Ep. 27 MUSTANG DISASTER: Water Shooting Out Exhaust on I-10!
**Episode: Mustang Meltdown! Head Gasket Disaster + Shopping for Another XJ Cherokee** In this episode, Tony shares his latest tale of automotive woe — his wife’s 1996 Ford Mustang V6 broke down on I-10 in Houston, leaving her and the girls stranded. What started as a mysterious rattling noise and loss of power turned into a major overheating issue with water shooting out the muffler. Tony walks through his step-by-step diagnosis: OBD2 codes, replacing the purge flow sensor, thermostat, temperature sensor, and more. He also covers the dreaded head gasket (or worse) conversation and why the 3.8L V6 is notorious for cracking at the valve seats after overheating. Plus: – Replacing the IAC motor on his Jeep Cherokee XJ – Hunting for a 1999 Cherokee Sport as a replacement vehicle – Listener chat and advice from the XJTalk crew If you’ve ever dealt with a surprise breakdown, questionable parts store advice, or the eternal struggle of keeping an older vehicle on the road, you’ll relate to this one. **Timestamps:** 00:00 Show Intro and Mustang Preview 02:40 Wife’s Mustang Breaks Down, Tow Arranged 05:49 Diagnosing Rattling and Power Loss 08:16 OBD2 Scan Reveals EVAP Sensor Code 10:37 Parts Call: Canister, Valve, or Sensor? 13:12 Ford Supplies EVAP Part and Diagram 15:22 Startup Test and Temperature Monitoring 17:40 Detecting Detonation in Mustang Engine 19:09 Thermostat Swap and Coolant Flush 24:50 Misfire Worsens After Repairs 25:54 Radiator Water Test and Flow Observation 27:58 Water Ejecting Through Exhaust Indicates Overheat 29:28 Sensor Reading Suggests Head Gasket Issue 30:58 Evaluating Head Repair vs V8 Swap 31:51 Family Vehicle Needs and Options 34:54 Planning Mustang Head Work and Cherokee Search 39:56 Hope for Blown Gasket, Else Part Out 40:35 Closing Remarks and Hot Hemi Wordplay 41:03 Final Mustang Complaint and Reset Plan 44:06 Seeking OBD2 Comparison and Gasket Info 44:48 Muffler Water Leak and Part Inquiry 45:41 Cost Analysis of Head Repair 50:00 Budget Constraints and Vehicle Uncertainty 51:23 3.8 V6 Head Warping Discussion 52:52 Mongolian Guest, Crack Theory, Water Leak 54:09 Host’s Final Thoughts and Sign‑off **Links:** – XJTalk.com → https://xjtalk.com – Jeep Talk Show on X (Twitter) → @jeeptalkshow – Support the Show / Memberships Drop your Mustang or XJ repair stories in the comments! Have you ever dealt with a blown head gasket on a 3.8L? Would you fix it or swap vehicles? #JeepCherokee #XJ #Mustang #HeadGasket #CarRepair #XJTalk #JeepTalkShow #Offroad #DIYAutoRepair — Visit our website: https://jeeptalkshow.com/ Watch/Listen on Spotify https://jeeptalkshow.com/spotify Join our Discord Server: https://jeeptalkshow.com/discord Subscribe to our newsletter: https://jeeptalkshow.com/newsletter Help Support the show via Patreon: https://jeeptalkshow.com/patreon
Episode Transcript
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Well, I’ve got a tale of woe today.
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Good evening, it’s Tony, motoroy on XJTalk.com, and this is the show about Jeep Cherokees, although tonight it’s going to be about Mustangs. Mustangs from
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Jeep Cherokee XJTalk.com show.
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Yep, had to work on the Mustang today. Wasn’t a good experience.
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I don’t like working on vehicles to start with. It’s dirty, it’s sweaty, and it’s hot. You know, it’s June. If it’s not summer, it should be. Like 94 degrees today. God, it was hot.
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Anyway, I’ll be complaining and whining about the Mustang here in just a minute.
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(Music) (Music)
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XJtalk.com. It’s where you go when you’re not off-road.
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Well guys, as you heard me saying in the intro, I had a little Mustang problem today.
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I was quite happily sitting in the air conditioning at work when I got a semi-panic phone call from my wife. She said she was going down Interstate 10, going to her parents’ house, and luckily her two girls were with her. I
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say luckily because anytime you want your wife to break down, you want
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your kids to be with her.
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But anyway, she had some company. It wasn’t a serious deal as far as like a wreck or something. She was just driving down and she’s been hearing this noise, kind of a rattling noise and a loss of power.
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But she could never get it to duplicate while I was
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around or while I was driving it or whatever. It would not act up.
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So
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I had no idea that she was going over to her parents’ house today, so I was a little surprised to hear she was on I-10.
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And basically, same thing, it started making a rattling noise, loss of power, and she tried to exit the freeway and wasn’t quite able to get off the freeway, so she was on the feeder. And in Houston, we have a safe-clear program. So basically, that means that if you break down, a safe-clear tow truck will be around to tow you off the freeway and to a gas station. And you get the vehicle off the side of the freeway so people don’t gawk at it and slow the traffic down. It’s a pretty good idea overall,
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but unfortunately,
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there’s a very narrow range of things that you can be towed for free.
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Otherwise, you have to pay
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like $140 for a tow of about two football field links.
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So I quickly contacted a local garage slash wrecker service and asked them if they did just wrecker service, because I wasn’t interested in floating five loans to pay for
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Dalton, just to join in the chat room. I was just reading what he was saying.
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Yeah, no problem, Dalton. He says, “Hey, I’m here. I don’t know how long ago.” Yeah, no problem, Dalton. If you can stick around, great. If not, no problem. This is going to be whining tonight, mainly.
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So anyway,
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I was able to contact this local wrecker company, and it was like $95 for them to drive out to where she had broken down and tow the Mustang back to the house.
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And we found out from the last time we had an issue with the Mustang where it had to be towed that our insurance company will cover. We have towing on our coverage, so it’ll cover up to like $120 for the tow. So it’s not going to really be an out-of-pocket expense.
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So anyway, they’re on the side of the freeway, and I’m concerned, even though I’m about an hour away from home and about that from where they were,
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I thought I better–my wife sounds a little panicked, and my girls were with her, and I was a little concerned about them getting home and stuff, okay. So
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the work is pretty good about if you have something that comes up,
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you just let them know that there’s an issue and you need to take care of it. I’m a contractor at the company, so I don’t want to do the same as what the employees do,
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irregardless of how you’re treated and what you see. You know, if you’re a contractor, you’re not the same as an employee, although they’re very good to us there, and treat us just the same way as they do the actual employees. So I spoke with somebody, and they felt that it was reasonable, and so I took off and hit it home.
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I managed to get home about the same time they got towed to the house, so everything was good, and I decided that I would go ahead and take a quick look at the Mustang to see if I could figure out the issue.
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So, you know, when it died on her, she tried starting it, of course, and it wouldn’t start. It would act like it wanted to start and it wouldn’t start, and it would shake pretty bad.
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So, very confusing. My immediate thought was, oh, I will help anyway, that I was thinking fuel filter. You know, it’s got a clogged fuel filter. It’s a 96 Mustang, and it probably has never had the fuel filter changed.
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So I thought about going by the auto parts. I actually called the auto parts and found out fuel filters were very cheap, and I actually checked, double-checked to make sure they weren’t located inside the fuel tank like they are on the 97-plus Jeep Cherokees. Thankfully, you know, they’re just out right there where you can get to them.
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So I was driving home, and I thought, well, you know, I can go by there and get that, but that might not be the problem. It might be a better idea if I stick the scanner, because it really acted like, from what she was telling me, it acted like a sensor was acting up. Like it maybe had a sensor going bad, or, you know, there was some problem with a sensor where it wasn’t reading correctly.
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And it was acting up and causing the computer not to know what to do. Like maybe something similar to the crank position sensor or something, you know, I don’t know, Ford-related type stuff.
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So I thought, you know, I’ll go home and put the OBD2 scanner on it and just see what it says. Well, I was able to start it. It started and it ran fine.
