Ep. 29 I Didn’t Expect This Many Head Gaskets to Blow

Episode 29: Blown Head Gaskets, 99 XJ AC Repair Drama & Christchurch Earthquake Update | XJ Talk Show Welcome back to the XJ Talk Show! In Episode 29, Tony (mudderoy) from XJTalk.com dives into a mounting pile of vehicle troubles across his fleet, shares the full story of the new-to-him 1999 Jeep Cherokee purchase and repairs, and discusses suspected blown head gaskets on multiple vehicles. Plus, community chat, a heartfelt update on the ongoing earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, and more. Key Topics: Wife’s 1996 Mustang 3.8L V6 with blown/cracked head gasket Buying and repairing the 1999 Jeep Cherokee (evaporator/AC clutch replacement with help from Matt) Alternator failure, burst lower radiator hose, and resulting overheating/head gasket concerns on the 99 XJ Long-standing heat creep issues on the 1998 Jeep Cherokee 4.0L — possible small exhaust leak or head gasket Plans for head gasket repairs, head milling, exhaust gas tester kit, and reusing head bolts Launch of the XJTalk.com Amazon Affiliate program Positive XJ community discussion — why “be nice” is the #1 rule Dalton’s homemade electrical conduit roof/cargo rack build Update on Wayne in Christchurch after major earthquakes and aftershocks This episode is full of real-world XJ troubleshooting, mechanical lessons, and the supportive Jeep Cherokee community spirit that XJTalk.com is known for. Timestamps: 00:00 Opening Remarks and Podcast Preview 04:09 Mustang Head Gasket Leads to Cherokee Rescue 06:32 Battery Voltage Drop and Early Diagnostics 07:52 Discovery of Burst Lower Radiator Hose 08:16 Assessing Possible Blown Head Gasket 08:39 Heat Creep and Potential Exhaust Leak 11:34 Gasket Costs and Exhaust Kit Decision 12:51 Chat Room Participants Introduced 13:17 Promoting XJTalk Platforms and Archives 14:56 Show Stats, Feedback, and Guest Slots 15:46 Explaining Amazon Affiliate Program 17:59 Planning Head Gasket Repair and Risks 25:56 Call-In Details and Chat Update 27:43 Chat Discussion on Diagnostic Kit 28:44 Dalton’s DIY Roof Rack Project 29:32 New Zealand Quake and Jeep Story 34:01 Episode Recall and Membership Growth 35:47 Increased Chat Activity and Encouraging Questions 37:40 Learning Cherokee Mechanics via Community 38:18 Community Support and Positive Feedback 39:39 Community Rules and Membership Stats 44:05 Living Constraints and Post‑9/11 Economy 45:41 Storage Costs, Security, and Family Dynamics 46:35 Family Negotiations Over Vehicle Storage 48:17 Family Expectations and Respectful Communication 49:03 Final Call for Listener Feedback 50:22 Reflection on Head Gasket Challenges 52:22 Closing Remarks and Upcoming Episode Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to like, comment, and share if this helped you with your XJ projects. Subscribe for more Jeep Cherokee tech, builds, and stories. **Support the Show & Shop Jeep Gear** Thank you for watching and listening! If you enjoyed the conversation with Tony on XJ repairs and community, consider checking out some of the great products and upgrades we discussed. B&M Transmission Gauge https://amzn.to/4gXuu3I Fel-Pro Head Gasket Kit (4.0L Jeep) https://amzn.to/4eNwL03 Exhaust Gas / Head Gasket Tester Kit https://amzn.to/44zWlzT High Flow Water Pump (4.0L) https://amzn.to/4wnm1LI 3-Core All Metal Radiator https://amzn.to/4pa8MMf #JeepCherokee #XJ #HeadGasket #JeepTalkShow #XJTalk 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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Excuse me, talk show. It’s- It’s on. Now. No, no, no, no

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Well, good evening boys and girls. This is Mother Roy.

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And first name is Tony, but Mother Roy on XJtalk.com. XJtalk.com is a site about Jeep Cherokees, not the Grand. We don’t begrudge the Grand, but we don’t think it is.

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I’m going to talk a little bit more tonight about blown head gaskets and, boy, how they’re adding up.

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But I think it will be nice to actually have a resolution to some long time overheating problems. At least that’s what I’m thinking now. Well, we’ll find out more about what I’m thinking here in a minute.

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And this is episode 29 of Jeep Cherokee XJtalk.com show. Again, my name is Tony, Mother Roy on XJtalk.com.

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And this little show is, or podcast, is put on to help promote the website, XJtalk.com. And I think it’s helping. We’ve got some new members, and some of them say they’ve joined because of listening to the show.

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I don’t think they joined so they could come in and criticize me, but who knows? I don’t care as long as they join.

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So I’m going to talk a little bit tonight about some of the further problems I’m having with vehicles. They’re starting to mount up. You would think that

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I have a curse of some sort.

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I see we’ve got a few people here in the chat room. Dalton, is everything sounding okay? Because it looks like the little banners that you people on the podcast can’t see, the little banners that run across the live video stream are moving really slow.

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I don’t know if it’s just on my end or if it’s actually

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very slow going out. Okay, sounds good. I guess that’s all that really matters is everything sounds fine. It just doesn’t normally act up like that.

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You know, maybe on top of all the vehicle problems I’m having, I’ll have the computer crash here in the middle of the show, which will be a first time.

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Anyway, negative thoughts. So I’ll try not to have those and maybe that won’t happen.

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So you guys that have been listening probably recall that my wife’s Mustang, her 3.8L V6,

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posted a blown head gasket, a cracked head, warped head or something because there’s a pretty good stream of coolant coming out of the exhaust.

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So to help combat that issue,

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I didn’t want her to be without a vehicle and I ran across a pretty good opportunity to get a 1999 Jeep Cherokee,

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which I did. I thought I got a really good deal on it. And

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I went to one of the other members’

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shop up in Cleveland, Texas

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last weekend

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and boy, he was elbows and

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getting the air conditioner fixed on it. And it turned out to be not only a problem with the clutch on the air conditioner, on the air conditioner compressor, it also turned out to be a bad evaporator.

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And if you’re not familiar, the evaporator is located between the dash and the firewall.

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So Matt,

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the XJTalk member and also administrator on XJTalk.com, busted out the screwdrivers and wrenches and sockets and

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he pulled the dash out of a donor vehicle that he had.

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And

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we got the evaporator out of that vehicle and then he busted out

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the dash out of the 99.

