prariepunk
Active member
Recently, my fiance's coworker was wanting to scrap her 1999 Grand Cherokee Limited (157k mi) because she was afraid it was going to blow up & the motor was bad (no oil pressure).
My lady suggested to her that I look at it & that it might not be as bad as it looks. After code reading turned up nothing but an evap leak, I decided to start it... after all, if the motor's bad, the motor's bad. It fired up but sounded really weird. I popped the hood & saw that it was a 4.7 V8... a very, VERY neglected V8. I told her that I wanted to take it for a drive to see what it was doing because idling in a parking lot, it had oil pressure. Reluctantly she agreed & we took off down the road.
I didn't want to drive too far just incase things went sideways quickly. There was a dragging coming from the rear axle but nothing was happening with the oil pressure so I turned around & headed back. Well as I got headed in the right direction, the oil gage dropped to zero. I continued on down the road to see if it really was no oil pressure. The owner asked if I was crazy & I told her that engine with no oil pressure usually let you know with sounds too & this one wasn't ticking or knocking.
Once in the safety of the parking lot, I told her that it was just an oil pressure sending unit & they're about $50 and if she bought the part, I'd install it for her. She was just sick of dealing with it (ignoring general maintenance) that she said it was mine for $400... I couldn't NOT buy it!
I'm $400 in to parts on it and she's slowly getting back to being a loved vehicle. Oil sending unit, oil change, spark plugs, hood/rear hatch/rear glass lift struts, bulbs, a LOT of orange flavored coolant bc she accidentally put oil in the coolant
, door pins to put the door panels back on, a ton of grease on the doors & a thorough cleaning of the inside. I'm probably going to do pads/rotors & wheel bearings to be safe. I'll upload photos when I can, it's not letting me through my mobile.
My lady suggested to her that I look at it & that it might not be as bad as it looks. After code reading turned up nothing but an evap leak, I decided to start it... after all, if the motor's bad, the motor's bad. It fired up but sounded really weird. I popped the hood & saw that it was a 4.7 V8... a very, VERY neglected V8. I told her that I wanted to take it for a drive to see what it was doing because idling in a parking lot, it had oil pressure. Reluctantly she agreed & we took off down the road.
I didn't want to drive too far just incase things went sideways quickly. There was a dragging coming from the rear axle but nothing was happening with the oil pressure so I turned around & headed back. Well as I got headed in the right direction, the oil gage dropped to zero. I continued on down the road to see if it really was no oil pressure. The owner asked if I was crazy & I told her that engine with no oil pressure usually let you know with sounds too & this one wasn't ticking or knocking.
Once in the safety of the parking lot, I told her that it was just an oil pressure sending unit & they're about $50 and if she bought the part, I'd install it for her. She was just sick of dealing with it (ignoring general maintenance) that she said it was mine for $400... I couldn't NOT buy it!
I'm $400 in to parts on it and she's slowly getting back to being a loved vehicle. Oil sending unit, oil change, spark plugs, hood/rear hatch/rear glass lift struts, bulbs, a LOT of orange flavored coolant bc she accidentally put oil in the coolant
, door pins to put the door panels back on, a ton of grease on the doors & a thorough cleaning of the inside. I'm probably going to do pads/rotors & wheel bearings to be safe. I'll upload photos when I can, it's not letting me through my mobile.
