I was hunting for a new rig to build since rust has really gotten to my WJ Grand Cherokee and I wanted something that had a little more space to take my family out to visit Yellowstone next summer. I stopped by a local shop and found this sitting in the back. (my daughter inside posing as a ninja)

It is an '01 limited with about 170k miles on it. Rust free from the south with a good interior. It had been abandoned at the shop for about 2.5 years and the original owner had headed back to their home country. When we put a jump pack on it, it did fire up but had a loud knock that sounded like it came from the timing assembly or the valve train. We settled on $300 as long as I had it towed before snow started and I took care of filing the bonded title paperwork with the state.

I had it towed to my shop where I got the stuck rear hatch open and then started looking at the engine and this is where things got weird. The oil pressure switch wire and been cut off and attached to the alternator output wire, so the oil light was on with the key off and off with the key on. I pulled the radiator, and the front accessory plate off, both of which were missing half their hardware. When I pulled the crank pulley it was a real fight and very seized to the timing belt crank pulley, so I had to cut the belt and pull them together. The belt was pretty loose when I pulled it and the timing belt and hardware were aftermarket.

The real surprise was when I pulled the upper intake and the valve covers - on the passenger side the rear rocker intake spacer clip had been replaced with a spring that allowed the intake rockers to shift enough to hit the spark plug tube. On the drivers side the intake rockers were 6g75 style and not 6g74 like the engine should have had. Then I checked the head castings and both castings are for 3.8 6g75 heads. On the plus side they were both very clean and I did not see any forbidden glitter from a rod bearing coming apart.




I am torn now. I could just go ahead and pull the engine to see if someone swapped a 6g75 engine in, or I could grab a rocker shaft and a set of rockers to see if the engine quiets down with the rocker assembly fixed properly. Does anyone know if there is casting number anywhere on the block to tell me if it is a 3.5 or a 3.8?

 

You got yourself an awesome project car for unbelievable price. Nicely done. I can't tell you about the 3.5 vs 3.8 engi,e, but you can try to locate engine number stamped on it and decipher it from there. The engi,e number is stamped on the bottom of the case just next to the oil pan. It's located on the back of driver side. Looks like the one in

the photo.

 

Thanks HunterD! I'll check to see which block I have tonight.

 

Well I crawled underneath the truck and solved one mystery. The engine has been swapped with a 3.8L 6g75 from a 2003 montero. Now that I know there is not a mismatch between the block and the heads, I will order the correct rockers for the intake on the passenger side and put it together to see if the noise is fixed. If not, I'll pull the motor and give it a rebuild.

 

Nice job! It sounds like you're really comfortable tackling this task. It appeats the old Monty got the right kind of new owner 😀

 

Parts should be in to put the motor back together on Monday, so I will get to see if I need to rebuild the engine soon. On the sad side I got done talking to the DMV today, and they said they are so far behind it would be 1 year to 18 months before I can get a bonded title. Hence the reason I only had to pay $300 for the truck.