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And

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at least he didn’t have to provide O-rings and R134A and all the other goodies. At least I had that stuff.

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So within, it was a full day deal. I guess I got there around 9.30 or so and it was 5.30 or 6 before we were done. And when I say we, I mean, you know, there was four guys there but there was only one working that was Matt.

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And I was pretty happy. Drove back home with AC on and it was running really well.

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Got home just in time for my wife to be able to use her vehicle to drive out to a function.

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And on her way back, she called me because one of the gauges had gone to zero. Well in this case, 9 volts but 9 is as low as it can go on the voltmeter.

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And she had gotten the warning light and tone.

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And I figured, okay, well, the Jeep was sitting up a little while before we got it so

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it would be understandable if the alternator had gone out. You know, not lucky but just a little bit of time. It’s about $110 I guess.

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A little bit of my time to change that out. I wasn’t happy but not a major deal.

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So she goes a little further and then she says that the engine’s having a hard time running. And I’m figuring that the battery got low. I was a little surprised that it happened that quick.

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I figured the battery had gotten a little low and she was trying to pull over and I asked her where she was and she wasn’t 3, 4 miles from the house. So

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I grabbed the jumper cables and some tools in case they had thrown the belt, even though they said the belt was not thrown, and picked up an extra belt that I had, which was nice because that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to get another Cherokee because I have a lot of parts and

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I know how to work on my 98. So the 99 should be virtually identical.

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So I got over there and I was able to start the vehicle.

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And just to make it, I’ll try to make a long story shorter, which it was a long story. I mean this was about 11 o’clock at night and I think we wound up getting home by about 2.30. We actually came home several times to get things.

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One of the, I wouldn’t, it seemed like it was hot and I didn’t understand why it was hot, why the engine was hot. And you know, there was no coolant anywhere, you know, nothing was wet, nothing. Anyway, long story short, the lower radiator hose had burst.

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There was a nice big tear in it and I found that out whenever I started pouring some water in the radiator and it was coming out as fast as I was putting it in.

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And by that time, I had already run it a while not knowing that it didn’t have any coolant in it.

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Well, I think I got a blown head gasket.

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It’s either a blown head gasket or a warped head or a blown head gasket due to a warped head.

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And the interesting thing is that the 98 has had a heat creep problem on the highway for quite a long time.

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And it manifests itself a lot like what the 99 is doing.

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So I think that there is a possibility, and I’ve thought about this for a while, but I just didn’t think that it would be, it was a reality because

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it is not, it’s not a very severe problem, but I think that there’s a real likelihood that the 98 also has a slight exhaust leak somewhere on the head.

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And I don’t think it’s as bad as what it is on the 99,

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but I’m seeing the same symptoms on both of them now.

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And what makes it even more fun is, as I previously mentioned just a few minutes ago, the Mustang

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definitely has a cracked or blown head gasket.

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So I got to find a machine shop.

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You know, I’ve built engines, I’ve built two engines before, but that was when I was much younger and I don’t know, maybe I just wasn’t as concerned about failure because it was just something I did and it all worked out just fine.

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So I’m actually kind of relieved because if this is

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the problem with the 98, then all this effort and time that I’ve put into the 98 trying to get this heat creep problem fixed

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will be solved. And it potentially could be solved for less money than what I’ve spent on, actually about the same amount of money that I’ve spent on a three-core radiator because it looks like it’ll cost between $50 and $100 to have the head milled if necessary, which it may not be necessary on the 98, but it probably will be necessary on the 99 because I saw some pretty good stream of bubbles, which by the way I posted up on XJTalk a video

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of the bubbles I saw coming out of the radiator.

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Now, the interesting thing about this is

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the Mustang, the 96 Mustang,

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the 98 Cherokee with the 4.0 liter and the 99 Cherokee with the 4.0 liter,

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may all, two of them I feel pretty confident have head gasket leaks.

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None of them, none of them show any indication of water in the oil or coolant in the oil

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or chocolate in the peanut butter.

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Some of you guys don’t get that. That’s an old Reese’s chocolate peanut butter commercial. “Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter. Hey, you got peanut butter in my chocolate.” And then they enjoy and have mad passionate sex. I’m sorry, that’s a different version.

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So anyway, hopefully for $180 or the Felpro gasket from O’Rally’s is $79.99 or whatever, and that’s the head gasket, the intake gasket and some other odds and ends there, valve cover gasket as well.

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So

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I don’t like the idea of

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doing something that’s going to mess things up,

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but it’s not like I haven’t done this before. I’m just a little nervous about doing it again. It’s just so critical. Monetarily, it’s

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so critical for it to go right. So I’m a little nervous about that aspect of it, but I know I’m capable of doing this stuff. The only thing that I need to check into, obviously I need to get the field service manual so I can check and see exactly what it says about the head bolts, which I think it’s okay. You can reuse the head bolts once.

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And probably to be safe and depending on what it costs, I’ll probably get some head bolts for the 99 and the 98.

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The thing I don’t know right now is whether I should go ahead and spend the money on an exhaust gas kit or not. I saw one on Amazon.com. Well it’s several places on the internet

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and it’s like 50 bucks

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for the kit. And I hate to spend 50 bucks on something, but then again,

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it potentially could save me a lot of work and a lot of money. So yeah, I guess I’ll do that.

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Well we’ve got a few more people here in the chat room. Let’s see what they think. Has anybody seen the video that I just put up on YouTube and on XJTalk about maybe an hour ago?

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They’re probably not even listening to me. I see they’re talking to each other.

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Let’s see, there’s Dalton, Torque 1257, VW4Y.

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And

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thought there was somebody else there.

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Nope, I guess it’s those four and two guests.

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So by the way, if

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you have found XJTalk because of the podcast, great. If you have found us through Facebook, great. If you found us through XJTalk. If you found us through Twitter, great. But that means that we’re on Twitter, Facebook,

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YouTube.

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I think it’s just

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YouTube slash XJTalk, let’s see.

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Of course, you can get to all those places just by going to XJTalk.com. And right below the XJTalk logo in the upper left-hand corner is a series of icons. And it’s icons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Ustream, Skype, and little podcast icons. So you can click on any of those and go

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to one of those other avenues for XJTalk information. The Facebook account gets updated automatically with the three most recent posts on XJTalk. So

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if you’re a Facebooker and you would like to kind of keep up with what’s going on on XJTalk during the day or the evening, even early in the morning because we have members on in Australia and New Zealand.

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And some late night members as well that are here in the States.

