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Another 3.6 rocker and cam story


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The wife's '13 finally came due for oil change, so I did that on Monday of the solar eclipse day. PROBLEMS right away.

{1}  Had to use a breaker bar with long handle to get the filter cap loose

{2} STUPID DESIGN early oil bypass valve was NOT there, no parts at all.

      I did the oil and filter anyway and contacted my friend about getting another one, but had to call him back a bit later, as I found a noticeable oil leak in the engine valley at the cooler assy. NOT gushing, but would not drive it other than getting it to my fiends shop, to replace the whole unit with an aluminum assy..

{3} On the way there I heard a howling coming from the RF, YUP wheel bearing.

{4} I knew I needed to do Valve cover gaskets and have had them ready since summer, so it was agreed that for the paltry cost of $500., He would do the wheel bearing {moog},oil filter/cooler assy., and VC gaskets.

 

GOOD DEAL....YES....BUT

On getting the intakes and covers off, he found on the firewall bank that the Intake  cam had a lobe that was badly scored on one valve lobe and rocker shot. EASY fix IF it was on the front bank, but the rear needs to have motor mounts loosened and shift motor a bit to clear sprocket bolt removal. MORE WORK. We decided on using a good used cam and new rockers for the rear bank.  NO price yet for this additional work, but since we got this car 10 months ago thru him, he's keeping labor costs at a minimum and I cover parts, as one could tell by the price for the original work that was to be done. Car is hopefully to be done this afternoon.

My wife is back to driving her old {now mine} '14sxt.  

 

What a way to start SPRING! And I had been planning finances to get the '13 a new set of 19" tires........... Those with that size know they are NOT cheap!

Edited by 5rebel9
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29 minutes ago, larryl said:

I gave up on the 19's put 17's  from a Caravan on and seems to be a nicer ride...:shrug:

17" for winter treads was my plan for later this year, but we both like the ride of the 19's in good weather, 17's of our other 2 DJ's seem "floaty" in curves. We didn't get many days of snowy / poor roads this year, so "managed" thru on low tread depth tires. At this point, we can't afford getting 17" rims and tires, almost less expensive to get new 19" tires.

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Spring car maint,  just did winters to summers swap and now have parts on order. Back wheel bearings started to howl  two months ago.  At around 249kms or 155 miles, not that bad for original bearings really. Only one front original bearing left.

Waiting for rockauto  parts now. One front outer tie rod also needs changing, will do both. This vehicle will go to my daughter eventually so keeping up the maint. 

 

Even on a new car I find the low profile 19” tires run firmer but handle better. Our snows are 17” Dunlop tires so I have experienced the difference.  The  look of the alum spoke 19” rims is also nicer …but costly.  You could explore the all weather (mtn snow flake symbol) tires most companies sell now. My pickup has them so you run them all year. Not quite as good a winter and slightly more money. Only one set of rims/Tpms sensors is also nice.

Edited by John/Horace
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WELL.... Not ready today and says the RF also needs  the ball joint replaced. Cam and rockers done, but have to do the filter unit and install the intakes. Waiting for him to call me back as when I called enquiring, said it'd been a bad day with lots of interruptions. 

   I will report results when the car is done and back home.

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5 hours ago, 5rebel9 said:

WELL.... Not ready today and says the RF also needs  the ball joint replaced. Cam and rockers done, but have to do the filter unit and install the intakes. Waiting for him to call me back as when I called enquiring, said it'd been a bad day with lots of interruptions. 

   I will report results when the car is done and back home.

It's great you have a friend that helps you out on the labor cost....

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8 hours ago, 2late4u said:

It's great you have a friend that helps you out on the labor cost....

Yes it is. I do a lot of business with him and also buy my firewood thru him, I also make parts runs and assist in repair diagnostics with him when real odd problem cars come to him. 

