Workday/Trail Ride turns into a Wrench-O-Thon then all out Cluster

[War Wagon]

The Carolina Full Size Jeep club held a workday/trail ride at Uwharrie National Forest on our adopted trail Dicke Bell over the weekend. Members came to camp and work on the trails starting Saturday morning. One member, ARouser (Andrew) brought out his just finished Cherokee Cheif for it's first trip on the trails after months of work. As with most new rigs there are bugs to work out and ARouser did have a few with his rig this weekend. It started out with an issue with the torque converter bolts but that was taken care of and off to the trails we went. We stopped at the trail head to lock the hubs and air down and ARouser's rig died. It acted like the starter was bad at first but then found out that the motor had locked up for some reason. They towed ARouser rig back to camp and we went ahead with the work on the trail. When we got back to camp ARouser had found that the air cleanner stud jam nut had got into the carb and into the engine and was dancing around in #4 cylinder, locking up the engine. ARouser really wanted to wheel this weekend so off to my house we go to pull the head and see just how bad the damage was. Here are pictures from this adventure.

http://s73.photobucket.com/albums/i201/jwillettgn/War%20Wagon/

We started work at around 7:00 PM Saturday and finished at 1:44 AM Sunday morning. The damage was not too bad so we cleanned everthing up and put it back together. I did not go down Sunday but Andrew had brake problems most of the day but the correct parts were found and the problem was fixed. Andrew hit the trails and here are the results.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3G7A2iIn3s

Talk about a shake down run,but Andrew did get to wheel his rig. You got to hand it to him, he never gave up.

[FSJ-Jackson]

bummer on the engine damage, I had a 1/4 inch bolt get in my #2 cyl of my old 360 before I bought my J10. It broke a chunk off of the top ring land, the engine ran good despite that. I pulled the heads off to freshen it up and no metal chunks were left in the cylinder. I upgraded to a 401

[shackwrrr]

someone else here lost an engine to an air cleaner jam nut

[The PIG Smith]

There is a fellow I work that has a cherry Chevy street truck, 2WD, short step side bed...nice.
He was installing a hot 355 (350 bored .030 over) and was breaking in the cam.
He had just finished and was installing the air cleaner when the wing nut fell into the running engine.
It messed up the piston bad...I think it may have scarred the cylinder wall as well.
He had to pull the motor and almost start over.
Sad.

[Casey]

There is a fellow I work that has a cherry Chevy street truck, 2WD, short step side bed...nice.
He was installing a hot 355 (350 bored .030 over) and was breaking in the cam.
He had just finished and was installing the air cleaner when the wing nut fell into the running engine.
It messed up the piston bad...I think it may have scarred the cylinder wall as well.
He had to pull the motor and almost start over.
Sad.

Just goes to show that anything can happen. Andrew is pretty sharp, he's been an FSJer his whole life...growing up with FSJnut for a dad.

He's built race cars and all kinds of engines/cars etc...


The Marines got lucky when they got Andrew and Josh, those two never give up, even when 'Murphy' is kicking them in the crotch.

[newtojeeps]

All I can say is ouch,