You gotta prioritize a few of the issues here.

1) Your current engine is not running at its top potential. Fix the timing issue, tune it up, do a compression test and see where it stands. While you will not burn up the street with it, these engines run good when all the stars are aligned. It would be silly to dive into a rebuild for an oil leak and a bad balancer.

2) After #1, then decide if you want to spend the money to rebuild an engine. You can get the 2.6 done for about a total of $1500-$2000 depending on how much of the work you do and the cost of machine work in your area. Again, this is totally up to you to decide if you want to spend that kind of money/time and effort.

3) With relation to #2, you need to decide what it is exactly you are looking for out of your Amigo. What I typed above will make a rather perky engine, but it is still a 2.6 4-banger. It will be at its limitation for power/performance at that point. R&P gears will help you a bit, but you are looking at having to go with some bigger (like 35") tires to keep it manageable to drive on the street.

In the end, this may not be the route for you to achieve what you are looking for, but only you can decide that.

Good Luck,
Michael

Sorry for the long post, but I have a lot of questions and I am pretty much learning as I go here. I appreciate your knowledge and expertise in this area. no one I know has ever even seen one of these before let alone worked on one. I am a backyard mechanic. Pretty well out of necessity. I don't know a whole lot about this stuff, but have been forced to learn and fend for myself due to cost issues and every vehicle on the property having over 150,000 miles on it. The Amigo is lowest at 135,000. This is engine rebuild number 7 of various makes of vehicles in 4 years, but the Amigo has by far been the most challenging and learning experience of any.

OK, Here goes.
A little history to give an idea of where I am. I bought this Amigo and after 2 months it died horibly.
My ultimate goal is to have a reliable, peppy gas saving 4x4. I know there is only so much that can be done for mgp on a 4x4 anyway, but I believe it can do a lot better than it does. About 21mpg average as is. Power better than original, but looking for a little more.

The engine death was the result of not checking out the engine before making a purchase. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/angry.gif" alt="" />(lesson learned here)Started dismantling from the top down to find out what happened. The further down I got the worse it got. All said and done I ended up with the following: Brand new head, engine bored 40 over, new clutch and master cylinder, new brakes and rotors, new brake cylinders in the back, engine completely machined and specs checked, crankshaft ground, all bearings and general rebuild parts replaced, new A/C system, new belts, new timing chain, gears and tensioner, new pistons. the only original parts on the engine are the block, crakshaft, connecting rods, and harmonic balancer. the oil leak is coming from the front and rear seals. I have replaced both 2x with no change to the leak. Moving the transmission out of the way to change the rear seal is a real pain. How do I know if the harmonic balancer is bad and what does it do? Is there anything else I can do for the oil leaking from the front and rear seals? Will a cam change and or chip revision do anything for gas mileage and power? Compression is good and matched on all 4 cylinders and right at the top of the compression spec for this engine. How hard is ti install headers? Are they worth it on this engine and if so which ones are the best for the job?

Thanks for the advice, info and help. It has been priceless.

OK, that gives some important background.

1) Cam change: IMHO, the better cam out there is the Delta cam. From those who have run it and the CALMINI cam, it has a bit better bottom end. I would recommend it for any engine. I have been very happy with mine.

2) Harmonic balancer: Set the engine to to TDC on #1. Either put a dowel in the #1 hole and bring it to the top and/or pull the top of the timing cover and match up the mark on the cam gear with the mark on the rear cover. (Technically, this put the engine at TDC for #4, but #1 will/should also be at TDC)) This should allow the pointer on the timing cover to be aligned with 0 on the balancer. If it is not, then you have a balancer problem.

At this point, if it were me, I would pull the valve cover and make sure the dizzy is aligned correctly. There is a punch mark on the end of the dizzy shaft that aligns with a mark on the base of the dizzy housing. With those two aligned, the mark on the housing aligns with a cast tab in/on the head where the dizzy is installed. This beats the game of guessing which tooth you are on or should be on.

3) Oil leaks: These are a bit more of a PITA to fix. The rear main, as you have found, is not the easiest thing to get to. First, are you sure it is leaking? Did you use locktite on the flywheel bolts? If not, that is the source of your leak as the threaded holes in the crank flange are through drilled and they will leak if not sealed up with some kind of thread sealant. If you did that, then you have two options. a) Pull the trans again and take a really good look at the seal surface to see if it is scratched. If so, proceed as described below. If it looks good and you are confident that the leak is not a function of damage to the crank, then carefully install another seal. Use sealant on the outer edge of the seal and do your best to drive that sucker in there straight and true. You will have to be creative with some kind of block/driver to make sure you don't hammer directly on the seal.

