My ring gear was shot. The Jeep was getting to the point of only
wanting to start easily about every 4th time. The grinding of starter
gears not meshing properly causing chills to run down my spine as though
fingernails were being run down a chalkboard. I had to  do something so
I came up with a plan.
 I decided it would be best to remove the motor rather than the trans in
order to access the flywheel to replace the ringgear. My decision was
based on the fact that my motor was buring some oil and had developed
the usual minor oil leaks over time. I figured it should be cake anyway
with just a set of bearings and a cylinder head rebuild. After all,
that's all it should need as only about 40K miles had passed since the
last rebuild. Time for some freshening you might say.
 With my plan in order I drove to a U-spray-it place and blasted the
crud and mud from the engine and mountings. Cleaning before makes the
job much easier! Once home the coolant was drained into a bucket and set
aside. I then filled the cooling system with water and flushed the motor
clean. Why you ask? Because motors always seem to leak everywhere when
you pull them apart and coolant is a pain to clean up. Water evaporates!
 With the Jeep in the garage the fun could begin. The motor removal took
about an hour and a half with a little fighting to separate the motor
from the trans. As expected water dripped everywhere! The nice thing
about my Jeep is that I have taken it apart many times so I didn't need
to mark how everything goes. Generally unless you are very confident
about all the lines and hookups take pictures or make diagrams. It makes
reinstallation much easier!
 Pulling the head off things looked good. The valves were not sunk into
their seats and the cumbustion chambers were fairly clean. Pulling the
pan next I found the inards still looked good. The timing chain was not
excessively worn. So far so good! Then I pulled the bearing caps.
 Very bad. That's the best way to describe the bearings. The mains were
wasted, showing more orange then an award winning pumkin. The rods were
worse. Scored and beaten, they would not have lasted much longer. OK, I
guess the crank gets turned!
 Next I pulled the pistons out. The cylinders looked good visually and
(thank god) checked acceptable with a bore guage. After cleaning the
pistons (already .030 over, couldn't safely machine the cylinders larger
or I would have) I found the number 3 had suffered meltdown between the
crown and top ring land. Great, now I needed pistons! I grudgingly
ordered them.......this is getting expensive!
 Greg at Edmonds Auto Parts and Machine suggested cleaning the head for
inspection in their cleaning oven prior to valve grinding. I agreed as a
clean head paints much better than a dirty one and besides the way
things had been going it would be cheap insurance!
 I got a phone call the next day. The head was cracked. In four places
no less! Apparently the 2.5L heads tend to crack under the seats in an
area that often cannot be repaired.
 So that is more or less where I am at. I found a new head and will be
going through that. The block is honed, the pistons are balanced with
their rods (all assemblies are within a 16th of an ounce of each other).
The crank has been turned .020/.030, and the rest of the parts are
sitting on my floor.
 The complete plan  will include the following replacement parts and or
modifications.
 .030 Sealed Power Pistons.
 Sealed Power Rings and Bearings.
 Turned crankshaft.
 New Sealed Power Timing Chain.
 All Felpro Gaskets.
 Competition valve job including forward cutting to increase 		airflow
and performance.
 New heavy-duty valve springs
 New heavy-duty Rocker arms.
 Match ported intake and exhaust ports, smoothed ports.
 Match ported exhaust manifold
 Match ported Intake manifold.
 Mopar Perfomance Cam and Lifters .430 lift, 240 degrees of 		duration.
All these new parts should help boost power considerably. Special thanks
go out to the crew at Edmonds Autoparts/Machine for their hard work
searching for obscure 2.5L parts and getting them to me at a great
price. I highly recommend them as they are in that rare breed of
professional parts people so hard to find nowadays.
 Now hopefully if all goes well I will have the motor done and back into
the Jeep for next month and able to report my results. Also upcoming
will be a 6 in Tomken Machine lift kit install to boost the altitude and
attitude of this XJ into the big leagues!
 Suppliers:
 Edmonds Auto Parts and Machine (shipping nationwide)
 636 Edmonds Way
 Edmonds, Wa. 98020
 Ph. (206)-776-9116)