>I'd budget high for what you want done and plan on $400 - better safe than sorry!
Are you saying $400 for a shop to do the work? It sounds like you got a great deal on your Wrangler. I thought engine rebuilds were usually $1,000+. I'll be doing all of the work (except machining) myself. I'm just trying to figure out what the machine work alone would cost for re-surfacing the head only and maybe taking a few thousandths off in the process. Right now I'm estimating $550 or so if I do it right - $140 head gasket, $200 machine work, $40 piston rings, $20 misc. gaskets, $150 adjustable cam sprocket. Or I'm looking at just going cheap - $60 for gaskets, clean the head and bolt it back on. I was a little too nice to the wife this Christmas, so money's short right now. I may need to go the cheap route just to get me by for a few months. >Finally, as far as the internals, are you burning oil? How many miles does >it have and how has it been cared-for? I burn about half a quart every 1,500 miles which isn't bad in my opinion. It's got 109K miles but it's been used for years as a SCCA improved touring race car. So it's been cared for but definitely driven hard. The engine runs okay but seems to be a little down on power. I checked compression and it's running 150 psi in three cylinders and 128 psi in one cylinder. I did a wet compression check and all cylinders jumped 30 psi. >From this information I assumed that the piston rings probably are worn but not bad. If the cylinder with the low compression had bad rings, then I would have expected it to jump more with the wet (oil) compression test. It didn't, all cylinders had the same amount of compression rise when checked wet. The manual spec for compression is something like 150 psi nominal and 125 psi minimum. So I'm guessing I've got a bent valve, bad valve seal, or bad valve seat in that one cylinder. I had planned on taking a closer look when I had the head off. >You may want to run a leak-down and compression test before tearing it down. Would a leak-down test still be worth doing before the tear down, considering what I've stated above? Excellent advice about the bottom end!!! I never considered where that extra compression would want to go once I rejuvenate the head! New rings are only $40 for a set, so I'll have to add that to my plans for fixing the engine. Thanks, Kirk Bristol [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
