if it was the quick lube that left the clips off or if he did... I left him a quote for a long block ($4500.00) or a 25k mile used engine ($2800.00 or $2900.00). We'll see what happens.
 
Oh, and before you chastise me for not replacing the knock sensors, they were still functioning, not throwing codes and the guy was out of money. Executive decision time. They stayed.
 
They can crack from people tightening the filter cap too tight. It is a known issue. People horse them down, the design is not the greatest it should have been all aluminum. Chrysler warranties it many cases too because it is a known problem. It's all over the Jeep forums.
 
Someone was doing some really top notch oil changes on that thing. Lets crank the oil filter cap down for good measure, and also knock the clips off the air filter housing. As long as the oil filter is in there real good, you can have a loose air filter.
 
So why does the engine need to be replaced? Does the intake have to come off to replace the oil filter housing/cooler?
 
Interesting design. Never seen an oil cooler configuration like that before. Good pics.
 
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Is that a puddle of oil at the beginning of the air intake tube ?

How'd all that oil get in the throttle body ?


I'm assuming that either his engine developed so much blowby from ingesting all of the dirt that it blows out oil through the breather tube, or it was able to just walk in from the leak through the essentially open intake system.
 
Some quick lubes make the techs check the air filter every oil change for an upsell opportunity. This could explain the airbox clips.

I like the restrictor popper doohickeys on the sealed focus and some diesels, though even then it might not keep prying hands out.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
So why does the engine need to be replaced? Does the intake have to come off to replace the oil filter housing/cooler?


Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
I, too, wonder why this engine has to be replaced.


dishdude- yes, both the upper and lower intake has to come off to access the cooler assy.

I recommended the replacement because ingested tons of dirt. That means increased bearing wear and also the fact that it consumes (burns) almost a qt of oil in 100 miles. That means that he's going to foul plugs and misfire, damage catalysts and who knows what else.




Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Is that a puddle of oil at the beginning of the air intake tube ?

How'd all that oil get in the throttle body ?


Yes it is. Double Wasp hit the nail on the head- it's being pushed out the breather hose (the hose that is disconnected in the first pic and being sucked back into the inlet.




Originally Posted By: racin4ds
Chrysler engineering at its finest!


Actually, I read an article from Hengst and they are the ones who designed it. Chrysler came to them with the challenge and they came up with the solution.



Originally Posted By: eljefino
Some quick lubes make the techs check the air filter every oil change for an upsell opportunity. This could explain the airbox clips.

I like the restrictor popper doohickeys on the sealed focus and some diesels, though even then it might not keep prying hands out.



I told the owner about that practice- he mentioned that he put an air filter in too (but didn't mention when) so nobody really knows who is responsible. My gut says the quick lube is (again, don't know, can't confirm) since the dirty side of the filter had collected a pretty fair amount of dirt. This guy is a rural mail carrier an the majority of his route is gravel travel. 75 miles a day.

The Jeep now has about 109k miles on it.
 
Well fixing the leak might stop a lot of the consumption. It'll be interesting to see how much damage the dirt and if it was run low on oil how much damage was caused.
 
Pretty unlikely as the oil consumption issue precedes the oil leak by a fair amount of time. I know I didn't make that clear in the initial post.
 
Well I guess that's one way to de-carbon a motor!

The cylinder bores on that thing must look amazing, 1qt every 100 miles is right at the limit of where a motor will run. He is going to have some serious fouling issues very quickly.

Plugs on the modern motors are a PITA to replace and not cheap, at least in the old days you could buy $1 copper plugs and just swap them out all the time when they fouled.


On top of replacing the motor he is going to need all new O2 sensors and new catalytic converters.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: cptbarkey
a compression test would be a better evidence vs spit balling.


It burns a quart every 100 miles and the intake is full of dirt. I'll save you the effort it has low compression. But that's not really the problem here, a gas motor will run along just fine with low compression.
 
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