Project: Maybe I’ll just sell it and make some money

[Ryan T]

So back around Christmas I was having lunch with an old high school friend who mentioned in passing that he had a Jeep Cherokee he needed to get rid of. His HOA/Condo Authority or whatever was hounding him because they are allowed two cars and he has 3. So I jokingly told him I’d give him $500, which he promptly accepted. Obviously he told me I didn’t really have to buy it, but I’ve been wanting something to play with, and for $500 How could I go wrong?

So he told me that it had sat for essentially the last year without really being driven. Obviously the best course of action was to take a Greyhound bus all the way across the state to Alexandria and drive it home, sight unseen. The day before I came he tried to start it and the battery was dead, so he had AAA replace the battery the day before I came. Greyhound arrived yesterday at 3pm, I checked the oil, coolant, tires, etc. before dark and was happy enough with it to drive home. It was having trouble cranking over, cranking really slow, but did start. Filled it up with gas and hit the road at 5:30am this morning. For the first 60-70 miles the ride was pretty rough, kinda all over the road, but by the time I made it to the 66/81 interchange it had settled down significantly. 

Drove it all the way to Galax, VA, made a few stops, then drove it on to Bristol. Stopped at the gas station near my house to pick up a couple cold beers, came out, and it wouldn’t start. Instant cursing. Called my wife and she brought my multi-meter and a small tool kit out to the gas station and met me. Tried to jump it, no dice. Checked the new battery with a volt meter, 12.8 volts, not the alternator, so I figured it must be the starter. Got underneath and saw the oil on the starter. The O-Rings around the oil filter mounting hardware are known to go bad, which these are, and leaked oil onto the starter causing it to take a dump. Crawled underneath and smacked it with a 18mm ratchet while the wife cranked it and it started up. Drove it home and put it in the garage. The roof rack clears the garage door by about 4”, but the door goes up and down fine, so success!

So I’m not entirely sure what my plans are for this Jeep. I could change the starter, clean it up, and flip it for about $2500 right now. Or I could keep it, put some money into minor repairs it needs and either sell it for more, or keep it as a fun car/3rd vehicle. I haven’t decided yet. Anyways, on to the breakdown:

1999 Jeep Cherokee Classic
4.0 In-line 6, AW4 automatic, 4x4
154k miles
3” Rough Country lift
31.5” tires
CB Radio (just needs antenna)
Steel Front and Rear bumpers with recovery points
Steel rock sliders on both sides
Roof Rack
$500

What it needs:
Starter - obviously
Front brakes
Brake line from the master cylinder to the rear brake lines is pretty rusty, could use a new one.
Oil Filter housing O-rings
Valve Cover Gasket
New fluids
Saggy headliner fixed 

Otherwise it’s in pretty solid shape. Maintenance records from my buddy show a new thermostat, radiator and water pump at 150k in 2014; new front U-Joints in 2013 at 135k; diffs, transmission and transfer case serviced in 2011, new o2 sensor in 2013, new front wheel bearings at 135k in 2013, new exhaust in 2014 and a new window motors and wiper blades in 2016.  I priced out the parts for the above work and they can all be had for less than $500 total. So in theory I could have it all tidied up for less than 1k. 

Thoughts? Keep it for fun? Fix it and sell it?











Barely clears my garage door with the rack on:




So I’ve decided my ultimate goal is to see if I can do everything I want to this Jeep for less than $1,000. So I’ll keep a running tally here. Obviously my labor won’t count. 

Vehicle: $500
Starter: $53.39
Valve Cover Gasket: $33.47
O-Ring Set: $12.59
Floor mats (realized after I got it home that I had 3 different colors): $19.97
Oil and Filter: $25.76
Two D-Rings for Rear Bumper: $19.92
Key Fob (dropped they center light console down and saw that I had the circuit board for it, but no fob): 10.99
PCV Valve: $5.99
Radiator Cap: $5.39
Bushings: $12.36
Total: $699.83

[JustinG]

This has keep as winter beater until it dies all over it.

$500, for a reliable easy to maintain 4x4, yup.

[JPolen01]

This has keep as winter beater until it dies all over it.

Bingo

[Jake]

Take off all the goofy stickers, clean it up a bit and rock it as a beater until you get bored of it.

[Sully]

I'll give you $600 for it....

But for real, all I want in life is for that beating on the starter trick to work... Just one time in my life. Everytime something won't turn over, I give the ol starter a tap but it never turns out to be the starter.

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[CaptainHenreh]

This...is not what I expected.

[davej]

I'll trade you a Wii for the jeep.

[Senor_Taylor]

I'll give you $600 for it....

But for real, all I want in life is for that beating on the starter trick to work... Just one time in my life. Everytime something won't turn over, I give the ol starter a tap but it never turns out to be the starter.

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$601

This is the perfect start to a great offroad build.

[V1GiLaNtE]

Trim the fenders. Sell the rack. Use money to buy cheap 33's. Bumpstop it and then go beat the snot out of it.

[Steve85]

Not sure what's up with the hood and the front bumpers have some hopefully surface rust but after reading the intro, I did not expect it to be in what looks like overall good condition! I was expecting see something that needed paint all over, and a completely clapped out interior. Advice above is good advice!

