SAM the Cherokee: (Smart-***-Masochist)

[Aspen d'Grey]

So I finally have my new Jeep, a 1993 XJ 2.5l/5spd in my hands, anddd there's problems already. :ylsmoke:

On the other hand, I picked up a very well running XJ for $360. Go me!

The good:
~ Runs Great
~ Good Compression
~ AC blows Cold
~ 2dr
~ 5spd
~ Cheap

The bad:
~dented in passenger fender == TONS of wind noise
~ Very loud overall!!
~ Ruse in the floor pans... pretty bad too.


So I've got some questions for the Jeep community, hopefully can get some answers:
1 - Do I bother working on this and getting it into great shape, or just beat on it til I can afford a 4l 97+ cherokee?
2 - The back hatch & window got a film of oily dirt on it last night coming home down the interstate from denver. I dont think this is just road grime as none of my other cars have ever gotten it, but what could be the cause?? The exhaust seems to be fine, new cat & muffler, and i haven't seen it blowing any smoke.
3 - The rust in the floor pans - cut out floor pans from a dover & weld them in? These aren't structural correct?
4 - Theres a really annoying rattle coming from aroudn the base of the shifter under power above 40mph. Could this be in the tranny? Bad news?

I haven't been able to find any record of people getting oily back windshields on here or on NAXJA and thats one of my main concerns.

There are some weird things going on too... The guy I bought it from put in a K&N air filter... more or less in the stock box, and cut a hole in the intake tube and just stuck a vacuum line in there x.x Not positive what I'll do about that. Also there is an electrical connector just hanging out there not plugged into anything - does anyone have a photo with the layout & parts labelled of the Cherokee 2.5? I've found it for the 4.0l but not this.

Thanks for the help and its nice to finally be able to go out and do stuff.

 

[Black Dog]

So I finally have my new Jeep, a 1993 XJ 2.5l/5spd in my hands, anddd there's problems already. :ylsmoke:

On the other hand, I picked up a very well running XJ for $360. Go me!

1 - Do I bother working on this and getting it into great shape, or just beat on it til I can afford a 4l 97+ cherokee?

You can't argue with the price, so even if you drive it for 2 or 3 years it was worth it. Looking for a later model XJ would never hurt though, you probably won't find one for $360 that isn't a total piece of junk the the I6 smokes the 4 banger in every category and then some. The newer models have a few more creature comforts in them too that are kind of nice to have.

 

[HenryKrinkle]

The oil on your rear window may be from burnt oil in your exhaust. I can't really be sure, and if you're not seeing white/blue exhaust smoke or losing oil you're probably fine. I had a 2.8L V6 and it was a piece. As long as your compression is good and it runs and drives fine you're good to go. I'm fairly positive the suspension will be the same on all XJ's regardless of the motor, so get yourself a nice little lift if that's what you're shooting for. It should transfer to a newer rig just fine. You can also stick a 4.0L into one of these with a little firewall smashing if you get attached to this one. Your axles' gear ratios will be something like 4.10 which is what you want for bigger tires (31-33") when being pushed by a 4.0. Pretty sure this lower gearing was used with the smaller V's/manual trannys due to their low power.
Worst comes to worst, you can sell your front and rear axle for more than spent on the whole truck- probably D44's with low gears...

Good luck with your rig..

 

[Aspen d'Grey]

Thanks for the input. :smiley_drive:

I'm happier with the car than I was when I wrote that actually, because I used a prybar to get the passenger side fender back out to where it belonged and that cut down the noise a ton. (thank god)

I'll keep my eye out for something newer, but I'll go ahead and do some of the suspension mods & other things I wanted to do since it should transfer, good to know.

Definetly not seeing any white exhaust, although i do have oil drips on the rear axle, diff, the front axles, front sustension components.. basically everywhere down there o.o! It left me a nice 4" spot after 2 hours and I think it's from the oil pan gasket, so that's where I'm going to start. Grr. -.-

This car is going to be built up to be my large-format photography base vehicle, so lots of time of forest service roads carrying delicate expensive photography gear in very tough expensive cases. So it needs to get me there and back and not much else.

Definetly good to know on the axles- thanks!

 

[gixxerphil]

your axles should be dana 30/35(maybe a c8.25 in the rear)
everything will swap over with little to no problem
i'm not sure about 2.5L but the 4.0 can sometimes have a bad rear main seal.
good luck and great find. i would love to find one like that:wings:

 

[Aspen d'Grey]

FFS... -.-

So I went behind the dash today to redo the stereo wiring the last idiot (or possibly best buy) left behind. Got it alll nicely rewired and the stereo and car worked fine. Then I decided to check and see why some of the lights werent working properly. I accidently grounded a wire (I dont remember which one- I didnt take much note of it at the time) and got a quick CE light.


Now, the dang thing wont crank. I'm getting power to the starter via (confirmed by screwdriver test which scared the crap out of me, not doing that again -.-)

I hear a 'click' when i turn it to the run position, and the collant & oil pressure & brake idiot lights come on. However, the gas gauge is reading all the way to the right (past full) and no other lights are coming on. And, of course, no start.

Where should I start looking for this? All the info I can find is on the 4.0l...

Nevermind!!! It's fixed! Theres a green wire spliced int oa black wire with a green stripe coming out of the cluster & going to ground. Because of the poor quality splice and the weird grounding location I thought it was part of the alarm system I've found traces of and I cut it. (I didnt realize it was a ground because it came off when I took the defroster switch out.) I was reading on general starting problems and someone said 'bad grounds' and I thought about that one, went out and tried it, and sure enough, it started right up. Whew.