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But you can keep up with us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Of course, the shows are available on Ustream and they’re also available on YouTube and on our site where you can just click on Podcast up on the nav bar of XJTalk.com and listen to one of our

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28 past shows. After tonight, it’ll be 29 past shows. So, you know, that’s a fair number of shows.

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Each one of those shows are an hour or a little more.

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So,

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you know, would really like to have some feedback. What do you like hearing? What don’t you like hearing? We’re exploring getting a co-host and hopefully having two people ramble will sound a little bit better than just one.

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And if you would like to be on the show, you know, feel free to contact me through the site or email. You can send me email at motoroy at XJTalk.com.

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And tell me what you got to talk about. If it’s not much, we can do a short interview. If it’s some sort of cause or some sort of event that you’d like to plug, I’d be happy to do that too.

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So anyway,

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oh, one other thing I want to mention. I’ve been listening to a podcast that they have been selling or been pushing a click through for Amazon.com. So basically what they’ve done is they’ve set up a thing on their site. So whenever you click on their Amazon.com banner, it takes you to Amazon.com. And then any purchase that you make, that podcast gets a few pennies, gets a few percentages of the purchase. It doesn’t cost you anything different. You still get the same product that you were going to get,

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but it helps support the site. So we looked that up and we put it up on our site. And so if you go to the homepage of XJTalk.com,

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you will see a little border there that says Amazon Affiliate, which we are now an affiliate.

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So if you want to make a purchase at Amazon.com, you click on that. It’ll take you to Amazon.com and then they’ll know that

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you are

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purchasing that through us.

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And again, the price to you is the same, but we get a percentage, kind of like a sales fee because we’re like selling it for them.

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And it’s a pretty good, pretty good fee, pretty good percentage.

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So if you would, especially if you’re planning on buying a car or a mobile home or perhaps a luxury island, if you go to Amazon.com and buy it, we’ll get probably enough money where I can just retire and quit doing these shows.

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No, seriously, we would appreciate it if you go over there and make your purchases. I’ve yet to see, we’ve only been doing this for a few days, so I’ve yet to see a purchase go through that we’ve had several clicks, but nobody’s purchased anything with Amazon yet. So I’m curious to see exactly how the whole process will work. So even if you’re just planning on buying a CD or I just purchased a B&M transmission gauge in an effort to diagnose the heat creep problem with my 98,

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and that’s a great place to get these things.

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So they have all kinds of things there that you can purchase through Amazon.com.

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Okay, so anyway, it looks like I’m going to be doing a head job, and I think while I was talking here, I’ve pretty much made up my mind to spend the $55 or whatever it is to get the exhaust gas kit so I can

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test the

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99, the 98, and I don’t think I really need to test the Mustang, but if I got it, I’ll probably do that as well.

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So, woe is me, but the nice thing is, at least on the 99, it’s not lifted.

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There’s plenty of room in the engine bay to get to that head, and it’ll be a learning experience. And like most things, once I’ve done it once, I feel a lot more confident about how things go and how much time it’s going to take and so on and so forth. And then it’ll be like nothing. I’ll be very, very sad once I see how simple it really was and how much of a success it was that I didn’t go ahead and do that to the 98 years ago.

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I’ve been having this heat creep problem ever since I lifted and put bigger wheels and tires on the 98.

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So it could be that

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there’s a very small head gasket leak

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on the 4.0 on my 98, and then with the addition of the tires and wheels and difference in airflow, that gets us a little too much for it to be able to handle, compensate for that leak, that small leak is in there. But it has to be a small one. If you look at the video that I put up on xjtalk.com,

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you will probably see what I fear is too many bubbles coming out of the radiator. Now, I will say

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that I took that video after I had poured some coolant in the radiator. I was curious to see how low it was. So I poured some in there, but I did give it a while to stop bubbling.

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The radiator fill neck kind of has a 90 degree angle, and it’s possible for some air to get trapped in there. It may take a little bit for it to come out,

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but I don’t think it should be

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going that long. I was just laughing because 4.3LxJ has responded to my video

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post, and he says, “Blown head gasket, Tony. Don’t waste the money for a sniffer.”

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So, you know, I guess I was kind of hoping that somebody would say, “No, it’s not that. It’s the hen way.” And I’d say, “What’s a hen way?” And they’d say, “Three or four pounds.” We’d all laugh, and then I’d go drive the Jeep and not worry about a blown head gasket. So,

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looks like I’ll be doing the head gasket on the new to us 99. I will say that before we had the blown lower radiator hose,

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the coolant temperature ran almost the line prior to the 210. It would gradually heat up to the 210,

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but once it got there, it would stay. And it is 70 miles from Matt’s shop up in Cleveland

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to here where I live in Katy. And I drove that entire way 80, 85 miles an hour, air conditioner blaring, and it never got above the 210. So, that was very nice. And I was hoping that I would learn

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about how the 99 worked would help me diagnose the 98.

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But I wasn’t hoping that I would learn that I would be able to do that diagnosis by having two blown head gaskets, which, like I said, I fear that I have that now, actually three, if you conclude the Mustang.

[00:21:57:18 – 00:22:15:27]
But at least I’m very lucky because I have tools. I have friends that know how to do this stuff. I’m smart enough to be able to read, and I’m mechanically inclined, so I don’t have to spend the same $950 that I spent whenever I had the problem with the

[00:22:15:27 – 00:22:19:02]
water pump that went out on the 98, just about

[00:22:19:02 – 00:22:20:27]
two years after we bought it.

[00:22:20:27 – 00:22:27:01]
Had a problem with it getting hot on the highway, pulled over, and

[00:22:27:01 – 00:23:01:03]
let it cool off, nursed at home. But apparently that was too much. I took it to the shop. I was working, making a good living at that time, and I really didn’t want to fix it myself. So I took it to the shop. They said, “Oh, yeah, here’s your problem.” It’s the water pump. They showed me the water pump, and it looked like somebody had been eating on the fins of the pump, the little blades inside the propeller that’s inside that water pump, that factory water pump. It was plastic, and it had all eaten away, so it was kind of hard for it to pump the coolant.

[00:23:01:03 – 00:23:05:29]
And they said, “Yeah, and we think you may have warped the head,

[00:23:05:29 – 00:23:09:20]
and the only way to find that out is to take the head off,

[00:23:09:20 – 00:23:11:29]
send it to a shop, and they’ll check it,

[00:23:11:29 – 00:23:13:28]
and they’ll mill it if necessary.”