If the crank surface is damaged, you can either pull the crank and have both surfaced or you can find a speedi-sleeve. This will not be easy and you will need to spec the sleeve via measurements, not application. You will also probably need a good/real parts store and/or a machine shop. They make one, finding it is the hard part. All the above applies to the front seal also.

Other oil leak places for the rear of the engine are the dizzy o-ring and/or the rear cam plug. Either could make it look like a rear main leak. I only throw these out as ideas, as I am confident you can determine the location of an oil leak.

You have some $$ in this engine and it is fresh. I would not quite give up on it yet. A header is not a bad idea, but it will need to be backed up with a freer flowing exhaust. 2.25" seems to be the magical size for the 2.6 and anything that is more straight than the stock design is better.

Other than that, I would just make sure you have the valves set correctly, that all the vacuum lines are hooked up correctly and you should be good to go. You can pull codes from it just to see if there is something else that is causing a problem.

Since this is a fresh engine, you probably don't need/want to swap heads to a later, smaller compression chambered head, but you can do the rest of the top end stuff (Upper intake, throttle body, MAF) to let it breath a bit better. I would not disassemble it to do something as labor intensive as port and polish, unless it was being torn apart for a rebuild anyway.

Good Luck,
Michael

DITTO ON EVERY POINT MICHAEL JUST SAID ABOUT YOUR ENG, STAY WITH THE DELTA CAM IT IS A MUCH BETTER GRIND FOR THE 2.6 THAN THE OTHER ONE, IF YOUR CRANK SHAFT IS GROOVED , I DO HAVE THE SEAL REPAIR KITS IN STOCK FOR THE FRT AND THE REAR OF THE CRANK, AND YOU CAN STILL USE THE STOCK MAIN SEAL WHICH I WOULD HIGHLY RECCOMMEND, THESE REPAIR SLEEVES THAT I HAVE FIT SO TIGHT AND SURE THAT YOU CANNOT SEE THEM ONCE INSTALLED AND ARE EASY TO INSTALL AND I HAVE NEVER SEEN ONE THEM WEAR OUT , NOW THE SEALS WEAR OUT INSTEAD OF THE CRANK SHAFT , ALLSO THESE ARE NOT THE TYPICAL AUTO PARTS RINGS THESE FIT AND THEY WORK AND THEY ARE STAINLESS STEEL , JERRY

I'm not so sure that you should be "sure" that you're going to do better than 21 mpg.

This model Trooper is basically a brick on wheels....high wind-resistance....gust-sensitive....and 21mpg is -good-, if that's your average over all conditions. I doubt you'll ever do much better than that, for average-mpg.

1500-2000 sounds really high to me for a basic rebuild. I just had a 2.6L in a 91 rebuilt for about 675 bucks. New rings and bearings, and had the head hydrostatic-checked, leveled, and valves done ($125) (original problem was blown head gasket).

The cylinders and crank were still within wear-limits (210K miles), as were the pistons; so only new wear-parts were required...no machine-work. A set of pistons might've added another $100 I guess.

And I didn't do the work on this one...no time right now. That was paying my local "little shop" to do the work. Just a one-man place...but the one man has 30+ yrs of heavy-equipment overhaul experience...he's pretty sharp.

Anyway, before spending 2 grand...talk to a few more shops...see if you can find one of those "great little places".

Harmonic-balancer: as I recall, the -rear- half of the pulley assembly is steel-on-steel onto the crank; i.e. it doesn't ever move. Line up the crank and cam and cut a TDC notch on the -rear- pulley rim. That new timing-mark shouldn't ever change; even if the front half keeps slipping over the years.

Rear oil-leak: yeah, flywheel bolts...been there...got the puddle to prove it... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

You said front-seal was leaking too....haven't seen that before on a 2.6', sorry...not a common problem on this motor, is it?


Lack of power: are you SURE you got the cam-timing right? One tooth off could cause a power-loss...and you said something about not being able to get the disty timing in...was still 7-8 degrees out?...which kinda sounds like a typical "one tooth off" error...

In any case, to put your mind at rest about power, borrow a G-meter and check your HP. If the adjusted test-result matches the factory rating for the motor, then cam-timing and all else is likely OK. Or if you're reading low, then keep troubleshooting.

Otherwise, I wouldn't mess with the 2.6 at all; other than a decent exhaust system. It sounds like you won't be happy unless it's a real neck-snapper; and a 2.6L is -never- going to feel like a Grand Cherokee, which feels twice as quick...because it's got twice the engine! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

(5.2L, 225hp, 18mpg avg, 21 fwy).

To make the Trooper feel anything like that, you need to put a 4.3L Vortec and matching trans in it (probably the easiest 'big' motor swap, I'd think).