Passenger Side Engine Valve(s) Alteration(s)

Hi Everyone

I am working on in a 2005 jeep liberty 2wd 6 cylinders 3.7 engine. The Jeep is about 20 years old and the new owner has driven it for 8 years now. I came across a sort of an alteration in one of the exhaust engine valve., The valve ring is not steady in place meaning when the valve goes down the ring will follow. The owner says no engine problem till now October 2024 due to the head gaskets issues. Has anyone came across the same experience and how you manage to keep the valve ring in place . Here below is a picture of the alteration.

Oops its dropped a valve seat! The 3.6 is known to have this fault, looks like a lucky escape if it hasn't done any other damage.

HaroldJeep said:

Hi Everyone

I am working on in a 2005 jeep liberty 2wd 6 cylinders 3.7 engine. The Jeep is about 20 years old and the new owner has driven it for 8 years now. I came across a sort of an alteration in one of the exhaust engine valve., The valve ring is not steady in place meaning when the valve goes down the ring will follow. The owner says no engine problem till now October 2024 due to the head gaskets issues. Has anyone came across the same experience and how you manage to keep the valve ring in place . Here below is a picture of the alteration.

Click to expand...

LOL, it's not an alteration, it's a dropped valve seat. The engine must have overheated at some point, causing the aluminum head to expand. This causes the valve seats to drop out. You will definitely need to pull the head and take to a machine shop.

^^^ This. I got really lucky last year also. When this happened the engine just quit as the valve stuck open and the cylinder lost compression. If the valve seat had fallen into the cylinder there would have been major carnage and it would have been time for a new engine. My engine never overheated but my Jeep has 226k on it so it was just wear and tear.

I had my machine shop replace the valve seats and valve train on both heads and do the timing components also. It runs like a precision quiet sewing machine now. Hopefully I’ll get another 150k out of it! (Unless Jeepy rusts out from under it first.)