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It did seem to have a little bit of a miss to it, but a very mild miss.
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So I hooked up the OBD2, a little Bluetooth box that hooks into the OBD2 port. And then I have a laptop with some software on it and a Bluetooth so that I can communicate with the scanner. So I fired up the software on the laptop and connected to the Bluetooth unit and read the data.
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And it had the same error code that it’s had for years now, which has to do with the evap charcoal canister being clogged or the purge valve having a problem. And
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I had read in the past that the evap canister is actually
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the wheel well behind the fender, in other words, where you can’t get to it easily, on the passenger side of the vehicle,
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front fender.
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So I wasn’t looking forward to trying to pull that thing out of there. And it hadn’t been a problem before other than just showing a check engine light, which you can see here. So I wasn’t looking forward to trying to pull that thing out of there. And it hadn’t been a problem before other than just showing a check engine light, which each year when it came time to get it inspected, I would just clear the codes and
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drive about five miles to the place where I would get it inspected. And the check engine light would always stay off long enough for it to get inspected. And I’d drive it back home. And then, you know, sometimes on the way back home, the check engine light would come back on. Sometimes it was a couple of days later.
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So it’s been working out fine. My wife didn’t like the
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check engine light, but she wasn’t the one that was going to pull the fender off to get to all this stuff.
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Well, when I looked at the code, I thought, OK, fine. I’ll see what I can do as far as getting the part that I need to fix this. I mean, it’s the only code that’s showing. It’s the same code that’s been showing. Maybe whatever the problem was, the moderate problem it had to show the check engine light, maybe it had gotten severe enough. And again, it just really felt like a sensor problem.
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So I called O’Reilly’s and they said, you know, they wouldn’t say that’s a dealer item. They wouldn’t say out of the three pieces to that puzzle. I got a P1433. Yeah, 1433, I think it was.
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And there’s three pieces that can be bad, actually four, but three actual parts that can be bad that’s associated with that code.
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So I asked them about the EVAP canister. Yeah, we got one or we can get one hundred and twenty bucks.
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OK, fine. How about the purge valve? Yeah, we got we can get one of those. And I think it was like
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70 bucks or something.
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And I said, how about the purge flow sensor?
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No, it doesn’t have one.
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I said, yeah, it does. I’m looking at
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this Mustang for them and they’re talking about the purge flow. The right purge flow sensor.
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No, not on 96 Mustang. I’ve had issues with the rallies before
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where they swear up and down that the 96 doesn’t have this, that or the other. And, you know, it’s like it’s it’s something like no, it only has two wheels.
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So I’ve learned not to trust, trust exactly what what I hear from the parts people.
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So I said, OK, fine. Thanks. And I’ll let you know.
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So I call advanced auto.
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And by this time, I’ve actually found a Ford part number for the sensor for the purge flow sensor.
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And even though I can’t
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get even though I can’t
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I can’t get the
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purge flow sensor when I give them that. I mean, even though that they don’t find it either, they don’t find the purge flow sensor as well. And so I say, OK, here, fine. Here’s a Ford part number. Can you look up the Ford partner? Yeah, sure. So he looks it up and then he tells me, yeah, that’s the the part number for the purge valve and the evap canister.
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And I said, huh,
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I gave you one part number.
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Yeah, it’s these two things. I said, wait a minute,
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how can I is it some sort of assembly or a kit or something? Because I gave you one part number and you’re you’re telling me it’s two parts. Yeah.
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No, I don’t understand that. I mean, I’ve never worked as a parts counter person or a mechanic or whatever. But in all my years experience, you want to if it’s a part number, it’s a single piece
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unless it’s some sort of kit. And I don’t think it’s a kit. It’s a it’s a sensor.
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No, I’m not showing a sensor.
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OK,
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it. I’m calling forward because at least in the post that I read, they said the part, the sensor from from the Ford dealership was like 30 bucks.
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So and this was from a few few years ago, so it couldn’t be that much more expensive than what it was, you know, from 2008 or whenever it was.
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So I looked up and I found a local Ford dealership about three miles down the road off of I-10.
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And I called up the parts department and they look it up and they said, yeah, we got it. And I didn’t even get the part number. I just told them 96 Ford Mustang V6, blah, blah, blah.
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And he looked it up and he had it. Forty dollars and some odd sense.
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More than more than what I really wanted to spend. But, you know, OK, as far as sensors go, that’s not so bad.
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So I drove over there and picked it up.
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Got back home and.
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Oh, actually, while I was there, I said, yeah, I heard that this thing is actually behind the fender on the passenger side front fender. He goes, yeah. And I said, you wouldn’t happen to have a picture or something. He goes, yeah, yeah, I do. I’ll I’ll pull that up. And I expected him to pull it up on the screen and I’d crane my neck around. You know, you’ve been at the parts places where they do this.
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And then you get to see.
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Most of the time, not a great picture, but
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he’s he pulls it up and then he walks over to the printer because he printed it for me
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and he brings it back over and hands it to me.
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And I saw that’s great. It’s printed. I can take this with me. I can look at it as I need it. And and he even pointed out on the on the diagram where it was the part that I was buying.
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And I said, I was looking at it and I said, well, that’s not behind the fender. And he goes, he looks at it and he kind of, hmm. I said, well, that’s the firewall that’s right there next to the firewall brought behind the engine
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not even really behind the engine, you know, up on the firewall.
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He goes, yeah, you’re right.
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And I thought and actually I said, you know, that I’m I’m doomed because I think I’ve seen that part and it’s very easy to get to.
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So that means that this, you know, according to Murphy’s law, this will not be the piece that fixes it.
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And he laughed
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and I gave him a forty dollars and got back in the Jeep and drove home.
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So unfortunately, the vehicle was starting. And when I got home, I tried starting it and it started right up like I said earlier. And it just had a slight mess to it.
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So
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I put the new party on.
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I cleared the code, the check engine light.
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And
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I thought, well, you know, I don’t want to drive it around because I don’t want it to die on me
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and where I’ll be stranded and have to try to get home some way.
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So I’ll just let it sit here in idle. And of course, that’s not the best way to check the the error that I was getting before to see if this fixed it.
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So I used the time while it was sitting there idling. I actually put in on the scanner, the OBT2 scanner to monitor RPM,
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coolant temperature,
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about seven or eight things. I just had it, you know, updating on the screen and I would go over there and check it.
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See what, you know, see if the RPM was changing or see if the check engine light would come back on, blah, blah, blah. And when I was doing that, I had my IAC part had come in.
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So I thought, well, I’ll put this on the on the Jeep while while I’m waiting for the Mustang to, you know, be fixed or act up.
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So I went and did that. And, you know, it was just side by side there in the garage.
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And after about
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40 minutes, I guess, of it just sitting there idling and I kept checking the temp because I was a little concerned that because the fan, the electric, the electric fan was not was not turning on the
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the thing that wrote right there by the by the radiator.
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And I thought it was really strange. And then I thought, well, you know, looking at the temperature from the scanner,
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it’s only 176 degrees. So
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that seems kind of low. Maybe it doesn’t come on until it gets up to a higher temp.
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So I let it go and let it go and let it go. And I kept checking the the temp gauge on the dash and it’s fine. It’s, you know, it’s not like
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it has moved. It’s just it’s in the middle.
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It’s a gauge. So it’s a factory gauge, but, you know, it’s always been fine.
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So
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I’m over there working on the Jeep. I’m actually buttoning everything back up and popping the cables back on the the inputs and stuff to the throttle body.
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And
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I start hearing a kind of a weird sound coming from the Mustang.
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And it’s kind of a rattling noise
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and it kind of stumbles a little bit. It’s not idling cleanly.
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So I go, hmm, that’s kind of that’s that sounds like the noise that my wife described, although hers, her description was more violent and louder.
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So I got in and gotten the Mustang and revved the engine and it was sluggish
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and it was make a rattling noise when you tried to accelerate. And I recognized the noise. It’s the noise that you hear whenever your engine gets too hot.