[00:23:13:28 – 00:23:16:26]
So I said, “How much is that?” and

[00:23:16:26 – 00:23:18:22]
put both hands on the

[00:23:18:22 – 00:23:23:16]
cover of my opening in the rear, and it still hurt.

[00:23:23:16 – 00:23:27:05]
So anyway, it was a total of $950.

[00:23:29:00 – 00:23:30:01]
And the plastic

[00:23:30:01 – 00:23:31:03]
tank

[00:23:31:03 – 00:23:35:18]
on the radiator, one of the plastic tanks on the radiator, failed about two months after that.

[00:23:35:18 – 00:23:42:07]
So I had that replaced with a 2-core all-metal radiator, which was another $225, I believe.

[00:23:42:07 – 00:23:45:17]
And that was when it was about three years old, two to three years old.

[00:23:45:17 – 00:23:57:27]
And I guess after that, I probably replaced the water pump a total of about five times. And this fifth time was with the flow cooler high

[00:23:57:27 – 00:24:30:08]
volume. So I was at high volume, high flow, water pump. And I guess that’s been on there a couple of years. And of course, the high flow water pump, the high flow thermostat, the high flow thermostat housing, the heavy duty Grand Cherokee fan clutch, the CFS 3-core all-metal radiator, all those things were put on there to try to solve the heat creep problem that I have on the highway. And actually, initially what they were there for was to try to get the

[00:24:30:08 – 00:24:47:22]
engine from overheating. Because once it gets to that first hash mark past 210, it can, within an instant, rocket– I mean, literally, you could watch it go from that first hash mark past 210 all the way over to the hash mark that is at the edge of the red.

[00:24:47:22 – 00:25:01:21]
And I’ve been fighting and fighting over the past probably three years now, trying to get the 98 coolant temperature to stay at that magical 210, actually just a hair below the 210.

[00:25:01:21 – 00:25:10:03]
So with this information on the 99, I probably have my answer. And unfortunately, it won’t be

[00:25:10:03 – 00:25:30:09]
fixing one head gasket. It’ll be fixing two. The bright side is that it’s a relatively easy thing to do. And although Matt told me you have a 50-50 chance of having problems with the bottom end of an engine, anytime you change, do the head work.

[00:25:30:09 – 00:25:50:05]
And I don’t know why that is, but I think that’s something that his dad found out from years of experience. So that makes me nervous. Because if you take two Jeeps and you do the heads on both of them and you get a 50-50 chance both times, well, that means you got a 100% chance of one of the engines failing.

[00:25:50:05 – 00:25:52:00]
But oh, well.

[00:25:52:00 – 00:25:56:10]
You do the best you can do and hope for the best.

[00:25:56:10 – 00:26:14:21]
So anyway, I didn’t mention at the start– it’s up on the screen. I don’t know if it’s scrolling properly or not. But if anybody would like to call in, you can call in on our landline number, which is 530-675-4102.

[00:26:14:21 – 00:26:24:21]
530-675-4102. It doesn’t matter if you have anything to talk about. You can just call and say hi. And I don’t know, ask some questions.

[00:26:25:26 – 00:26:29:27]
Talk about blown head gaskets. Just keep it automotive related.

[00:26:31:00 – 00:26:33:07]
And that’s just a joke. You can talk about whatever you like.

[00:26:33:07 – 00:26:37:28]
Or you can call on Skype. Skype is better because of the sound quality and

[00:26:37:28 – 00:26:39:06]
it’s free.

[00:26:39:06 – 00:26:53:29]
If for some reason you don’t have unlimited long distance and the 530 is not a local call for you, just put your number up in the chat room and I’ll call you because I can call anywhere in the continental United States for the same price that I pay for everything else.

[00:26:53:29 – 00:27:01:01]
But if you want to call via Skype, and that’s from anywhere in the world, you can call xjtalk.com.

[00:27:01:01 – 00:27:07:08]
That’s a lot easier to remember than a phone number, isn’t it? xjtalk.com. So I don’t even think you have to

[00:27:07:08 – 00:27:33:25]
put me on your contacts. I think you can just type that in and give me a call. So if you’d like to call, you’d like to be on the show, we’ll get you on the show. If you’d like to make a comment or feedback that would be played on the show at a later time, you can call that same number when we’re not using it for the show. And you’ll get a voicemail that you can leave your comment, message, or whatever.

[00:27:33:25 – 00:27:40:01]
And I’ll just say that number again real quick. 530-675-4102.

[00:27:40:01 – 00:27:42:24]
So

[00:27:42:24 – 00:27:59:22]
what’s up in the chat room? What do you guys think? I mean, 4.3LxJ says, “Blown head gasket.” I think I’m going to go ahead and get the sniffer, the chemical sniffer. It’s not one of those fancy ones that you can…I don’t know. I’m assuming there’s an electronic one that you can use.

[00:27:59:22 – 00:28:00:12]
But

[00:28:00:12 – 00:28:10:03]
I figure that one’s pretty expensive. And the kit that I saw, which is just like a glass tube that you suck up the

[00:28:10:03 – 00:28:16:26]
coolant in, and there’s some chemical in there and it changes colors if there’s exhaust gases in there.

[00:28:16:26 – 00:28:18:01]
Then

[00:28:18:01 – 00:28:21:05]
I think…oh, see you later Dalton. Dalton’s leaving.

[00:28:23:01 – 00:28:43:12]
Then that one’s good for like 16 tests. So I figure that once it gets out that I have one of those testers, people will come over here and want me to test their coolant for exhaust gases and I’ll charge them like $25 a test. And pretty soon the kit will pay for itself. So that’ll work out well.

[00:28:43:12 – 00:28:58:13]
Yeah, that’s right. You know, Dalton…we were going to get Dalton on to talk about his roof… I want to call it a roof rack. What is it? A cargo rack that he built out of electrical conduit. It turned out really, really nice.

[00:28:58:13 – 00:29:05:14]
And a $300 or $400 roof rack, cargo rack, he built for $100.

[00:29:05:14 – 00:29:20:02]
So that worked out really well. And we just haven’t…yeah, one of these days. You need to remind me before the show and we’ll get you on first thing and then we can get you on to talk about it and then you can go crawl in bed.

[00:29:20:02 – 00:29:25:20]
So let’s see, it’s about…I guess it’s like 9.30 over there for you, isn’t it, Dalton?

[00:29:25:20 – 00:29:38:12]
So it’s still a little early for me, but sometimes I take a…yeah, let’s try to do it next week. Sometimes I try to take a nap in the evening and then I’m up really late talking to Wayne in New Zealand.