[Ryan T]

Hood is in good shape, it's just filthy from sitting under a tree for a year. The brush guard has just surface rust. I'm probably going to take it off, hit it with the sander real quick and rattle can it black again. Other than that the body itself is pretty rust free. The underside is pretty rusty, but what XJ isn't.

[ScottyB]

fix it up, have fun with it all year, sell it around Oct/Nov next year when there are threats of snow again and rake in your "4WD tax"

[Senor_Taylor]

What Scott Said.

I regret not taking that TJ as a trade for my Taco and having it all summer, dumping before winter.

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[Ryan T]

Starter, valve cover gasket and gromets, and oil filter housing o-rings ordered today. Got up under it to find out what a clunking sound I heard was and found that one of the bushings for the sway bar disconnect was...missing. You can just wiggle the end link freely. Gotta order new ones. Removed all the stickers after I got home from work and goo-b-goned the residue, hopefully will be unnoticeable after a good wash. Next steps are the vacuum out the interior and give it a good clean while I wait on the parts to come in.

[Ryan T]

Fiddled with it a little bit tonight. Vacuumed out the interior and used 20-25 sheets of my wife’s lint roller to get all the dog hair out of the back seat.

Unhooked the starter and broke the bolts loose to make quick work when the new one comes in on Tuesday. The Dodge dealer messed up my order for the oil filter o-rings and only shipped one (need 3 for the whole job) so I have to wait to Tuesday to pick up the correct order. Fiddled with the stubborn bolt to remove the oil filter housing a little. It’s a Torx T60 and is notoriously tight to remove. The bolt itself is less than 1.5” from the frame rail so you can’t get a standard socket into it. Took a T60 I had and knocked the bit out of the socket then wrapped it in tape to wedge it inside a 14mm wrench. Tried to break it free with that with no luck, definantely going to need some sort of breaker bar or cheater pipe to get it loose. Not really high priority right now as the O-Rings won’t be here till Tuesday.

View from the bottom. The shit-hole bolt is between the wires for the starter and just past the oil filter in this picture


Here’s the tool I made to get that pesky fucker free



Tried to find an easy answer to the type of bushing I needed for the sway bar end link, with no luck. I’ll probably just take the whole sway bar out, take the good bushing to advance and try to find one that matches to put in as a replacement. It’s the top bushing in this picture, it’s totally gone.

[ScottyB]

The shit-hole bolt

this seems to be the only bolt i've ever met

[Ryan T]

Basically had to wait around on Brown Santa until yesterday. My starter and valve cover gasket were scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday but, due to the snow, was delayed until yesterday. UPS said delivery by 8pm and he brought it by at about 7:50.

New valve cover gasket, starter, and the correct O-Rings for the oil filter adapter:


Went ahead and threw the new valve cover gasket on last night. Destroyed the rear PCV valve trying to unhook the 19 year old plastic tube. Shattered into a million pieces. Also destroyed the valve itself getting it out. Bought a new valve at Advance and used an old piece of heater hose I had to replace the old plastic line...won’t be breaking that one in the future. Also noticed that my upper radiator hose was partially collapsed, which is a common symptom of a bad radiator cap on XJs. Bought a new radiator cap and threw it on, problem solved.


Everything looked in overall good shape. Went ahead and made sure all the rockers were property torqued down while I had the cover off. The far back valve cover bolt is a real pain in the ass to get too and was the only one I wasn’t able to get my torque wrench on. I decided to tighten it to “fuck it that’s tight enough” and leave it. All the others torqued to 55 inch pounds.

Best way to keep your bolts/studs in the right order:


Old vs new:


Got the oil filter adapter out and changed all 3 o-rings. The two on the bolt itself were still in pretty good shape, but it’s cheap insurance to replace them at the same time. The o-ring from the housing to the block was dry and hard, definantely needed replacing:


Threw the new starter in while I was under there, 10 minute job. Air ratchets really make quick work of bolts that have a small area to move a regular ole wrench in. New starter and oil filter housing installed:


Changed the oil while I had the housing out. Bolted everything back up and it fired up on the first crank.

Checking out everything in the back and discovered the previous owner put in a RockCrusher rear diff cover at some point in the past.


Bushings for the sway bar end links should be here tomorrow, will toss them in tomorrow evening. Then time for a good wash and some driving around.

Updated the first post with a “what I’ve spent so far” tracker.

[Senor_Taylor]

This makes me happy.

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[davej]

Need another $500 Jeep for parts?

[Ryan T]

New bushings came in for the front sway bar today. Pulled the sway bar off after I got home about 9pm, but didn’t put too much effort into it. Wife fell asleep about 9:30 and I didn’t want to hammer on it and wake her up (garage is right below the master bedroom). As you can see from the pictures below, the bushings are shot, and one of them is missing! Just fiddling for a few I realized the old bushings may be a pain to remove. Any advice on easy ways to get them out? I’ve contemplated heating them up and trying to push them out? Also considered trying to put them under a press to get them out. Will I have the same difficulty putting the new ones in as getting the old ones out? If it’s that much of a pain I may as well just buy a press. Also, thoughts on lubing bushings? The bolts that are holding the bushings in place are stuck in place...hard! I’ve hammered on them with a dead blow for a few minutes with minimal luck. I’m soaking them in PB Blaster for the night and giving them another try tomorrow. Ideas for getting those bolts free as well? May stick them under the arbor press I have and see if I have any luck. Thanks!

Pardon the paint, wife just painted the kitchen