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I believe it’s called detonation.
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Whenever the air fuel mixture is is getting so hot or it’s getting so hot inside the the combustion chamber that that heat is causing the air fuel mixture to start igniting before the spark plug ignites it or just before it, you know, fully ignites. In other words, it’s kind of like a timing issue. My understanding is it’s kind of like a timing issue and much like what a diesel does,
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you know, you don’t need a spark plug really to to make it work. But of course, all the sensors and all the programming and stuff aren’t aren’t geared towards the detonation.
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So anyway, and I can smell
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the heat coming off the engine, you know, whenever an engine gets hot, you can smell it. So the noise, the sluggish throttle, the smell all indicated to me that there is an issue with it not not cooling properly. And in the fan,
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the electric fan still is not running.
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I went and the gauge shows that it’s not hot,
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but it does show a temperature. It’s not like it’s zero or all the way over to the cool. It’s in the middle like where it should be. Actually, I did notice it kind of looked like it cooled off a little bit,
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which was a little disturbing.
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So I went and looked at the scanner
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and it showed 176 degrees
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and there’s just no way in
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You don’t get a smell like that with 176 degrees.
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And I figured that it was normal operating temperature is going to be closer to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
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So I turned it off and I got to thinking, well, you know, could it be
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could it be a blown head?
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And after a little while, I took the radiator cap off and I had no problem. There was no no spewing or anything. I tried squeezing the top hose and it was it was like empty.
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And I thought, well, this is really strange. I have this really,
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really dark brown color inside the
[00:20:39:17 – 00:20:39:29]
the coolant.
[00:20:39:29 – 00:20:53:09]
And I had flushed a lot of it out and I just figured it was some really old factory coolant or somebody put some stuff in there or it was rust coming from the coil in the lower spring or I don’t know why.
[00:20:53:09 – 00:20:57:01]
But I had flushed a lot of that out and thought, well,
[00:20:57:01 – 00:20:57:26]
you know,
[00:20:57:26 – 00:21:03:23]
what would happen if the throttle, I mean, sorry, if the thermostat wasn’t opening? Well,
[00:21:03:23 – 00:21:14:28]
it could be that the thermostat is is is closed shut and it’s not letting the water circulate and that might be affecting the the sensor, the temp sensor.
[00:21:14:28 – 00:21:17:17]
And might be causing the the engine to overheat.
[00:21:17:17 – 00:21:26:08]
So I cleaned up a little bit and jumped in the Jeep and went down to advanced auto and got a
[00:21:26:08 – 00:21:36:24]
195 degree thermostat, which is apparently the the factory work. And that’s the factory temp is 195 for the thermostat.
[00:21:36:24 – 00:21:47:29]
I got a temperature sensor, which was like it’s actually a sensor switch and it’s like it was like 10 bucks. So when I found out the price, I said, yeah, give me one of those two.
[00:21:47:29 – 00:21:52:02]
And I went ahead and got an air filter while I was there
[00:21:52:02 – 00:21:53:01]
and
[00:21:53:01 – 00:22:15:21]
paid for it. And I was back in the Jeep and actually I complained a little bit while I was there. I was talking to a girl that seemed to be, if not knowledgeable in vehicles, she was knowledgeable on the computer source, finding stuff very quick, very accurate. And I was looking it up and I thought, well, I’ll just find out if she can find the
[00:22:15:21 – 00:22:16:19]
the flow sensor.
[00:22:16:19 – 00:22:18:11]
And she couldn’t.
[00:22:18:11 – 00:22:26:07]
But, you know, she listened to me complain a little bit and she apologized. And then she said, hang on. And she ran over to another register
[00:22:26:07 – 00:22:37:20]
and got me a five dollar off card, some little credit card looking thing and gave me five dollars off my purchase because of the trouble I had. And I said, hey, I wasn’t complaining to try to get money off. She goes, no, no, no problem.
[00:22:37:20 – 00:22:39:25]
And I thought that was very nice.
[00:22:39:25 – 00:22:45:26]
So if you want to get a little little money off your your purchase at advanced auto, complain a little bit.
[00:22:45:26 – 00:22:50:01]
Anyway, so I got back home and
[00:22:50:01 – 00:23:03:09]
pulled the thermostat housing off and got to the thermostat and oh my God, it looked like it had been in a rust storm. It was just covered in this brown rusty looking stuff.
[00:23:03:09 – 00:23:04:14]
And
[00:23:04:14 – 00:23:07:28]
it was so strange. The inside of the intake
[00:23:07:28 – 00:23:13:02]
was at least I guess that’s the intake. I need to learn a little bit more about the
[00:23:13:02 – 00:23:15:02]
need a little bit more about the
[00:23:15:02 – 00:23:24:17]
how the Mustang engine is laid out. But that it looks like the thermostat and the thermostat housing actually attaches to the front of the intake.
[00:23:24:17 – 00:23:29:25]
But the thing that surprised me was is that a lot of that brown stuff was coating the inside of the intake
[00:23:29:25 – 00:23:34:20]
and it was dry. It looked like it was dry as a bone in there.
[00:23:34:20 – 00:23:36:20]
And that was
[00:23:36:20 – 00:23:51:20]
kind of concerning to me in a way I was thinking, well, maybe this has something to do with the thermostat being stuck and the water isn’t flowing through there. Now, I’ve never really seen an intake that water flows through, but you know, I’ve never seen the inside of a
[00:23:51:20 – 00:23:54:05]
Ford.
[00:23:54:05 – 00:23:56:16]
What is this? It’s a V6. I don’t even know what size it is.
[00:23:56:16 – 00:24:00:24]
So I thought, you know, OK, whatever. I’ll put the thermostat in it and
[00:24:00:24 – 00:24:06:16]
we’ll see if it works. Well, the first thing I did was I took the water hose and this is after it had cooled off for maybe an hour.
[00:24:06:16 – 00:24:15:25]
I took the water hose and stuck it in the radiator and started pumping water in there and it starts coming out through the intake. And I go, OK, well, there’s a path.
[00:24:15:25 – 00:24:21:02]
So that little hole where the thermostat goes and the thermostat housing, the water was coming out of there.
[00:24:21:02 – 00:24:24:03]
So I went ahead and flushed it for a little bit to get that brown
[00:24:24:03 – 00:24:24:29]
out of there.
[00:24:24:29 – 00:24:34:13]
And the best I can describe it is, is rust. It actually, it’s kind of a powdery thing and it will float on top of the water.
[00:24:34:13 – 00:24:50:21]
So anyway, I got the thermostat on the thermostat housing. I put the thermostat housing on there and bolted it up and put the top hose back on and put some water, more water in the radiator and cranked up the engine.
[00:24:50:21 – 00:24:56:18]
And I’d say that the miss was a little more pronounced than what it had been before.
[00:24:56:18 – 00:25:01:21]
And that’s right. I did change the temp sensor while I was there. I figured, you know what the
[00:25:01:21 – 00:25:10:21]
If the other one is bad, we’re not reading correctly, you know, nine bucks, ten bucks. I’ll throw the new one on there. So
[00:25:10:21 – 00:25:12:19]
cranked it up. It was missing.
[00:25:12:19 – 00:25:15:16]
Not, not horribly, but it was missing.
[00:25:15:16 – 00:25:26:08]
And I went over and got the OBT2 scanner software running again on the laptop. And now the coolant temperature was reading 330 degrees.
[00:25:26:08 – 00:25:27:23]
And I thought, well,
[00:25:27:23 – 00:25:30:20]
that can’t be right. The engine’s not hot.
[00:25:30:20 – 00:25:32:18]
And I just started it.
[00:25:32:18 – 00:25:35:17]
I wonder if that sensor is the right sensor.
[00:25:35:17 – 00:25:50:24]
And then I thought, well, if it’s reading 330 degrees, that certainly ought to be enough to turn the electric fan on. So I thought, well, I’ll go see if the fan’s running. And sure enough, the fan was going. So it wasn’t the electric fan.
