This was car maintenance day, trying to get a few more miles out of my 04 Jeep Liberty with 180k mi, it was getting over due on plug change and way way way overdue on trans-fluid change. So fortunately I have my oldest son to help where he's more mechanically inclined, he gets lots of practice keeping his mill and equipment running. The plugs are suppose to gapped somewhere around 0.035-0.038, the old ones was over 0.060 and with no never-seize on threads they come out like rusted hinges on 100 year old barn door, all in all though the early Jeep Liberty's are fairly easy to change plugs, you can see the motor, I wouldn't buying another Liberty if I could find one in good shape near by.
One important thumb note, a magnetic socket works good on these deep hole plugs....
Now the messy part, someone forgot to put drain plugs on the Liberty's trans pan, hope he got fired with a very large severance pay package. I watched a couple videos on it and what I noticed is a car lift with tall drain catch pan would make it much easier, this lying on floor work is for the young. So I was on one side son on the other, go around loosen up bolts over a big wide what ever you can find that the wife aint using.
So as I looked at the trans pan I notice wow it's more rusted then rest of the Jeep, and sure enough, after all off and cleaned up, painted and put back on, a small little leak on the side, I wire brushed a little a put some gasket maker on in as soon as it was put on no leak, now wait let it dry overnight hoping I can get by til a new one shows up next week. So yah-hoo get to do this all over again, dont really mine though as dark and dirty that trans oil looked it could use another change, and since I heard horror stories of a trans flush I rather just drain and refill.
