2. Only appears with some specific action, such as accelerating, decelerating, under power in Fifth gear, around turns to the left, with engine speed but not road speed, and so on. The hard thing is figuring out what the noise is associated with.
* Turn the A/C on and off.
* Stand outside the Jeep and have a friend drive it past you.
* Open the hood and listen to the noises in there.
* Don't lie on a skateboard on your back, tie yourself under the Jeep, and have a friend drive it.
* Don't hang off the front of the Jeep while your friend drives it.
* Don't put it in four-wheel drive Low and try to walk next to it, this doesn't work well.
Loss of power
Most of the losses of power we've run across fall into one of three categories:
1. Sucked water into the engine and lost compression on one or more cylinders. Might not have been enough to stall it, but it can happen.
2. Got dirt somewhere it shouldn't be, such as the air filter or fuel system. Check the air filter first, and then go for the fuel filter. If the fuel filter is dirty, odds are really good the tank needs to be dropped and cleaned.
3. Water in the distributor cap or anywhere in the ignition system. Spray it with some WD-40 and move along.
Just for fun
Much like telling tales at the campfire, we thought it would be fun and informative to share some of our symptoms and causes we've had over the years.
Symptom: Front rotors glowing red when getting off the highway.Cause: Brake-line bracket broke and the stainless lines were touching the headers. The faster we went, the more the brake fluid expanded, due to the heat.
Symptom: Clunking noise from rear of Jeep whenever driving over a bump on the highway.Cause: Frame broken clean through because of rust.
Symptom: Massive vibrations any time we let up on the gas over 30 mph or so.Cause: One broken engine mount and busted transmission mount. When we letoff the gas, the engine and transmission would cock in the frame, giving the rear driveshaft too much angle and causing interference on the yokes. The driveshaft was too short anyway, and the angle was questionable to begin with.
Symptom: Jeep stalls when hitting the gas, but only when cold.Cause: In-tank electric fuel pump wire shorting out on gas tank skid. To this day, we've still got no solution why it wouldn't do it when it was hot.
Random Rattles
These might be the hardest thing in Jeepdom to diagnose: the intermittent rattle, whine or moan. Since these are so rough to diagnose and vary so greatly from one rattle to the next whine, we'll just give a few tips.
* Listen to it when it shows up, and try to isolate the direction it comes from.
* Once a general direction is figured out, try to guess if it's suspension related or drivetrain related. Go over some small bumps, hit the gas and jump off the gas, swerve, or get your fat friends to jump around in the Jeep.
* Common things to look for are bent or broken shock mounts, loose suspension bolts, worn bushings, broken motor or transmission mounts, rust-busted exhaust hangers, and small animals under the backseat.
* Keep at it. The small, random rattling of today can become the seized-up rearend of tomorrow. Unfortunately, the only way to find it and fix it is to make it happen.