[00:25:50:24 – 00:25:58:23]
So I need to back up a second. Whenever I went to start the engine, of course I had the hood open to the Mustang.
[00:25:58:23 – 00:26:07:04]
And the opening to the radiator is on the driver side. And I filled it up with water.
[00:26:07:04 – 00:26:15:11]
So I started up and water launches out of the radiator a good foot. A nice little stream of water.
[00:26:15:11 – 00:26:27:18]
And my initial thought was, hey, that’s good because I was a little concerned about the water pump. Thought maybe, you know, maybe the water pump fins are gone or it’s bad or, you know, I don’t know. It’s just, it’s just strange.
[00:26:27:18 – 00:26:28:19]
And then I thought,
[00:26:28:19 – 00:26:33:09]
you know, there’s no way that the water should have shot out of there like that.
[00:26:33:09 – 00:26:34:29]
And then I went back to my
[00:26:34:29 – 00:26:37:28]
blown head concerns.
[00:26:39:20 – 00:26:40:05]
So
[00:26:40:05 – 00:26:45:26]
I thought I stood there and it was running and I thought about it a second and
[00:26:45:26 – 00:26:49:20]
thought, well, what would happen if I gave it a little gas?
[00:26:49:20 – 00:26:53:16]
And, you know, I revved it and water would come out.
[00:26:53:16 – 00:27:07:28]
So I walked over there and like I said, got the, the OBD2 scanner software running again and saw the temperature and the electric fan was running. And I stood there and you could see a bubble coming out of the, out of the radiator.
[00:27:07:28 – 00:27:09:15]
The opening of the radiator.
[00:27:09:15 – 00:27:10:25]
And I thought, well,
[00:27:10:25 – 00:27:25:10]
I waited a while, you know, because any, anytime the system has been dropped the bottom hose and, you know, dump the water out of the engine and the radiator. But so, you know, it’s always possible that the water is circulating and bubbles are going to come out.
[00:27:25:10 – 00:27:28:09]
But I was still concerned about seeing that water sheet up like that.
[00:27:28:09 – 00:27:30:21]
And so I thought, well,
[00:27:30:21 – 00:27:32:28]
I wonder if there’s any, any liquid
[00:27:32:28 – 00:27:34:07]
coming out of the tailpipe.
[00:27:34:07 – 00:27:41:07]
And when I walked back there, I could, I could hear the sputtering noise and I could actually see it sputtering water.
[00:27:41:07 – 00:27:47:14]
And I thought, well, you know, sometimes they do that because of the catalytic converter and condensation and so on and so forth.
[00:27:47:14 – 00:27:58:07]
So I put my hand down where the water was and put it up to my, my face to see if I could smell. And I had put a lot of water through there. So there really wasn’t any, any freeze.
[00:27:58:07 – 00:28:03:04]
And it was clear water. It wasn’t that rust colored stuff that I had been seeing in the radiator.
[00:28:03:04 – 00:28:09:22]
And I thought, well, this doesn’t really is not sitting well with me. This is really kind of disturbing.
[00:28:09:22 – 00:28:15:13]
And, but I’m not convinced it’s a, you know, a problem with the, the head gasket
[00:28:15:13 – 00:28:17:17]
or cracked head or
[00:28:17:17 – 00:28:18:20]
cracked block.
[00:28:18:20 – 00:28:27:12]
So I wanted to get down closer to the, the exhaust and smell and see if I could, I certainly didn’t want it to be fuel. That would really be bad.
[00:28:27:12 – 00:28:29:18]
And, but I, but I wanted to know
[00:28:29:18 – 00:28:32:03]
before things got worse.
[00:28:32:03 – 00:28:46:24]
So I got down to where I could smell the, the exhaust and hear the noise a little better. And then I noticed that the stream of water that I was seeing coming out from underneath the car wasn’t from where, where I had been filling up the radiator.
[00:28:46:24 – 00:28:53:18]
It was coming out of a hole in the muffler. There was a little hole towards the bottom of the muffler
[00:28:53:18 – 00:28:55:09]
and water was squirting out of there.
[00:28:55:09 – 00:28:58:14]
Not constant stream, but you know,
[00:28:58:14 – 00:29:00:28]
more than anything should be.
[00:29:00:28 – 00:29:03:10]
So that’s when I realized
[00:29:03:10 – 00:29:06:19]
water is getting into one of the cylinders
[00:29:06:19 – 00:29:10:04]
and it’s being sent down the exhaust pipe.
[00:29:10:04 – 00:29:13:12]
And that’s why one of the, why it’s missing a little bit.
[00:29:13:12 – 00:29:15:05]
And that’s why it gets hot
[00:29:15:05 – 00:29:20:04]
because the water is being forced down through the exhaust and out the back. And eventually
[00:29:20:04 – 00:29:24:19]
the, there’s no water on the cooling system. The engine gets hot
[00:29:24:19 – 00:29:26:20]
and it comes to a stop
[00:29:26:20 – 00:29:27:22]
because it gets hot.
[00:29:27:22 – 00:29:31:09]
And I would assume that because the
[00:29:31:09 – 00:29:34:19]
temperature sensor is kind of high up in that whole
[00:29:34:19 – 00:29:37:25]
cooling system architecture,
[00:29:37:25 – 00:29:49:10]
it’s higher than the rest of it that I would imagine when the water level drops down sufficiently, all it’s doing is measuring air temperature. Now I still don’t know why it was showing 300 and something degrees.
[00:29:49:10 – 00:29:51:24]
It could be that the,
[00:29:51:24 – 00:30:06:16]
it could be that we had had a head leak, a head gasket leak for some time and it was getting worse and worse and worse. And now it’s just got to the point where exhaust gases are getting in there and that’s what’s heating up that sensor.
[00:30:06:16 – 00:30:09:17]
And it could have even caused the other sensor to go bad. I don’t know.
[00:30:09:17 – 00:30:21:22]
But the thing that’s interesting about it is that the oil looks perfectly fine. It’s full. It’s not milky. It’s not light brown. It’s kind of a dark black, like what you’d expect from
[00:30:21:22 – 00:30:23:19]
oil that’s been in the engine for a while.
[00:30:23:19 – 00:30:24:14]
So
[00:30:24:14 – 00:30:33:25]
I don’t think there’s any other conclusion when you see water coming out the exhaust at a pretty good clip
[00:30:33:25 – 00:30:35:21]
that
[00:30:35:21 – 00:30:42:18]
water is getting into the cylinder and during combustion it’s being ejected out through the exhaust system.
[00:30:42:18 – 00:30:57:01]
I don’t hear any noise on the engine other than the miss. So I don’t think that it certainly isn’t hydro-locked and I don’t think that anything has been bent. But I don’t see a rosy future for this Mustang.
[00:30:58:29 – 00:31:03:04]
It’s going to be, I think, I’m still researching it but I believe it would be rather expensive to,
[00:31:03:04 – 00:31:14:27]
or even me to fix because I would have to take the head off. I have to locate which head it is, take the head off, see if it’s a gasket and then check the head to see if it’s warped.
[00:31:14:27 – 00:31:19:18]
And more than likely have to take it down to a machine shop and have it milled.
[00:31:19:18 – 00:31:24:05]
And I don’t even know if you can just do one head. It may be that both heads have to be done.
[00:31:24:05 – 00:31:28:00]
You know, there was a good running engine and actually it still runs fine.
[00:31:29:00 – 00:31:36:07]
far as I know, with it being overheated like that multiple times over the last couple of weeks,
[00:31:36:07 – 00:31:45:29]
it may have caused more problems than what I think. But I don’t think the engine has a major issue. It’s not like I want to go through and rebuild it or anything.
[00:31:45:29 – 00:31:46:27]
I think I would
[00:31:46:27 – 00:31:50:15]
rather put a V8 in there if I was going to change it out.
[00:31:50:15 – 00:31:57:06]
Seeing that Dalton has headed off, he had to go and hit the bed.
[00:31:57:06 – 00:31:58:14]
So
[00:31:58:14 – 00:32:05:04]
no problem there. Dalton, when you listen to this later, no problem. Thanks for dropping in for the few minutes that you were here.