Right now we're working together to determine best diagnostic scan tool and program capabilities for 2017 and newer cars that he will have to upgrade to. He also wants to be able to program replacement fobs for these newer year vehicles{Stellantis group}, as security protocols have changed dramatically in newer cars..... thanks to the Hyundai/Kia hacking fiasco a while back.

Old saying....One hand washes the other

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Bad ball joints eat tires fast, as you know. We lost one real early on the RT, around 60k miles.  Good to do before new rubber goes on car. My all weather tires are made by Cooper, US made I believe. I think you get about 80%  of the stated tire life with this style tire.  Not as good handling as top shelf snows, but noticeably better than regular all season tires. With snow symbol insurance companies that give discount for snow tires recognize them as snows.

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20 minutes ago, John/Horace said:

Bad ball joints eat tires fast, as you know. We lost one real early on the RT, around 60k miles.  Good to do before new rubber goes on car. My all weather tires are made by Cooper, US made I believe. I think you get about 80%  of the stated tire life with this style tire.  Not as good handling as top shelf snows, but noticeably better than regular all season tires. With snow symbol insurance companies that give discount for snow tires recognize them as snows.

Seeing that corner is already mostly apart for the wheel bearing, of course it is getting done. As for tires, we will have to wait and see what can be afforded after this bill.

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Rated for 60k miles so not bad. Have had very good results with several sets of factory Kumho tires on Elantras and Santa Fe.  Back when their engines where not GDI crap, but Mitsubishi design.

 

Curious about the oil cooler change. Our 2014 went at 93k miles or 148kms in 2019. Lost a quart in 30 miles, major leak just made it home to driveway. Aluminum units were talked about but not sold yet. Had to go with another oem plastic unit and have logged another 60k miles. Debating on when to upgrade to aluminum.


My brother has a 2017 Ram with 3.6 and same plastic cooler and 93k miles no sign of leak yet. Jeep and Ram with 3.2 and 3.6 have had same cooler failures for several years.  Seems like heat and vibration causes warping and failure.

 

How many miles do would you trust a plastic oil cooler assembly for.  Is it possible they have fixed quality issue and units are ok now.  Don’t want to waste $ to change unit if not needed. The same phenolic plastic stuff is used for oil pan and rocker covers and seems to work ok.  Easier application ?

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9 hours ago, John/Horace said:

Rated for 60k miles so not bad. Have had very good results with several sets of factory Kumho tires on Elantras and Santa Fe.  Back when their engines where not GDI crap, but Mitsubishi design.

 

Curious about the oil cooler change. Our 2014 went at 93k miles or 148kms in 2019. Lost a quart in 30 miles, major leak just made it home to driveway. Aluminum units were talked about but not sold yet. Had to go with another oem plastic unit and have logged another 60k miles. Debating on when to upgrade to aluminum.


My brother has a 2017 Ram with 3.6 and same plastic cooler and 93k miles no sign of leak yet. Jeep and Ram with 3.2 and 3.6 have had same cooler failures for several years.  Seems like heat and vibration causes warping and failure.

 

How many miles do would you trust a plastic oil cooler assembly for.  Is it possible they have fixed quality issue and units are ok now.  Don’t want to waste $ to change unit if not needed. The same phenolic plastic stuff is used for oil pan and rocker covers and seems to work ok.  Easier application ?

Yes those tires thru WM seem like the way to go for us.

As for the filter/cooler, I can't offer much other than keep a check on them regularly. The '11;s {my son's} has 240k miles on it and as far as I know is ORIGINAL with no leaks yet. The '14 got an all aluminum unit to keep the filter proper to the year of car, the motor it has was from an '11, 2.5 years now and no problems with 20k miles.

MY hypothesis on the '13 starting to leak is that it was getting weak and having to use a breaker bar to get the cap off "tweaked" it enough for the mounting seals to start to leak. When I go pick up the car, I will get a chance to look over the old one for possible cracking.

SOMEBODY had really over tightened the cap{not me or my friend}, but possibly his young apprentice helper, I don't seek blame on anyone, those with these motors know this weak link design.