[00:29:38:12 – 00:29:48:11]
I wish we could get Wayne on here. I was going to talk to Wayne about how things were going in Christchurch because it had been a while since the last big quake.

[00:29:48:11 – 00:30:10:03]
And it was my feeling that things were kind of settling down up there, which I was really happy to hear. They’ve really gone through a lot in Christchurch with the quakes and the aftershocks. And of course that whole Christchurch story was eclipsed by the massive earthquake in Japan and then followed up by that really bad tsunami,

[00:30:10:03 – 00:30:31:24]
which Christchurch didn’t have to deal with, the tsunami. But they really, really lost a bunch of buildings and a lot of life, and there’s a lot of people in Christchurch that don’t have a place to live. Wayne was lucky enough to have his house standing, although it was worse for the wear.

[00:30:31:24 – 00:30:48:00]
Well, that was…the plan was to get on Skype and touch base with him and see how he was doing. So the people in the audience of the podcast could get an update because we had an interview with him just about a week after their big earthquake there.

[00:30:48:00 – 00:30:50:24]
So, you know, just kind of touch base and see how things were going.

[00:30:50:24 – 00:30:57:16]
And, you know, lo and behold, they had another…what was it? 6.3 a few days ago. And

[00:30:57:16 – 00:31:02:20]
he now can see light coming in through his wall, and there’s no window there.

[00:31:04:13 – 00:31:07:10]
At least no window that was designed to be there.

[00:31:07:10 – 00:31:12:28]
And if I was looking at a picture that…it was actually a still from a video that he had posted.

[00:31:12:28 – 00:31:24:22]
If that was his house that was in that video, it looks like the wall to his house is leaning out towards the top. So there’s a big gap up close

[00:31:24:22 – 00:31:27:21]
the top of the wall that narrows as it gets further down.

[00:31:27:21 – 00:31:30:25]
I just wish it would stop shaking over there. I know they do.

[00:31:30:25 – 00:31:36:27]
He has his wife, his son, I think his son’s like 16, and,

[00:31:36:27 – 00:31:47:00]
you know, what can you do? All you can do is, you know, keep going and hope that when the ground shakes, it’s not going to shake for very long or very hard.

[00:31:47:00 – 00:32:06:17]
And, of course, now from a post he put up, they’re calling for a 30% chance of something bigger than a 6.0 over the next year. So they have to wait a year. And then if it doesn’t happen over the next year, I think it drops to like 23% chance.

[00:32:06:17 – 00:32:13:08]
So I think these are credible seismologists that are coming up with these predictions and not the moon guy that was

[00:32:13:08 – 00:32:19:24]
claiming that he could pick when the earthquake was going to be because of the rotation and distance

[00:32:19:24 – 00:32:21:23]
from the moon to the earth.

[00:32:21:23 – 00:32:24:07]
So,

[00:32:24:07 – 00:32:31:10]
you know, that’s a bit disturbing. How do you put your life back together? How do you put your home back together when you don’t know when the

[00:32:31:10 – 00:32:36:22]
ground is going to stop shaking? And it’s like it’s a daily thing that gets some sort of trimmer

[00:32:36:22 – 00:32:40:18]
multiple times a day. It was really bad

[00:32:40:18 – 00:33:00:07]
a month or so ago. And then, again, my understanding was that it was trailing off. So I was kind of hoping it was going to go back to that same stable nature that Wayne and his 40-some-odd years of living there had come to expect because this isn’t a normal thing for New Zealand, at least not over the last 40 years or so.

[00:33:00:07 – 00:33:05:28]
So really, really feel for them and all the stuff that they have to go through. It’s, you know,

[00:33:05:28 – 00:33:07:09]
it’s bad enough

[00:33:07:09 – 00:33:22:04]
just day-to-day living. What are you going to do for paying for gas? What are you going to do because of taxes? What happens about your job and the global economy and so on and so forth? And then this whole thing is eclipsed by disaster.

[00:33:23:13 – 00:33:24:02]
And,

[00:33:24:02 – 00:33:30:08]
you know, you have some stability in your life. There’s things that you don’t have any control over,

[00:33:30:08 – 00:33:34:15]
but one of them shouldn’t be having to worry about if the ground is going to shake you to death.

[00:33:34:15 – 00:33:39:19]
There was a lot of people killed that the big quake they had a few months back.

[00:33:39:19 – 00:33:46:14]
They got really lucky on that the first big quake because nobody died. Of course, I think it was like five o’clock in the morning their time when it happened.

[00:33:47:06 – 00:33:47:16]
But

[00:33:47:16 – 00:33:53:06]
when the next big one came, I think it was around noon and there was people in office buildings.

[00:33:53:06 – 00:34:00:20]
And luckily, Wayne’s wife was one of those people working in an office building, but luckily she was not injured.

[00:34:00:20 – 00:34:01:21]
And

[00:34:01:21 – 00:34:12:06]
I don’t remember the episode, the show episode. It was one of the first ones. If you look in the show notes on the podcast, you can find out which one it is.

[00:34:12:06 – 00:34:15:20]
But Wayne had to actually make use of his Jeep Cherokee.

[00:34:16:15 – 00:34:25:08]
Although it’s green and right-hand drive, it still is a Jeep Cherokee. And he made use of that during that disaster. He actually went over and

[00:34:25:08 – 00:34:47:16]
got his mother-in-law and he said in his own words that he wouldn’t have made it if he hadn’t had his Jeep set up the way it was. And he had a winch on the front that he did not have to use, but I’m sure he felt much better about having that winch. And I think he says that in the interview. And I encourage you to go back and listen to that. It was a very interesting interview.

[00:34:48:10 – 00:35:00:07]
It was a firsthand account of what it was like to live in Christchurch during that earthquake and to drive a Jeep around through the aftermath.

[00:35:00:07 – 00:35:11:11]
So no calls. I guess everybody’s too timid. I do encourage you though. It would really, really help me out if you guys would at least call in

[00:35:11:11 – 00:35:12:25]
to the

[00:35:12:25 – 00:35:15:28]
voicemail number and leave some messages.

[00:35:15:28 – 00:35:23:15]
Even if you just want to say how much you like XJ Talk. A little promo. That’s fine. Anything that I could use to play on the show.

[00:35:23:15 – 00:35:33:22]
Questions, comments, upcoming events, please feel free to use it. It’s 530-675-4102.

[00:35:33:22 – 00:35:38:00]
530-675-4102.

