Grand Cherokee WK2 3L diesel head gasket

[Pragathidis]

Hi,
Thanks for adding me to the group.
I recently bought a 2013 Grand Cherokee WK2 3L diesel (110k on the clock). I knew there is something wrong with the car when I bought it and found out the head gasket is gone (oil in the coolant, white smoke, rough engine and low power) . I don't know any history about the car for the head gasket to be damaged (overheating ect.).
I am thinking to do the repair by myself. I am not a mechanic but have done many head gaskets and mechanical work on petrol engines. Do anyone has an idea about how hard to do the head gasket on these cars? Is there anything to be careful of when doing the head gasket? Any advice or shared experience will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance. Cheers!

[TR Laredo]

Where about's are you located?

[Pragathidis]

I am in Brunswick, VIC

[TR Laredo]

When doing head gasket replacements on these engines a few things to consider are:
1. The injector lines are considered to be a single use item due to the injection pressures generated by the common rail pump- reusing them may result in a fuel leak & risk of engine bay fire
2. Each head gasket has a letter assigned to it which indicates the thickness of the head gasket - one needs to know the letter or know how to measure the gaskets thickness when ordering so you get the correct gaskets - parts would need to come from RockAutohttps://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/jeep,2015,grand+cherokee,3.0l+v6+diesel+turbocharg ed,3309741,engine,cylinder+head+gasket,5412

3. One would also need to check if the head bolts are single use throw away jobs which need to be replaced as a stretched head bolt will result in another blown head gasket(s) & whether or not the heads have been softened/warped by overheating (specialist engine cylinder head repair shop).

The electronic repair manuals would need to be read over a couple of times to check for specialist tools for timing the camshafts, torque wrench settings etc. It may also be worth giving these guys a call

http://allgrandcherokee.com.au/

to see what they recommend ie: repair existing engine or fit a low mileage complete second hand engine & use your old engine for parts etc.

Cheers

[Pragathidis]

That's super useful information. Thank you very much for that.
The car is still drivable but I will start to do the repair very soon. I didn't know that they have a engine head gaskets with different thicknesses for the same engine.
I bought a downloadable repair manual from eBay which will be really useful. However, it doesn't provide any details about in-car repair procedures of the engine.
I will keep posting the progress of the repair. Hope the head is not warped and no cracks on the head or on the block. Figures crossed.

[TR Laredo]

Be aware the oil in the water could be a problem with the engine oil cooler leaking oil into the engine coolant. The white smoke could be water leaking from the EGR cooler into the inlet manifold/exhaust. I'd be giving the cooling system a pressure test plus a monoxide test to confirm a head gasket issue before stripping it down. I'd also run a tension wrench over the head bolts to check that all are correctly tightened as they might have missed one during assembly (seen it before on a 10 year old TD42).

Cheers

[drover]

Double ditto to TR Laredo above, I would certainly be making sure it wasn't either cooler or EGR, first thing would be a compression test for sure, you don't want to be lifting the lid unless certain.

The old engines steamy exhaust was an easy diagnosis but now there are numerous way coolant can get into the combustion side.