John/Horace

The max torque spec is stamped on oil filter assembly. I think it is 25 N/m or 18 ft/pds. So not much. Dizzy/RT your small leak might be your pcv valve. My failed around a 100k, started to drip oil from flanges. Air flow can make drops travel to other locations. It’s not that cheap to buy.

Water pump change on 3.6 requires working threw passenger wheel well. Motor mount needs to be removed and engine supported with a jack stand. A decent torque wrench needs to be used on aluminum engine work like this. Replace the plastic housing with thermostat/bleed screw ($20 item) while doing this job. Use a new pump, not a reman unit. If you struggle with brake jobs…stay away from doing this repair on a daily driver. Free advice worth everything you pay for it.

Just hope your insurance company doesn’t charge you more thinking your driving an Acura.

HVAC flow controlled by actuators (electrical switches) in the dash. Plastic internal gears start to stick and wear out. At least one of the 5-6 units is probably flaky. Some hard to get at behind plastic panels. Parts not that pricy, but because awkward access labor would be more than you think. One plug and a few Philips screws. Need to unhook battery or have someone with programmer hook up the sensors. Make sure elect plug pins match in replacement part. OEM china switches are better than cheapo aftermarket ones. Free advice worth everything you pay for it. https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/dodge,2012,journey,3.6l+v6,3015568,heat+&+air+conditioning,heater+air+door+actuator,10721

Should be stamped on block some where. The oil filter is your only real concern. The 9-13 had a slightly different cartridge than the 14 plus engines. Can damage plastic oil cooler housing with wrong one, look closely before swapping it out. Journey never got the upgraded 2017 engine 3.6 with more horse power. That was Ram trucks etc.

Calibrate can be bypassed if you power off car. Remove the hvac fuse with continuous power in passenger kick panel, after you have heard hvac cycle itself closed, roughly 3 mins with car off. … and then install the new activator switch. Fuse goes back in again after that. Worked for me on passenger side fresh air recirc actuator. Hvac vents cabin for 90 seconds after every run cycle. Prevents mold/condensation issues, most cars do it. Are you hearing loud clicking from the driver side unit you installed. That would probably indicate it’s in wrong position now. Those switches are a bear to get to.

Most common Journey parasitic load (drain while sitting) is the hands free Bluetooth if you have it. There is a mini fuse in passenger kick plate panel. Called HFM I believe, but the 2009-10 are different. Need a multi meter set it to milli amps and start testing draw. After car is off 3 mins check what draw is on main battery, should be only digital clock and radio presets. So 50-75 ish milli amps.

Try putting on parking brake and put car in neutral position. Then try starting. If it still doesn’t start, try using jumper cables to start it. Weak battery can do weird things with push button start. Park neutral switch inside transmission if faulty can prevent starting, but neutral will allow starting.

Still minor leak. I found the urethane caulk doesn't stick well to the foam in the door sill chanel. Peels right off. So I removed the caulk on holes I covered again. Poked out as much expanded foam as possible like Hankster mentioned in his post. Used clear silicone the second time. Also removed 5-6 trim clips and plugged those too. Fingers crossed. Starting to get annoying.

The pic of car at finish line with rear wheels in the air caught my attention. Race car was front wheel drive. Car loses a 100 HP climbing 5,000 feet. Driver uses oxygen tank. Not your typical car race for sure. https://www.thedrive.com/news/what-was-i-thinking-this-is-insane-katherine-legge-on-the-perils-of-pikes-peak

So two rain storms and all dry. Still have some trim off so I can check underneath carpet. The plugged factory drain holes in the rocker just behind wheel well liner I think we’re the biggest cause. Lots of leaves and garden stuff blowing around where car is parked, could have started things. Car not garage stored. Hankster how did you pick out the foam from the rocker panel. There weren’t any large openings that I saw to do this from. I was guessing the foam was there to help water proof the sheet metal joints. But yeah it was helping trap water and not really functional anymore. I actually drilled two 1/8” holes in bottom of rocker at wheel well to make sure water isn’t going to get trapped again and rot things out. Could always spray in thin rust check later to slow down corrosion. When factory drain hole was cleared about two cups of water flowed out.

Sometimes people will have a used engine installed rather than have large engine repairs done. But there is risk in finding a decent used engine as well. New cars and repairs costs are higher right now. The car plants shutting down during Covid took out over a full year of vehicle production. Fixing older vehicles is becoming the cheaper option. Finding reasonable mechanics if you don’t have time to shop around. Definitely a challenge.

Could you list the code for cylinder 5 leaking down. There are no built in compression gauges on ICE engines that I’ve heard of. Turbo boost gauges, yeah.