 

[HenryKrinkle]

If you've got a little spare wrench time, go through the works checking connections/grounds and lubing connectors with dialectric grease. It's good peace of mind and will help in watery conditions. Get those sensor connectors underneath too- CPS, O2, etc. Not sure about your motor, but the 4.0 has a major ground near the oil filter- kind of hard to find, but can cause problems.

Sounds like you're doing pretty good with this one, please keep us updated on the project!

 

[Aspen d'Grey]

Whew, that was 'fun'.

Yesterday I noticed that my brakes went to the floor after backing out of a parking spot. Today it happened several times, then when coming down the hill from the canyon it did it again- only this time I HADN'T backed up. It would give me breaks but only after pumping it a few times.

I got it home and found out that during our bit of off roading yesterday the bottom mounting bolts for the strut on the left side had either sheared off or rattled loose, and the strut was pinching the brake liek at full left lock. Two grade 8.8 bolts later and that problem is solved. But YIKES that was hairy for a minute! I'll be putting that on me pre & post run checklist from now on.

I also got underneath the car and cleaned off the flaking rust, and repaired sprayed over it with rustoleum rust converter stuff & undercoating. Hopefully that wil lbuy me a little more time.

Getting pretty worried about the oil leak, it's pretty bad and seems to mostly be coming from the front of the engine around the power crank for the serpentine belt... Uhoh.

 

[Aspen d'Grey]

My friend picked up two nice big solar panels off craigslist, rated at 17v/50 amps. We're going to be using these on his Ford Ranger & my cherokee as additional in-camp power sources. We're working on building step-downs and an intelligent battery charger, because today out in the hot sun one panel was putting out 20 volts- enough that my 800w inverter went into protect mode. We're also building some mounts out of scrap metal in order to mount them on top of the trucks (out of the way & easier to allign with the sun, although they will be taken off during the day.)

We're taking a 3 day trip to Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Monument from the 25-27th, and hopefully will be camping up Old Medano Pass. The solar panels & CB radios we just got this weekend should hopefully be helpful for this!

Edit: I'll make sure to bring my camera tomorrow to take pictures of the panels & how we're planning to mount them.

 

[HenryKrinkle]

Is the leak from the oil pan or higher? Sounds like you think it is the seal on the crankshaft in front. With the right tools that shouldn't be the biggest deal. If it is that seal, you'd have the pull the harmonic balancer off, then the timing chain cover (I think).

I guess you'll just want to pinpoint it first.

Those solar panels sound cool. How much power will it produce/What can you run off of them?

 

[Aspen d'Grey]

Is the leak from the oil pan or higher? Sounds like you think it is the seal on the crankshaft in front. With the right tools that shouldn't be the biggest deal. If it is that seal, you'd have the pull the harmonic balancer off, then the timing chain cover (I think).

I guess you'll just want to pinpoint it first.

Those solar panels sound cool. How much power will it produce/What can you run off of them?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure its the harmonic balancer seal and shouldnt be a huge deal to replace once the weather gets better. My shop said it would br $115 for them to do it after tax, so I'm almost tempted just to let them do it.

The solar panels are rated for 50 watts at 17 volts. 2 of them wired in parallel is plenty to keep my largest battery well charged while running an 800w inverter.

 

[Aspen d'Grey]

Trip up Old Stage Road & St. Peter's Dome

My friend Sebastian and I took our new trucks up Old Stage Road to St. Peter's dome last week....

And, here we go, the requisite pics!

 

[Aspen d'Grey]

Went in to fix the oil leaky today. Replacing the hharmonic balancer seal took a couple hours, went out for a drive, the oil leak was about halved. That's stil la probelm, so I started looking. Turns out most of the oil was seaping from the pan gasket on the XJ and closer inspection revealed both a tear and the fact that its not even a real oil pan gasket!

Thats when the hell started....

Removing MOST of the bolts was no problem. Then I got to the starter. It requires a special star-point E-socket to remove. Went and found that at the one placei n town that has it, for $20! o.o; I remove the bolts, starter drop out a bit ,and gets stuck. I spend then ext 3 hours trying to get the little bugger out and have still had NO luck. Does anyone know a trick for this? It will wobble around and want to ome free but its hanging up on something!

Then there's the two main-seal bolts in the back. One came out fine with a u-jount and sone fun times, the other little bugger I just cant get out.. ARG! And even if I get it out I dont have a clue how I'll get it back in! I'm not even sure how to get the pan out of here, although I suspect I'm going to be learning how to undo the swaybar.

 

[nbleak21]

well, first thought was that it's just an oil pan leak, just replace the gasket and drive on... but then again I've never dropped the pan on an XJ and had no idea it would be THAT much of a pain! Sorry, Bro. I've got no advise for you, other than maybe ckeck out JeepForum.com and see if they've got a writeup on it somewhere!

Also In regards to your solar panels, they wont keep your battery fully charged while running the inverter, but will help a little bit with taking a load off. which is still nice.

 

[Aspen d'Grey]

well, first thought was that it's just an oil pan leak, just replace the gasket and drive on... but then again I've never dropped the pan on an XJ and had no idea it would be THAT much of a pain! Sorry, Bro. I've got no advise for you, other than maybe ckeck out JeepForum.com and see if they've got a writeup on it somewhere!

Also In regards to your solar panels, they wont keep your battery fully charged while running the inverter, but will help a little bit with taking a load off. which is still nice.

Thanks for the reply, I'm going to go beat at it some more and see if I can get it all to work. *grr!*

Hopefully the solar panels will give us enough to charge the batteries during the day and use them for lighting at night. Any electronics should be able to be run out of the car if we need them.