[00:32:05:04 – 00:32:21:15]
And Rene Arguinard from XJTalk.com has joined us. And he says, “Just me and you, Tony.” And, “Yeah, Rene, just me and you.” It was Dalton here a few minutes. I don’t know if he was on at the same time you were or if he had dropped off before you joined.
[00:32:21:15 – 00:32:22:20]
Yeah, I figure that
[00:32:22:20 – 00:32:25:15]
everybody thinks it’s Tuesday,
[00:32:25:15 – 00:32:27:25]
you know, because Monday was a holiday.
[00:32:27:25 – 00:32:36:26]
And because of my dedication to the XJTalk.com show, I’m here, even after all this dismal news today.
[00:32:36:26 – 00:32:41:13]
So anyway, back to the whining and moaning about the Mustang. So
[00:32:41:13 – 00:32:47:13]
I got to thinking about it. And there’s just too many unknowns on the Mustang. I could
[00:32:47:13 – 00:32:54:24]
pull the head off and hopefully it’s a blown head gasket and not a cracked head.
[00:32:54:24 – 00:33:01:28]
And hopefully it’s a… if it is a cracked head, then I could get a replacement.
[00:33:01:28 – 00:33:13:27]
I have to do a valid job and so on and so forth on it. I’d have to research that and see if it actually would have to be a valid job done by a shop and how much that would cost.
[00:33:13:27 – 00:33:19:11]
And then the other thing I thought, the worst case, would be the block. The block is cracked.
[00:33:19:11 – 00:33:31:25]
I think with the… after having these negative thoughts and going on and doing a little research, it seems that the head gasket blowing is a more
[00:33:31:25 – 00:33:34:21]
plausible thing, but you really don’t know
[00:33:34:21 – 00:33:36:27]
until you pull the head off.
[00:33:36:27 – 00:33:42:10]
So I got to thinking about it and I just don’t feel comfortable
[00:33:42:10 – 00:33:45:15]
putting all my eggs in one basket.
[00:33:45:15 – 00:33:57:11]
So I called up my wife and told her the bad news and told her, you know, you can’t drive the Mustang. It’s not going to get you down the road or if it does, you don’t know if it’s going to get you back or how far down the road it’s going to get you.
[00:33:57:11 – 00:34:03:29]
And any damage that has occurred will just be multiplied as it’s run hot
[00:34:03:29 – 00:34:07:12]
and, you know, gets to a point where it can’t keep going and dies.
[00:34:07:12 – 00:34:08:12]
So
[00:34:08:12 – 00:34:13:18]
I told her, I said, I was looking at Craigslist and I see that they have
[00:34:13:18 – 00:34:19:20]
98, 2000 Mustangs and
[00:34:19:20 – 00:34:27:12]
nothing that we can afford. But obviously whenever you’re faced with something like this, you have to figure out a way to do things
[00:34:27:12 – 00:34:28:22]
or do without.
[00:34:28:22 – 00:34:36:24]
And doing without is not really a good option because that would put us down to one vehicle and
[00:34:36:24 – 00:34:38:07]
I’m an hour away
[00:34:38:07 – 00:34:39:13]
from home
[00:34:39:13 – 00:34:40:28]
and
[00:34:40:28 – 00:34:48:06]
the girls, our girls have to have these things they go and do. And I’m not quite sure our oldest daughter is going to be
[00:34:48:06 – 00:34:49:18]
involved in some,
[00:34:49:18 – 00:34:57:09]
a career development thing. And I don’t know exactly when that starts. I’ll know better when my wife gets back home as far as how this is going to
[00:34:57:09 – 00:35:06:20]
impact her. But anyway, I got on Craigslist and checked and saw that there was Mustangs and I would prefer not to have another Mustang because
[00:35:06:20 – 00:35:14:17]
I don’t know how they are put together that well. Although with this Mustang recently, I’ve been learning a lot more.
[00:35:14:17 – 00:35:26:06]
And then I went and looked at the Jeep Cherokees to see if I could find any, any Cherokees. I was actually, and I didn’t want to tell my daughters about this because I didn’t want to get them overly excited.
[00:35:26:06 – 00:35:32:17]
What I was thinking about doing was getting a Jeep Cherokee for them to share and to drive.
[00:35:32:17 – 00:35:34:12]
And then I thought, well, you know,
[00:35:34:12 – 00:35:39:02]
maybe I can go ahead and do that and it will be for my wife to drive.
[00:35:39:02 – 00:35:41:15]
So I called her, told her the bad news
[00:35:41:15 – 00:35:42:17]
and said,
[00:35:42:17 – 00:35:47:12]
you know, they, I see that there’s Mustangs available out there and
[00:35:47:12 – 00:35:50:03]
there’s also Cherokees.
[00:35:50:03 – 00:35:52:26]
And I would much rather have a Cherokee
[00:35:52:26 – 00:35:54:04]
because
[00:35:54:04 – 00:36:01:01]
I already know a lot about how they’re put together and have a lot of parts for, for a Cherokee.
[00:36:01:01 – 00:36:13:06]
And I said, she kind of goes, oh, and I said, well, would you mind driving the Cherokee instead of a Mustang? And she chuckles and she says, no, like that would be fine with me.
[00:36:14:09 – 00:36:14:24]
So
[00:36:14:24 – 00:36:24:18]
I said, okay. And then I sent her a text message with a link to one that I found on Craigslist. It’s actually at a dealer, a used car dealer.
[00:36:24:18 – 00:36:25:21]
And I
[00:36:25:21 – 00:36:33:08]
sent her a link to that one and she looked at the pictures and she says, gosh, that looks a lot like the one we have.
[00:36:33:08 – 00:36:37:04]
It was a 99 Sport
[00:36:37:04 – 00:36:39:28]
with, it’s a four wheel drive.
[00:36:39:28 – 00:36:46:14]
And I think that would mean that it at least has a high pinion Dana 30.
[00:36:46:14 – 00:36:50:07]
And when I spoke with a guy at the used car place, he
[00:36:50:07 – 00:36:57:18]
didn’t know if it was a, if it had any lock brakes or if it was a Dana 35 or a Chrysler 8.25.
[00:36:57:18 – 00:37:02:13]
So I’m going to head over there and have a look tomorrow afternoon. He said,
[00:37:02:13 – 00:37:04:24]
he said the interior is a little rough
[00:37:04:24 – 00:37:10:25]
or I should say more accurately. He said that it, it needed some cleaning up.
[00:37:10:25 – 00:37:13:14]
And the first thing that struck my mind was
[00:37:13:14 – 00:37:14:15]
flood damage
[00:37:14:15 – 00:37:15:12]
because
[00:37:15:12 – 00:37:23:13]
that’s what’s going to, that’s what’s going to show the flood damage. The most is the carpet and the interior.
[00:37:23:13 – 00:37:27:21]
And I asked him, I said, well, you know, I have, I’ve gotten a 98 Cherokee.
[00:37:29:09 – 00:37:33:19]
I’ve had it for 12, 13 years. I’ve done a lot of work on it. I know a lot about it.
[00:37:33:19 – 00:37:37:23]
It’ll just save me and you a lot of time. If you just tell me,
[00:37:37:23 – 00:37:39:13]
is there anything wrong with this thing?
[00:37:39:13 – 00:37:42:03]
And he says, well, no, not that I know of.
[00:37:42:03 – 00:37:45:00]
And I said, well, you, you mentioned it was kind of rough,
[00:37:45:00 – 00:37:50:20]
rough interior. He goes, yeah, it just needs to be cleaned up. And I said, well, the first thing that came to my mind was flood damage.
[00:37:50:20 – 00:37:53:23]
You know, has it been in a flood? Has it been flooded?
[00:37:53:23 – 00:38:03:19]
He says, well, I don’t know. He goes, I can pull a car facts on it if you like. And I said, well, that’d be great if you wanted to do that. Because that’s what I’m going to do before I buy anything.
[00:38:03:19 – 00:38:05:04]
And he says, hey, no problem.