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I should have also said that since starting out with the '11, ONLY I do the oil changes on the 3 Journeys. That way IF anything happens with the filter...I've only got myself to blame. As I stated in the first post, it was the first oil change to be done since getting the car.

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Well.. To close out this "story". 

$950 total bill

Was a funky exhaust cam sensor causing the CEL that delayed return of the car. I guess it didn't like getting "jostled" from the work done.

Besides needing tires , now that I've been able to DRIVE this RT{remember it's the WIFE'S} I've got some more work to do on this car for braking and possible also RR wheel bearing.

She will be driving the'14 for a while while I do more checking out on the '13RT between the rainy weather days.

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Further update

 It was a LF wheel bearing also and all the caliper pins were VERY STICKY. MOOG front bearing and Raybestos front and rear pads were delivered Friday at 1:45 pm  from rockauto for another $185. Bearing and front brake work done by Friday at 4:30pm I did the rear brake work today with snowflakes in the air, 2.5 hrs. time and finished by 12:30 pm

 

Now it just needs TIRES!!

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On 4/20/2024 at 8:08 PM, 5rebel9 said:

Further update

 It was a LF wheel bearing also and all the caliper pins were VERY STICKY. MOOG front bearing and Raybestos front and rear pads were delivered Friday at 1:45 pm  from rockauto for another $185. Bearing and front brake work done by Friday at 4:30pm I did the rear brake work today with snowflakes in the air, 2.5 hrs. time and finished by 12:30 pm

 

Now it just needs TIRES!!

So today {Tuesday} I ordered the 4 Kumho Crugen tires with ship to home for a grand total of $460.04 from Walmart. They are supposed to arrive Friday, and when in hand my friend will mount and balance them for me. I'm hoping he will also put them on the car, as I really don't care for the thought of bringing the wheels "loose" to him. He has gotten very busy this last month, I guess some folks are getting tax refunds and getting cars back in shape for the upcoming summer!

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26 minutes ago, 5rebel9 said:

I should have ordered ship to STORE! One tire is in K.C. Missouri and the other 3 went past Buffalo hub to Syracuse and now has to retrace same route back to Buffalo and then to me! I don't think I'll even have all 4 by Saturday.

And point of origin was only 6 hours drive away at Oak Park Michigan.

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the one time that I did have a problem with discount tire shipping the tires to my house I received 2 tires bundle together that were  same size that I ordered and then 2 tires bound to gather one the right size and the other one a way bigger tire, what the hell was the  the guy putting the order to gather  was thinking I don't know,, but I called them that day and they apologized a lot and sent me the correct size and also gave me free warranty on all for tires as well and they said just leave the wrong tire outside the garage as well I rec the replacement tire less than   2 days later

Edited by 2late4u
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The tire in K.C. left the Fedex distribution center at 7:00 a.m.  Don't have an update as to WHERE it is as of yet, Google maps says it's a 15.5 hour trip from there to my home. But WHO KNOWS just WHERE it's going? Projected delivery by the end of the day on Monday. 

The other 3 tires were delivered at 1:30 p.m. today to my front porch, and they do look nice for the price!

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13 hours later, it is just EAST of  Dayton, Ohio. All this headache because I was trying to save an 80 mile round trip to either of the 2 closest Walmart stores to me!!!!! The tire will probably go to Syracuse and back to Buffalo and then South down to me..... IF the shipping label does NOT get damaged AGAIN.

Edited by 5rebel9
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On 4/26/2024 at 8:23 PM, 5rebel9 said:

13 hours later, it is just EAST of  Dayton, Ohio. All this headache because I was trying to save an 80 mile round trip to either of the 2 closest Walmart stores to me!!!!! The tire will probably go to Syracuse and back to Buffalo and then South down to me..... IF the shipping label does NOT get damaged AGAIN.

The tire arrived Monday at 11:30 am. all4 got installed today...wife will be HAPPY again to have HER ride back!

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