Jeep 4.0L

[93Regina]

A poster was thinking of buying an XJ. He asked if the 4.0-liter
engine powering it was reliable. Sometime in the past-my best guess
puts it around late 2007, my senior year of college-I wrote:

Posted By: Wellington P Funk

Join Date: 09-12-2005

I've said it before, but the Jeep 4.0L engine is the toughest, least
maintenance-demanding engine I have ever had personal experience with.
Folks on the internet know that the Jeep 4.0L is durable, but they
know little of its history.

The original Jeep 4.0L inline-six was hewn from a solid block of
granite by lightning bolts. Its cylinders were bored by the Imperial
Winds and its rotating assembly was balanced by the Scales of Justice.
The Ancient Egyptians used Jeep 4.0L engines to move the blocks which
built the Pyramids, only switching to slave labor when it was found to
be cheaper than the olive oil used to fuel the engines. Scientists
have ranked the Jeep 4.0L engine as one of the strongest forces of
nature, racking right up there with tectonic plate shifts for its
low-end torque, and being surpassed by hurricanes only for its
comparatively low redline. Mechanics have found imprints of fossilized
dinosaur bones in block castings, and serial numbers in Roman numerals
are a common sight. The design of the 4.0L's fuel injection system has
been traced to the archives of Leonardo DaVinci, and early manuscripts
of Shakespeare plays have been used as head gaskets for this engine
(which, incidentally, explains the gaps in Shakespeare's collected
works as well as the 4.0L's tendancy [sic] to leak oil). The engine's
ancient roots also explain its ability to run on some very
non-conventional fuels (original translations of the Rosetta Stone
include evidence of Jeep 4.0L engines running on ox blood) as well as
lubrications (during the Middle Ages, Jeep 4.0L crankcases were often
filled with barley, with no detrimental effect on power output).
Historians maintain that the fall of the Roman Empire hinged on their
inability to design a superior engine, and had the Titanic been
powered by a 4.0L Jeep engine, 1912 might have been a much happier
year. Yes, had early-20th-century naval engineers had a touch more
foresight, the Jeep 4.0L may have saved mankind from ever having to
endure Leonardo DiCaprio and Celene [sic] Dion in the same sitting.

The only weakness in this otherwise unstoppable force of nature?
Emissions. Yes, the engine's design may have come from the hand of
Zeus, and its exhaust note at full throttle may have reverberated
along the rock formations of Arizona to forge the Grand Canyon, but by
the year 2007 its crude emissions control (originally consisting of
papyrus strips soaked in the tears of the young Tutankhaman [sic]) had
become outmoded, and the legendary, nay Biblical force of the Jeep
4.0L was put to rest.