[00:38:05:04 – 00:38:06:09]
So
[00:38:06:09 – 00:38:09:25]
I told him we talked a little bit longer and I said, well, you know what? I’ll
[00:38:09:25 – 00:38:12:00]
he’s up
[00:38:12:00 – 00:38:14:21]
north Houston, like not quite to the Beltway.
[00:38:14:21 – 00:38:20:28]
And so he’s not that far from from the office. So I figure when I get off work tomorrow,
[00:38:20:28 – 00:38:26:09]
I’ll go over there and have a look at it and see if I can test drive it.
[00:38:26:09 – 00:38:30:10]
So if if all goes well
[00:38:30:10 – 00:38:37:25]
and I don’t hear or see or smell anything
[00:38:37:25 – 00:38:38:24]
on that
[00:38:38:24 – 00:38:40:23]
on that Cherokee that I don’t like,
[00:38:40:23 – 00:38:54:15]
then we might we might be a two Cherokee family. And I haven’t mentioned to the wife yet. But you know, I’ve got all the parts needed to do another four and a half inch lift on a Jeep Cherokee.
[00:38:56:23 – 00:39:04:25]
I was going to surprise the I was going to surprise my girls by saying, you know, how you got this this Jeep Cherokee for you guys to drive
[00:39:04:25 – 00:39:05:23]
and then
[00:39:05:23 – 00:39:07:09]
put it in the lift on
[00:39:07:09 – 00:39:19:19]
And of course, I wouldn’t have the tires of the wheels or or anything like that, but at least it would be lifted up higher than the knot. And that gives me a great opportunity that if I want to
[00:39:19:19 – 00:39:27:02]
get different wheels for my Jeep, then I can just take the ones that I have and move them over to that Jeep.
[00:39:27:02 – 00:39:28:03]
So
[00:39:28:03 – 00:39:37:26]
I don’t know. But I’ll go by and have a look at that one. And I think that if that works out, then what I’ll do is I’ll leave the Mustang in the garage
[00:39:37:26 – 00:39:48:25]
and pull that head off and see if I can’t can’t fix that problem. At least at that point, my wife will have a vehicle to drive and
[00:39:48:25 – 00:40:16:04]
I’ll have a vehicle to drive and the Mustang can sit until I have time to work on it. And hopefully it will just be a blown head gasket. I’ll put a straight edge on the head. It will be nice and straight. But with it being overheated like that, I kind of doubt it. But hopefully, and, you know, I’ll put another gasket on there and torque it down and start it up and it’ll drive great. And
[00:40:16:04 – 00:40:24:17]
if that happens, then my wife will have the Jeep Cherokee to drive and my girls will have the Mustang to drive.
[00:40:24:17 – 00:40:26:11]
And if not, then,
[00:40:26:11 – 00:40:34:09]
you know, I’ll part out the Mustang or sell the thing as a whole to somebody cheap and then they can fix it.
[00:40:34:09 – 00:40:40:11]
So anyway, that’s my tale of woe today and my
[00:40:40:11 – 00:40:42:18]
fun with the Mustang.
[00:40:42:18 – 00:40:47:16]
So let’s see. VW Fool Hawaii has joined us and
[00:40:47:16 – 00:40:57:15]
Hot Hemi, I always forget about how that’s pronounced. I have to look at it and see it backwards. It’s Im e Hoth. Hotho.
[00:40:57:15 – 00:41:02:25]
Yeah, I don’t like that. You need to change that. But it’s Hot Hemi spelled backwards.
[00:41:02:25 – 00:41:04:20]
Welcome. And
[00:41:04:20 – 00:41:08:16]
you, I guess you just got here for the last part of my
[00:41:08:16 – 00:41:12:13]
complaining about the 96 Ford Mustang
[00:41:12:13 – 00:41:15:19]
with the V6 engine that sprays water
[00:41:15:19 – 00:41:18:24]
out of the little hole in the muffler.
[00:41:18:24 – 00:41:21:07]
Which is, to me, not a good sign.
[00:41:21:07 – 00:41:24:29]
But hopefully I’ll be able to buy us a
[00:41:24:29 – 00:41:29:13]
another Jeep Cherokee that we can’t afford to
[00:41:29:13 – 00:41:30:12]
buy.
[00:41:32:15 – 00:41:33:24]
But, you know, what are you going to do?
[00:41:33:24 – 00:41:35:25]
I guess it would be cheaper to buy a motorcycle.
[00:41:35:25 – 00:41:39:04]
But even that would be more than what we could afford.
[00:41:39:04 – 00:41:40:03]
So
[00:41:40:03 – 00:41:53:07]
anyway, I mentioned earlier that during while I was waiting for the Mustang to act up or run right, I replaced the IAH, idle air control motor
[00:41:53:07 – 00:41:54:29]
on the throttle body
[00:41:54:29 – 00:41:59:05]
that came in yesterday. Put that on my Jeep and
[00:41:59:05 – 00:42:01:04]
it does not start up right away.
[00:42:01:04 – 00:42:03:00]
It takes two starts.
[00:42:03:00 – 00:42:05:10]
But I have not reset the computer.
[00:42:06:23 – 00:42:11:26]
I don’t know if that will have any effect. But I have not reset the computer and I’ve only started it like
[00:42:11:26 – 00:42:15:10]
three or four times since I replaced that part.
[00:42:15:10 – 00:42:16:07]
But
[00:42:16:07 – 00:42:21:11]
last count, that means I’ve changed the air intake
[00:42:21:11 – 00:42:22:13]
sensor.
[00:42:22:13 – 00:42:30:15]
I’ve changed the map sensor that’s on the throttle body. I’ve changed the TPS sensor twice.
[00:42:30:15 – 00:42:36:10]
The second time it wasn’t an issue with the TPS, although it acted just like that issue.
[00:42:36:10 – 00:42:38:10]
But I replaced that one twice.
[00:42:38:10 – 00:42:41:11]
And now I’ve replaced the IAC.
[00:42:41:11 – 00:42:43:18]
I’ve also replaced the CPS,
[00:42:43:18 – 00:42:49:13]
but then had to go back to the original because I found that the replacement was causing me problems with my
[00:42:49:13 – 00:42:55:21]
FireWire 4.0 kit, which was beyond unusual. But it definitely was.
[00:42:55:21 – 00:43:09:01]
So I put the original back on and it’s been fine. I definitely need to replace that, but I’m going to have to go spring for a factory one. Go down to the cross-rejeat dealership and get one. They’re a little over $100, I think around $120 or so.
[00:43:09:01 – 00:43:12:17]
And
[00:43:12:17 – 00:43:17:09]
what else? I’ve changed the camshaft sensor in the distributor.
[00:43:17:09 – 00:43:20:11]
I’ve changed the O2 sensors.
[00:43:21:18 – 00:43:22:09]
One,
[00:43:22:09 – 00:43:23:10]
two,
[00:43:23:10 – 00:43:24:28]
three, four times.
[00:43:25:27 – 00:43:28:19]
Three on the front and once on the back.
[00:43:28:19 – 00:43:33:05]
Three times on the front of the upstream sensor and once on the downstream sensor.
[00:43:33:05 – 00:43:35:04]
So I don’t
[00:43:35:04 – 00:43:37:27]
think that’s all the sensors.
[00:43:37:27 – 00:43:51:27]
I don’t think there’s any more sensors. I think the only thing that’s part of that would be the computer. The thing that reads the sensors and reacts to the sensor’s data. And I haven’t changed that. I don’t really have any plans to change that.
[00:43:51:27 – 00:44:04:00]
So, yeah, I definitely need to reset the computer and then maybe I can see if that’s going to make any difference to the start. Or I doubt that it’ll affect the gas mileage at all, but I’m willing to give it a
[00:44:04:00 – 00:44:06:13]
bit of a false hope.
[00:44:06:13 – 00:44:11:16]
The deep thing is if we get this 1999 Cherokee,
[00:44:11:16 – 00:44:22:11]
I’ll be able to put the OBD2 scanner on it and see what the O2 sensor readings are at highway speeds. And I’ll have a fairly close comparison to my 98.
