I'm worried about my CJ5. Yesterday while driving home from the trails I got out on the highway and got up to about 75 mph in a hurry to merge, then slowed down to about 65. Maybe 30 seconds later several LOUD bangs/knocks (about 10-15 maybe) came from what sounded like under the hood. With each bang there was a dramatic power drop for a fraction of a second. This happened really quickly like within
25-30 seconds or so. I let off on the gas and it seemed to help a little bit. Each time I'd ease back on the gas the bangs would return. I slowed down to about 50 mph and the banging sound went away. I slowly sped back up to about 60 mph and made it the rest of the way home without incident. I noticed when this all was happening that my oil pressure stayed steady and my water temp was also steady. Then... when I was driving to work this morning I heard 3-4 loud bangs within less than 10 seconds while driving at about 65 mph on the highway. I felt the same power drop and again noticed oil pressure and temp remained unchanged. The problem "went away" again. I'm thinking maybe it's backfiring through the carb (I'll check for burn marks around the air cleaner later today) or maybe...just maybe...I seem to recall a similar feel/sound from about 12-13 years ago when an old Pontiac I had did something like this... turned out it had a couple of lifters that were about to give up the ghost, or pretty much had given up the ghost by the time I opened up the motor and replaced them. Can y'all speculate on best-case/worst-case scenarios? Sorry I can't give a better description of the sound. Ideas of stuff for me to look at? Thank you in advance for input.-- Travis