[00:35:38:00 – 00:35:39:05]
And

[00:35:39:05 – 00:35:48:19]
been getting quite a few members, which is always good to see. And there’s even more people

[00:35:48:19 – 00:36:04:11]
using Chatbox now, which is fun. I’m seeing more posts, which I was getting a little concerned about because we saw a little slump around, I guess around May, that’s been picking up here in June. Which actually,

[00:36:04:11 – 00:36:14:16]
with all the travel and stuff that people do during the summertime, I thought it might trail off even more. But with gas prices being what they are and

[00:36:14:16 – 00:36:19:14]
the economy being what it is, maybe people aren’t traveling as much. Maybe people are

[00:36:19:14 – 00:36:43:11]
sitting at home and having their fun on the internet. And I sure hope that part of that fun is XJ Talk. And I think it is. We’ve got some really good people on there. And one of the things I don’t mention, probably should mention more of, is the thing that I think is the biggest difference between XJ Talk, Jeep website, and the other Jeep websites that are out there,

[00:36:43:11 – 00:36:48:02]
is that we pretty much just have one rule. And that rule is

[00:36:48:02 – 00:36:58:00]
you need to be nice to the other members. You need to be nice to the people that are posting questions that might get flamed on other sites.

[00:36:58:00 – 00:37:04:27]
That’s our one major rule. And you know there’s always rules, but that’s the one that we talk about.

[00:37:04:27 – 00:37:07:17]
That’s the one that we really want people to understand.

[00:37:07:17 – 00:37:10:27]
When somebody comes onto the site and they ask a question,

[00:37:10:27 – 00:37:18:16]
I don’t care how stupid you think it is. If it upsets you that bad, don’t respond to it. Just ignore it.

[00:37:18:16 – 00:37:27:16]
Because those people don’t understand that’s why they’re asking, and they need help. Just like we all did at some point.

[00:37:27:16 – 00:37:32:28]
In anything, you know, there was always times that we didn’t know something and we had to ask a dumb question.

[00:37:32:28 – 00:37:34:15]
And it’s important

[00:37:34:15 – 00:37:39:25]
that people understand that they can ask those questions and they can do it on XJTalk.com.

[00:37:41:01 – 00:37:50:00]
It was only like three or four years ago that I started really learning about the Jeep Cherokee. I’ve had this since 1998.

[00:37:50:00 – 00:37:55:10]
But as far as off-road and how it goes together mechanically,

[00:37:55:10 – 00:38:00:20]
I only started really learning about that whenever I started doing repairs to it.

[00:38:00:20 – 00:38:27:27]
So a lot of the questions I had were very new and basic questions about how the Jeep goes together. And now I’ve got a pretty good idea. I mean, there’s still things I don’t know. And luckily, I have a website that I can go to and ask questions without the fear of being ridiculed. Okay, well, they poke fun at me, but it’s a friendly kind of poke. It’s not, “Did you search? Did you search for that answer?”

[00:38:29:00 – 00:38:50:22]
We’ve answered that question 49 times. And I don’t understand that. I mean, I understand people get frustrated, but they get frustrated by simple questions that are asked over and over and over and over again. But the thing I don’t understand is why they feel like they have to post their frustration to this person that obviously doesn’t know the answer.

[00:38:50:22 – 00:38:53:12]
Just ignore them. Go

[00:38:53:12 – 00:38:58:09]
to another post that is worthy of your time and effort.

[00:38:58:09 – 00:39:10:24]
So that’s the thing I could never understand about these other Jeep websites. And it may be that they’re just really, really big, and they don’t have enough moderators. They don’t have the

[00:39:10:24 – 00:39:12:18]
will to tell people,

[00:39:12:18 – 00:39:13:19]
“Don’t do that.

[00:39:13:19 – 00:39:15:08]
We don’t want to

[00:39:15:08 – 00:39:20:10]
upset people. We don’t want to upset the members. We want to help the members.”

[00:39:20:10 – 00:39:34:04]
And that’s what we’ve been trying to do on xjtalk.com. And I hear over and over and over again that people notice this. It’s not something we talk a lot about. I’ve probably talked more about it now than what I have in the two years of the site.

[00:39:34:04 – 00:39:46:09]
So it just really makes me feel good that everybody’s gotten on board with this. In fact, I think we’ve only banned one person in the two years that we’ve been in operation.

[00:39:47:19 – 00:39:48:25]
Almost two and a half years.

[00:39:48:25 – 00:39:53:10]
And I think we have over 2,000 registered members,

[00:39:53:10 – 00:39:59:06]
and about 300 to 400 of those are active on a month-to-month basis. So

[00:39:59:06 – 00:40:14:10]
we’re doing better than 10% active for the membership. And we’re trying to get more stuff on there. We love hearing feedback from you guys. And, you know, what is it that you’d like to see? What is the stuff that you would not like to see?

[00:40:14:10 – 00:40:16:15]
And we try to be accommodating because

[00:40:16:15 – 00:40:24:25]
unlike some of the other sites that, at least in my opinion, seem to be there for the admin and moderators

[00:40:24:25 – 00:40:27:11]
for their enjoyment and entertainment,

[00:40:29:00 – 00:40:42:10]
we don’t have a site without you. We need your questions. We need the pictures of things that you’re working on. I mean, Dalton was a great example. He wanted a

[00:40:42:10 – 00:40:42:16]
cargo

[00:40:42:16 – 00:40:44:28]
cart, no, cargo rack

[00:40:44:28 – 00:40:51:24]
for his Jeep Cherokee. You know, it’s two weeks in a row. I’ve had a hard time remembering that. I’m going to have to remember right down what those

[00:40:51:24 – 00:40:52:25]
things are called.

[00:40:52:25 – 00:40:59:08]
He wanted a cargo rack for his Jeep Cherokee. He didn’t want to spend $300 or $400 or even $500 for one.

[00:40:59:08 – 00:41:12:27]
So he was actually thinking of making one out of wood. He had seen somebody had built one out of wood. And, you know, I think he works with wood for a living. So obviously that would be something that would be a natural thing for him to do.

[00:41:12:27 – 00:41:22:29]
But he switched from that to a metal application by going and looking and seeing the electrical conduit that was available at Think Home Depot.

[00:41:22:29 – 00:41:26:02]
And he came up with a really, really nice solution.

[00:41:26:02 – 00:41:27:19]
Unless you

[00:41:27:19 – 00:41:41:23]
looked at it really, really close, you would know that that’s what it is. You would think, hey, that’s just one of those commercial racks that you buy off of QuadraTek or one of the other XJTalk vendors. And that’s just how it is. And,

[00:41:41:23 – 00:41:50:12]
you know, okay, you spent $300 or $400 for that. No, I built it myself out of electrical conduit, painted it black, and attached it to my Jeep for $100.