[00:44:22:11 – 00:44:29:22]
Although, you know, I know that the intake is a more smoother intake and
[00:44:29:22 – 00:44:31:25]
has a little extra power on the 99.
[00:44:31:25 – 00:44:37:28]
I see that VWFoolY
[00:44:37:28 – 00:44:41:01]
says he has had many stangs.
[00:44:41:01 – 00:44:45:12]
So have you ever had a Mustang that blew a head gasket?
[00:44:45:12 – 00:44:54:18]
And if so, how did it manifest itself? Because I’m getting water coming out of the muffler. A little hole in the bottom of the muffler. It’s squirting water out of there.
[00:44:54:18 – 00:44:56:18]
Quite a bit of water. At least enough to
[00:44:56:18 – 00:45:01:17]
run the cooling system dry and let the engine overheat.
[00:45:01:17 – 00:45:04:21]
He says, “Oh, yes. Capital letters.
[00:45:04:21 – 00:45:06:07]
All capital letters.”
[00:45:06:07 – 00:45:22:03]
So I’m assuming that means you have had a head problem. Was it a warped head? Was it a cracked head? Was it a cracked block? Was it a blown head gasket? In conjunction with a warped head, you know, tell me more. Give me some hope, even if it’s false hope.
[00:45:22:03 – 00:45:27:14]
It’s a 99 Jeep Cherokee and
[00:45:27:14 – 00:45:34:02]
it’s got 142,000 miles on it.
[00:45:34:02 – 00:45:42:17]
If I remember correctly, I didn’t get a lot of details on it as far as I believe it was a 4.0. I’m not interested in a four-cylinder.
[00:45:45:14 – 00:45:45:27]
Okay.
[00:45:45:27 – 00:45:54:00]
VW4Y says, “V6 heads do not like to be overheated. They will warp.” Is it something
[00:45:54:00 – 00:45:59:18]
that is easily fixed by milling? Or
[00:45:59:18 – 00:46:04:10]
if I do a compression test to find out
[00:46:04:10 – 00:46:05:19]
what cylinder
[00:46:05:19 – 00:46:10:02]
the culprit that’s getting water in it,
[00:46:10:02 – 00:46:18:19]
and what I was thinking about was just taking off that head and just fixing that head, you know, letting it be milled, taking it to get milled if necessary,
[00:46:18:19 – 00:46:27:17]
and putting it back on. Is this something that I should go ahead and it would just be plain stupid not to do both of them at the same time?
[00:46:27:17 – 00:46:30:00]
And if I get it milled,
[00:46:30:00 – 00:46:34:05]
is it going to require that I have a valve job done on it?
[00:46:34:05 – 00:46:40:03]
Keep in mind, I’m not concerned about having this thing –
[00:46:40:03 – 00:46:41:28]
I don’t want to spend a lot of money on it. I want to try to do
[00:46:41:28 – 00:46:52:15]
as least the amount of work possible or spend at least the amount of money possible and have it get back to where it’s, you know, a good daily driver.
[00:46:52:15 – 00:46:55:26]
Well, the only problem with the 5.0
[00:46:55:26 – 00:47:06:19]
VW4Y says, “Trash the 6 and do a 5.0.” It’s not my vehicle. It’s going to be – it’s my wife’s vehicle. And it may be the vehicle that my daughters drive.
[00:47:06:19 – 00:47:07:18]
And
[00:47:07:18 – 00:47:12:20]
to me, the 6-cylinder just makes a lot more sense for them than a 5.0.
[00:47:12:20 – 00:47:17:29]
And VW4Y says, “You won’t know until you pull them out of
[00:47:17:29 – 00:47:24:02]
three or four V6 head gasket jobs I’ve done, only one
[00:47:24:02 – 00:47:26:02]
heads could be reused.”
[00:47:26:02 – 00:47:29:18]
are known for cracking at the valve seat.
[00:47:29:18 – 00:47:34:23]
Well, I don’t know if you heard the first part of this or if it makes any difference, but I see no
[00:47:36:00 – 00:47:37:26]
water in the oil.
[00:47:37:26 – 00:47:42:14]
And I don’t think that I’m seeing oil in the water.
[00:47:42:14 – 00:47:46:12]
So I was kind of confused. And
[00:47:46:12 – 00:47:51:29]
I didn’t – I was confused until I saw the water coming out of the exhaust.
[00:47:51:29 – 00:47:54:25]
And then I was fairly certain that it was,
[00:47:54:25 – 00:47:59:13]
you know, going to be some head-related issue.
[00:47:59:13 – 00:48:04:09]
So I’m just reading here. It says, “They
[00:48:04:09 – 00:48:06:02]
are known for cracking at the valve seat.
[00:48:06:02 – 00:48:10:02]
Water is going straight into the combustion chamber.” Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
[00:48:10:02 – 00:48:14:08]
Is that typical of what you’re saying as far as cracking at the valve seat?
[00:48:14:08 – 00:48:24:13]
Well, I didn’t – Hot Himmi says to taste it. I really don’t have any coolant antifreeze in there. So
[00:48:24:13 – 00:48:27:06]
don’t think it would taste anything but a little like water.
[00:48:27:06 – 00:48:32:06]
Yeah, it is missing. It acts like it has one cylinder that is –
[00:48:32:06 – 00:48:33:27]
that’s not completely firing.
[00:48:33:27 – 00:48:36:28]
It’s not a really bad mess, but it’s noticeable.
[00:48:36:28 – 00:48:37:21]
So
[00:48:37:21 – 00:48:40:12]
basically, what I should
[00:48:40:12 – 00:48:42:18]
the thing that I should consider is
[00:48:42:18 – 00:48:43:25]
not really
[00:48:43:25 – 00:48:48:02]
I mean, like you said, like you guys are saying, won’t know until I take it off.
[00:48:48:02 – 00:48:52:25]
But looking at it realistically, I’m probably looking at another head.
[00:48:52:25 – 00:48:57:22]
And it probably means that I probably would need two heads.
[00:48:57:22 – 00:49:01:20]
Because if one head is messed up and warped or cracked
[00:49:01:20 – 00:49:04:02]
with the overheating that it’s been through,
[00:49:04:02 – 00:49:06:08]
the other one’s probably not that far behind.
[00:49:06:08 – 00:49:10:12]
So if I’m going to repair this thing, I probably need to consider
[00:49:10:12 – 00:49:12:02]
replacing both heads.
[00:49:12:02 – 00:49:16:27]
And VW Fool Fly says a set of remand heads all set to go are $500.
[00:49:16:27 – 00:49:22:23]
And that means valve job and springs and everything on there.
[00:49:22:23 – 00:49:30:04]
Because it seems kind of low for complete set. I mean, a head that is – or heads that are completely set up. Wow, okay, that’s not so bad then.
[00:49:30:04 – 00:49:37:11]
Do they make any that are not prone to cracking? I guess that’s just a design issue as far as
[00:49:37:11 – 00:49:40:08]
the thickness of the head and so on and so forth.
[00:49:40:08 – 00:49:45:20]
Well, you said remand, so I guess these are – these would be the original, just remanufactured.
[00:49:45:20 – 00:49:47:25]
No, it’s not worth $500. But
[00:49:47:25 – 00:49:52:19]
you have to look at it from the other aspect. If you own the vehicle
[00:49:52:19 – 00:49:59:18]
and you can put $500 into it and drive it for another four or five years, is it worth that $500?
[00:49:59:18 – 00:50:07:22]
know, if you don’t have $2,000 or $3,000 to spend on a vehicle with potentially a whole other set of problems,
[00:50:07:22 – 00:50:09:16]
you know,
[00:50:09:16 – 00:50:14:13]
the thing that scares me about going and getting a vehicle that I don’t know.
