dlwpa@druhi.UUCP (WaltersDL) (03/05/86)
We had the following engine failure on our 1984 Jeep Cherokee four cylinder engine. I was wondering if anyone else has had this type of problem or heard of it. Our Jeep Cherokee broke down on highway Route 36, approximately 2 miles South of Boulder, Colorado. The Jeep was acting normal (running good), then suddenly it lost power and was pulled over to the side of the road and was turned off. After a few minutes the Jeep was attempted to be restarted, then a lot of noise came from the engine and the ignition was turned off. The Jeep was towed to a garage that we have been dealing with for several years, to determine the cause of the problem. The oil pump shaft snapped where the distributor shaft and oil pump shaft connect together, (this can be thought of as a male connector, distributor, and a female connector, oil pump) thus the oil pump stopped working. The distributor shaft did not fit into the oil pump shaft correctly. This is determined by the presence of a well worn spot on half of the distributor shaft that fits into the oil pump shaft. Thus only half of the distributor shaft was doing the work and applied more pressure to one side of the oil pump shaft. This was too much pressure against the oil pump shaft and caused the oil pump shaft to snap (break)! This in turn caused major damage to the Jeep's engine. One of the piston's froze and rubbed the side of the piston chamber wall, that caused the chamber wall not to be perfectly round. Therefore, each cylinder was bored out, that also required 4 new pistons to be installed. The total bill to fix the engine was not cheap! The distributor was replaced to be safe, since there was uneven wear on the distributor shaft. The Jeep is also equipped with an oil pressure gauge that did not show an instant drop in oil pressure at the time of the loss of power. Therefore, we had an oil pressure light installed that will light at the instant there is any loss of oil pressure going down to 7-10 PSI. There was 30,500 miles on the Jeep at the time of the Jeep break down. The warranty on the Jeep engine is 24,000 miles. Since it appeared the damage was caused by a factory defect (the distributor shaft and oil pump shaft were not properly fit together), the Jeep Regional office in Denver was called. At that time the above problem was fully explained and the Denver office showed no interest. I then wrote a letter to Jeep headquarters in Detroit but have not heard anything from them. David Walters AT&T ISL, Denver 303-538-4445 druhi!dlwpa