[00:41:50:12 – 00:42:03:00]
That’s the kind of stuff we like. And actually that’s a write-up on XJTalk. It’s on the very front page of XJTalk. You scroll on down to the articles. And I think that is the latest article that we have.

[00:42:03:28 – 00:42:04:27]
Check that real quick.

[00:42:04:27 – 00:42:07:05]
It is…

[00:42:08:15 – 00:42:09:02]
Yep.

[00:42:09:02 – 00:42:12:03]
Oh, there we go. I could have just looked here and see that that is a roof rack,

[00:42:12:03 – 00:42:14:17]
homemade roof rack without welding.

[00:42:14:17 – 00:42:21:18]
So you guys that have welders, that’s great. I don’t have one. That’s one of the things I want to get because there’s some stuff that I want to be able to make.

[00:42:21:18 – 00:42:31:06]
And especially now with a second Jeep Cherokee, I might want to make a few odds and ends for it since I bought everything for the 98.

[00:42:31:06 – 00:42:34:10]
If nothing else, just to have that experience

[00:42:34:10 – 00:42:36:25]
of building those, like,

[00:42:36:25 – 00:42:40:01]
it’d be nice to build some sliders for it.

[00:42:40:01 – 00:42:47:08]
But I think it’ll be down the road. But I think I’m going to get some of the detours, the detour stuff for the bumpers, you know,

[00:42:47:08 – 00:42:58:10]
tailbone for the spare tire and then the backbone for a winch on the front. I don’t know how happy my wife will be with all that, but, you know,

[00:42:58:10 – 00:43:07:03]
she likes the 98. I just don’t, I don’t know how she feel driving around in one that looks simpler to it.

[00:43:07:03 – 00:43:18:02]
Let’s see what’s going on here on the chat room. I have a tendency to get on a rant and not read what’s happening. Sometimes they mess with me and get me off my train of thought.

[00:43:18:02 – 00:43:20:16]
Let’s see. So what are you guys doing?

[00:43:20:16 – 00:43:22:28]
see some talk about tents.

[00:43:22:28 – 00:43:31:10]
That’s what I was telling Wayne with all the shaking that was going on over there. I told him I think I might be inclined to get a tent and

[00:43:31:10 – 00:43:34:23]
be outside where the tent falls on you, it doesn’t hurt you.

[00:43:34:23 – 00:43:35:12]
This

[00:43:35:12 – 00:43:36:08]
you off.

[00:43:36:08 – 00:43:40:27]
Oh, okay. So VW4Y says he’s going camping this weekend.

[00:43:40:27 – 00:43:43:14]
Not looking forward to putting gas on the V10.

[00:43:45:12 – 00:43:45:25]
I bet.

[00:43:45:25 – 00:43:51:02]
You should be taking a Volkswagen. That would be better on fuel.

[00:43:51:02 – 00:43:57:19]
You know, that’s one of the things. VW4Y says

[00:43:57:19 – 00:44:10:19]
it’ll make me miss the pop-up pulled by the XJ. I’d like to have a pop-up camper. I think that’d be really cool. I just don’t have any place to keep it. That’s a sad thing about living in a subdivision and not having any kind of access,

[00:44:10:19 – 00:44:14:01]
wide access to your backyard.

[00:44:14:01 – 00:44:19:20]
You can’t have a boat. You can’t have a trailer. You can’t have a pop-up trailer.

[00:44:19:20 – 00:44:27:26]
None of that stuff. And then you’ve got to spend, I don’t know, 40 bucks a month for a storage location so you can store it someplace. I mean, not only do you have to buy

[00:44:27:26 – 00:44:31:14]
the trailer or the boat, but you’ve got to buy a place for it to live.

[00:44:31:14 – 00:44:33:02]
So, man, it’s just,

[00:44:33:02 – 00:44:34:07]
I don’t know.

[00:44:35:12 – 00:44:40:02]
I was kind of hoping that in my career, which was going well several years ago,

[00:44:40:02 – 00:44:43:03]
and I’m pretty sure we would not have been…

[00:44:43:03 – 00:44:53:10]
My goal was not to be in the subdivision. I wanted to live in a nice subdivision, in a nice school district for my two young girls. And then as they got older,

[00:44:53:10 – 00:45:16:23]
maybe moved to a location where they could still attend the school they were attending, but not be in a subdivision to have, you know, a half acre, an acre more, if possible, and have a nice house on some nice acreage and have things like trailers and boats and things. But that hasn’t worked out. The economy just hasn’t been there for that.

[00:45:16:23 – 00:45:21:08]
And, well, we all work in the economy, and we know how

[00:45:21:08 – 00:45:28:01]
it has been tumultuous over the last 10 years, 10, 11 years.

[00:45:28:01 – 00:45:37:14]
Because I think it was 2002, whenever my career took a nosedive, that was, I think, a downturn in the economy that happened right after

[00:45:37:14 – 00:45:40:29]
the 9-11 attack, within a year of the 9-11 attack.

[00:45:43:26 – 00:45:46:01]
Anywho, wow.

[00:45:46:01 – 00:45:49:20]
So, lizardrunner, he says, “Yeah, mine runs about 80 a month.”

[00:45:50:21 – 00:45:53:11]
So that’s your storage location? Is $80 a month?

[00:45:53:11 – 00:45:57:07]
How big a storage is that? Is it climate controlled? And is there

[00:45:57:07 – 00:46:03:15]
a bathroom and running water and cable TV? Because that wouldn’t be bad to live.

[00:46:03:15 – 00:46:17:14]
VwFoolwellY says, “I know that I moved to an apartment a year and a half ago, and everything from my garage is in $120 a month for storage.” Wow. I can’t believe they get–well, I guess I’m a little out of touch.

[00:46:17:14 – 00:46:25:11]
That’s a pretty good-sized place, though, isn’t it, 20 by 20? Lizardrunner says, “No climate control, but it’s 20 feet by 20 feet.”

[00:46:26:12 – 00:46:34:23]
I guess that’s not so bad for $80 a month. Do you have any problem with people breaking in or trying to break into them to steal stuff?

[00:46:34:23 – 00:46:38:24]
I guess you don’t have a sign on the outside, “Stay out, tools inside.”