[00:50:14:13 – 00:50:16:29]
The Cherokee doesn’t
[00:50:16:29 – 00:50:25:25]
bother me as bad because I think I know enough about Cherokees that I can figure out if the
[00:50:25:25 – 00:50:27:22]
Cherokee that I buy
[00:50:27:22 – 00:50:43:05]
in good enough shape. And if it’s not or if something – you know, because something’s going to happen to it, they’re older vehicles. And then if something does happen to it, I either have spare parts or I know what to expect, I know the cost, so on and so forth. The
[00:50:43:05 – 00:50:46:00]
that I’m looking at is $2,500.
[00:50:46:00 – 00:50:48:03]
And it is not green.
[00:50:48:03 – 00:50:52:21]
If it was green, I’d still buy it if it turned out to be a good vehicle. But
[00:50:52:21 – 00:50:55:13]
just to keep things stirred up, I like that it’s not green.
[00:50:55:13 – 00:50:58:01]
It’s the chili pepper red.
[00:50:58:01 – 00:51:01:12]
Man, I don’t want to give you too much information. You’ll be over there buying it tomorrow.
[00:51:01:12 – 00:51:08:20]
Rene is asking me how much, and of course I answered, and now he’s saying from where?
[00:51:08:20 – 00:51:09:28]
From a used car dealer.
[00:51:09:28 – 00:51:19:13]
says, “All the heads are junk, even other models used in other cars.” What do you mean? All the Fords? The Ford heads?
[00:51:19:13 – 00:51:22:21]
Rene was disensored.
[00:51:22:21 – 00:51:24:04]
Bendover Motors.
[00:51:24:04 – 00:51:25:15]
The 3.8 V6. The 3.8 V6.
[00:51:25:15 – 00:51:33:10]
Yeah, that’s a shame. I mean, you know, it’s been a really good vehicle. We got it like seven years ago. It was used. It had,
[00:51:33:10 – 00:51:41:07]
I mean, it was an older vehicle at the time because I guess, gosh, I guess it was,
[00:51:41:07 – 00:51:42:03]
my gosh, what did we got it? Like
[00:51:42:03 – 00:51:46:28]
2003, 2004, something like that?
[00:51:46:28 – 00:51:48:00]
And
[00:51:48:00 – 00:52:26:09]
I haven’t done anything to it. I haven’t even changed the spark plugs in the silly thing. It’s been doing fine. Now, I did notice recently over the last maybe year that it’s had an issue with the water. And, you know, thinking back now with what I learned today, it’s had, I’m sure it’s had some sort of little head leak this whole time because I don’t know where the water was going because it wasn’t on the ground. I thought maybe it was a, you know, a bad water pump or something. And, but there was no water underneath the front of the vehicle. There was no water anywhere. You just had to keep putting water in the thing every so often.
[00:52:26:09 – 00:52:34:02]
So, I think that it’s had a crack or a blown head gasket, a small
[00:52:34:02 – 00:52:45:10]
problem for over a year. And it’s just gotten worse. Actually, it’s probably gotten to the point where it overheated and now it’s really bad. So, it was either a warp or
[00:52:45:10 – 00:52:49:14]
a blown head gasket that went to a warp.
[00:52:49:14 – 00:52:52:17]
Well, wow, that’d be cool. That’s all you had to do to get into warp.
[00:52:52:17 – 00:52:57:17]
I see we’ve had our friend from Mongolia show up.
[00:52:57:17 – 00:52:59:09]
Order Dean?
[00:52:59:09 – 00:53:02:28]
Hey, I think I got it. Let’s
[00:53:02:28 – 00:53:04:18]
see. OVW4Y says,
[00:53:04:18 – 00:53:07:07]
think about what I’m doing here. I’m trying to get the
[00:53:07:07 – 00:53:08:22]
exit music going.
[00:53:08:22 – 00:53:19:04]
It’s, he says, if it was losing water for some time before and it started overheating, then it sounds like a crack that led to a blown head gasket. Yeah, it probably was.
[00:53:20:18 – 00:53:34:16]
So, hopefully, I’ll have a little more to report. I’ll take some pictures while I’m over there too. Because right now I’m planning on going over to the used car dealership after work tomorrow evening
[00:53:34:16 – 00:53:41:23]
and having a look and driving the Cherokee. And if it works out, I’ll put some money down on it to hold it.
[00:53:41:23 – 00:53:49:09]
And hopefully that’ll work out where we’ll have a 1998 and a 1999 Jeep Cherokee.
[00:53:49:09 – 00:54:06:08]
And we, oh, I’ll have to get some XJ Talk stickers to go on there too. I’m getting excited about this. And of course it’ll be nice to have something to work on that isn’t a Mustang. Mustang’s a beautiful car. And, you know, it’s nice. It’s really smooth and fun to drive. But
[00:54:06:08 – 00:54:10:27]
I don’t like things that I don’t know. And I don’t like learning about new things,
[00:54:10:27 – 00:54:13:02]
it. Not when it comes to mechanical stuff.
[00:54:13:02 – 00:54:23:17]
Anyway, guys, that’s it for tonight. Thank you for listening to my bitching and moaning about the Mustang. And certainly all the information that you guys have been able to
[00:54:23:17 – 00:54:27:05]
get me on the Mustang. It just confirms what
[00:54:27:05 – 00:54:28:02]
I think the problem is.
[00:54:28:02 – 00:54:33:24]
And it re-validates the direction I need to go, which is basically get another vehicle.
[00:54:33:24 – 00:54:38:02]
And like I said, it’ll be fun to have another Cherokee in the family.
[00:54:38:02 – 00:54:44:13]
Too many pluses. And double the storage space as far as going places. And
[00:54:44:13 – 00:54:47:17]
it would be fun to get some of those detours,
[00:54:47:17 – 00:54:52:16]
you know, like that backbone and tailbone. Or I guess
[00:54:52:16 – 00:54:56:05]
technically Matt just has the tailbone right now.
[00:54:56:05 – 00:54:58:21]
But, I’m sorry, the backbone.
[00:54:58:21 – 00:55:02:16]
Yeah, backbone and the tailbone kind of seem like the same thing to me. Anyway, the winch thing.
[00:55:02:16 – 00:55:16:02]
It’d be pretty cool to get a tailbone at least to go on this one. But I can’t talk about that too much because the wife will get a little nuts about the lift and all the rest of that stuff. She’ll start freaking out on me. I’ve got to
[00:55:16:02 – 00:55:18:28]
slide it in there slowly. You guys know how it is.
[00:55:18:28 – 00:55:34:16]
So anyway, I’ll take some pictures tomorrow and let you guys know on the site. And you folks that are listening to the show that haven’t checked out XJTalk.com, please do. We have all kinds of fun things that we discuss. And
[00:55:34:16 – 00:55:41:00]
special YouTube videos that we find and we put up called Random YouTube Video Thread.
[00:55:41:00 – 00:55:52:14]
Random Picture Thread. So there’s lots of things to look and talk about. Current News. We even have a Politics and Religion section. Yes, we dare to go there.
[00:55:53:24 – 00:56:06:20]
And I’ll let you know ahead of time. A lot of the membership is conservative. But we don’t berate or belittle the liberal Democrats. Well,
[00:56:06:20 – 00:56:13:25]
not a lot. I mean, I guess to a certain degree. But it’s good-natured ribbing and the conservatives get ribbed too.
[00:56:13:25 – 00:56:14:28]
Because
[00:56:14:28 – 00:56:16:23]
it’s for her pleasure.
[00:56:18:04 – 00:56:24:14]
Anyway, guys, thanks a lot. Don’t forget to check us out on Facebook and Twitter.
[00:56:24:14 – 00:56:28:09]
And, you know, every week, 8 p.m. Central.
[00:56:28:09 – 00:56:34:10]
We’re right here on Ustream. And also available on iTunes. And you can catch the podcast,
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the past podcasts. Whether it be on later Wednesday or Thursday at podcast.xjtalk.com. And I think we have like 27 episodes now. So if you haven’t heard the past ones, get on there and listen. We’ve got interviews with lots of people. Great information that’s been doled out. And, you know, you might have a little fun.
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Get in here with our chat room and interact with these folks that all got here late today.
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So guys, till next week. Have a very good, well, short week.
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This is Big M 350.
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