My leak came back after heavy rain, , but only a few table spoons. Still enough to still cause mold. How do you pick the mold it’s injected into rocker panel ? I found the passenger front fender sheet metal drain opening was partly plugged. Cleared it with a piece of wire and a half cup of water came dripping out. Then I drilled two extra drain holes through bottom of rocker panel. Also the plastic sill plate cover is held by a clip right at the door seal. Mine has pulled away and wouldn’t click flush for a proper seal. I wedged in flush and caulked over clip opening and the upper edge which still had a small gap. This could allow water into the rocker panel. Did a 10 min spray test with a hose and there was no water coming in. Lots of openings in firewall sheet metal were caulked, lower ones were left open as they can function as a drain. Fingers crossed it’s fixed.Will post pics of sill plate clip.

First car I have seen with both the same, cool. NTK who are part of NGK spark plug company make the oem unit. I have had them on a journey for 5 yrs with no issues. Denso also make good products, they are mainly owned by Toyota and are one of the largest auto part companies. Have always had good luck with their products.

Lots of mechanics because of all the timing belt engines still paint mark their chains. If the paint marks line up again you should be fine. Always do another 720 degrees or two rotations again after you make marks line up. To make sure nothing has shifted, even after an adjustment. One tooth can be over 8 degrees and car won’t run right.

Great info. I need to add the big extra ground, have a few cables to choose from. It is surprising they used Denso alternator and starter (part of Toyota group) on our Journeys. There are some slightly early failures recorded on this site. But not that many, my wife’s alt went at just over 100k miles (slightly early imo). At least they didn’t cheap out there. Older Chrysler stuff often used Mistsubishi starter/alternators…because they owned around 5% on Mitz for years. Daimler/Chrysler years is another convoluted story. My spare cable stash, will one of these.

Search site, lots of posts about that. Removing drive shaft is the best way to do it. There is a power plug underneath going to transfer case. You will get a check engine light but that would also prevent it from engaging automatically via clutch. Not really isolated from most mechanical action. Coupling at both ends, hanger bearing in middle with two more bolts.

Need to pull the fuse for the hvac actuator before changing it out. It has a always on power source so it can open after card is turned off. Shops use a scanner tool and set it to calibrate to replace actuator. I found pulling fuse ahead of changing it works fine. Not doing this there will clacking noise as actuator won’t know what position it’s in and it will eventually strip the plastic gears. Also swap the stupid Philips head screws for 1/4” socket head screws the same length. Makes life easier.

The voltage outputs seem about right. The hvac circ fan and rad elect fan will drop charging voltage at bit when running. Maybe try unplugging and repluggng amperage sensor on battery negative terminal. It’s seems like a phantom low reading . So wiring diagram with pin out for ecm, then search every part of battery monitoring circuit. Looking for a bad connection. Electrical specialist shop much better at this type of thing than traditional mechanics.

On ac setting mine keeps the recirc setting. On heat I believe it doesn’t. When car is shut off after a few seconds you will hear a noise in dash. The car automatically opens fresh air vent to the outside, for about 45 seconds. Then closes it again. Prevents mold build up in hvac vents. You can see it do this if you remove the cabin air filter on passenger front dash, behind glove box opening. Good idea to change this filter every year or two. Fresh air recirc servo motor in dash is located on right side of housing where the cabin filter slides in. If windshield has winter fogging issues. It’s this servo that needs replacing. Not expensive, but awkward to swap out.

Extended water test with hose, not a drop came in. Hiway at 70 mph in rain will be the real test. Over 150k miles and original engine and tranny, means above ave vehicle in my books. Water came in around the two trim clip recess pockets in the pic. Black urethane around them now. Steady flow water behind fender liner shows no cowling blockage.

Major flood during rain storm on passenger side carpeting. While sitting in driveway overnight , probably 1.5 inches of water. Had to remove trims pieces and lift up carpeting to dry things out. Hard to do with the spongy foam insulation down there. Don’t want mold so had to run an old hair dryer for a while to really dry everything. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the water was getting in. Don’t want to go through the crazy drying out process again. Fortunate to have a garage to work on as several more rain storms have come through. There is a stamping on the metal channel that runs under the door, it has tack welds around it. If I ran a hose on passenger side windshield, water oozes out around the tac welds. The channel is filled with spray foam and there are recessed plastic pockets to hold trim clips. After removing cowling covers and finding no blockages, the fender liner had to come out as well. I think it’s fixed, giving polyurethane caulk more time to dry before testing. It appears the square exit drain from the windshield plastic cowling which dumps water against the back of fender liner was the cause. Lots of gaps around the sheet metal brackets that are tacked together to make up the fire wall. Water was some how making its way through to the bottom door channel and then oozing out onto the floor mat. I put a bead of the under water rated urethane right on the leak inside cabin door channel, as well as sealing up multiple gaps in the sheet metal pieces that make up the firewall. I hope not to have to rip everything apart again, it was very time consuming. No goldfish were harmed during this repair procedure.

WAG….crank position sensor. . Doesn’t always store a code with quick shut downs. It’s a wear item, if over a 100k miles I just change them out, heat and vibration wear them out.

Can you turn over engine if you put a ratchet on crank pulley? What is the battery voltage. If it can be manually turned over and battery is low, try jump starting it. Push button is fussy on voltage, battery must be in decent shape.