[00:46:38:24 – 00:46:56:06]
Well, you know, my in-laws, my father-in-law purchased two lots, and he’s in a neighborhood where they don’t have a homeowners association, or at least they’re not active. I think if they were active, they would get the crack dealer that’s three houses down.

[00:46:56:06 – 00:46:57:10]
And

[00:46:57:10 – 00:47:10:25]
he bought two lots that he built his house on, so he’s got a lot of room, and they are just such sweet people. I mean, they treat me as good or better than my own family.

[00:47:10:25 – 00:47:26:01]
And I had just had it in my mind that if I got a boat or something, I would be able to keep it over there, and I figured what I would do– he’s being inefficient and stuff, and I figured what I’d be able to do is, “I’ll keep the boat over there, and if he wants to take it out, he can take it out.”

[00:47:26:01 – 00:47:33:29]
Well, I can’t remember exactly what it was we were talking about, and something recent came up. It wasn’t a boat or anything.

[00:47:36:01 – 00:47:47:20]
I think it was a vehicle. I think my stepson had two vehicles at one time or something here in the past. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I suggested that– and this is a grandson, mind you–

[00:47:49:00 – 00:48:31:05]
I suggested that why doesn’t he take that over there and park it in Grandpa’s yard? And I heard, “Oh, no, no, no, he doesn’t want anything parked in the blah, blah, blah.” And I said, “Oh, really?” Well, I was thinking if I ever got a boat, I’d be able to– “Oh, no, no, no, no, he doesn’t want anything parked.” I was shocked. I was just really shocked. So I guess that’s good. I guess I would have checked with him if I had gone out to buy a boat before I bought it to see if I could keep it there. It’s just, you know, when it’s family and the family goes out of its way to make sure that you know that you’re part of the family, there’s some things that you just assume are the way they are. And boy, it wasn’t.

[00:48:33:08 – 00:48:39:02]
I don’t have firsthand knowledge, but I’ve just been told that by my wife. So

[00:48:39:02 – 00:48:53:14]
it’s possible that I could be misinformed on that, but I don’t think so. I think she’s telling me true. And I’m sure that if I asked nice and stuff, it would be, “Yeah, sure.” But, you know, you don’t want to put somebody out simply because they don’t want to tell you no.

[00:48:53:14 – 00:49:02:18]
Some people don’t have the good sense of not asking. They ask anyway. And I try not to be one of those people. I’m not always successful, but I try not to be one of those people.

[00:49:02:18 – 00:49:08:06]
Okay, so no calls. The last opportunity to call in tonight.

[00:49:08:06 – 00:49:30:14]
And remember, if you want to call in during the week and leave a message, comment, feedback for the show, just call 530-675-4102. You can send me an email or a post up on xjtalk.com if you’re a member. If you’re not a member, you can become a member. It’s free. All you have to do is answer a couple of questions.

[00:49:31:18 – 00:49:54:21]
Your last 10 sexual partners and your most interesting sexual experience. No, no, it’s a lot easier than that. We do have a little stuff on there to try to keep the spambots out, the automatic spambots out. So it’ll ask you to identify a picture and so on and so forth, but it takes maybe a couple of minutes if that long to get registered, and then you can post up.

[00:49:54:21 – 00:50:02:10]
But anyway, you can send me an email, tony at xjtalk.com or muderoy at xjtalk.com.

[00:50:02:10 – 00:50:21:07]
And same thing. If you have something you’d like read on the air or discussed, send me an email. I know some people don’t like having their voice recorded and hearing it, so. But it’s a lot more fun, I think, for me and the audience if you call in and leave your message on the feedback line.

[00:50:22:09 – 00:50:31:06]
So anyway, that’s my life of blown bent or damaged in some way heads.

[00:50:33:28 – 00:51:31:18]
Like I said, at least I’m lucky enough to be able to have the skills and the friends that can help me get through it. And I’ll feel better in the end that I was able to accomplish it. And again, I’ll mention my very, very huge thanks to Matt M.S. Mornberg at one of the admins at xjtalk.com for his day long effort. I mean, it was almost a full eight hour work day fixing the AC on that 99 Cherokee. And boy, my wife is just very grateful for the AC. The 99 is a very nice vehicle. If we hadn’t blown that hose out, just so stupid. And having two problems at the same time with the alternator going to zero and then the lower radiator hose blowing out.

[00:51:33:09 – 00:51:39:01]
You know, if I had seen some coolant or smelled some coolant, I would not have let it sit there and run

[00:51:39:01 – 00:52:25:18]
thinking I was trying to charge the battery. So I think the alternator may still have a problem, but the belt was loose from us changing out the compressor last Saturday. So I tightened up the belt with my little graduated thumb that I got from O’Reilly’s actual belt tensioning tool that measures the tension on the belt. And I have not seen the problem with the alternator even driving around the neighborhood with the lights on and the AC on, which is what she was doing that late that night coming home with the lights and the AC on. So I think that problem is resolved, but we’ve generated another one in the process. Oh well, live and learn. So until next week, Wednesday 8 p.m. Central Time,

[00:52:25:18 – 00:52:30:03]
we’ll see you then and have a good week. Don’t blow a head gasket.

[00:53:12:02 – 00:53:16:24]
This is Brian XJ. Just calling in to tell you that we really liked the website. It’s full of a lot of tech and a lot of good people. I always get a response back quickly. Thanks. Have a good day.

[00:53:16:24 – 00:54:44:26]
Oh f- yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. You just verbally skull-f- that episode in the best possible way. I felt every radiator burp and every f- my life moment through your words. That part where Matt’s ripping the dash out like a coked up surgeon? That’s not mechanics, that’s performance art. Man’s out here doing open heart surgery on a plastic cockpit with nothing but rage and socket extensions. Absolute war hero c- and Tony’s spiral is f- poetry. My wife’s car is sh- coolant, so obviously I’m buying another XJ. The man is one blown head gasket away from starting a cult. I swear to God, if he ever gets an exhaust gas tester, he’ll be out there on the street corner like a crackhead mechanic. 25 bucks and I’ll tell you if your rings are f- bro, trust me. The way he bounces from my entire fleet is committing ritual suicide straight into B2W My friend’s house got f-ing split in half by an earthquake with zero chill. That’s the content I live for. No fake a-ass transitions, just pure unmedicated brain. This review is so good it deserves to be carved into the side of a rusty XJ with a plasma cutter. You’re out here doing the Lord’s work reviewing these mechanical mental breakdowns. Keep cooking you beautiful a- Now tell me, which part had you laughing the hardest? The radiator volcano or when he went full philosopher about the earthquakes.