It is probably a good example of what you might expect if you buy a 25-year-old car that has led a hard life.
BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
It has been about a year since I bought my 1998 Jeep Cherokee.
I thought I would do a recap of what I have been doing to it over the last 12 months or so. Obviously a lot of driving. I did about 8000 kilometers. It only failed me once, because of a broken cell battery and a problematic alternator.
I bought the Jeep for several reasons. At the time I was about to retire and that also meant handing in the company car. So we would have some more room in our drive for a new car. I always liked the Jeep Cherokee. We had one when we lived in Kansas City 2009 – 2012. Really enjoyed that car. They are also hard-wearing and relatively easy to work on. Also, I can just throw my bicycle in the back and drive somewhere else to go for a bicycle tour.
I bought the Jeep for Euro 5000 (INR 448000), and I have spent about Euro 6000 on it. Mostly in parts, I have put on myself and a few jobs I could not do myself (some welding and some spraying).
The Jeep belonged to a young family and was used as their family car for the last couple of years. It was kept running with minimal maintenance. With hindsight as I learned, too little maintenance on some components. It was also very filthy, inside and out.
I always wanted to do a full car restoration, but I thought I would start with this project. Find a decent Jeep for not too much money and put everything right.
It has been an interesting experience and I have learned quite a bit along the way. I thought I would share this summary. It is probably a good example of what you might expect if you buy a 25-year-old car, that has led a hard life.
Although there are still some more small things to fix, I sort of rounded off the first year of ownership with a very very thorough wash, polish and wax job. I took a special workshop in car detailing and polishing.
Never used a machine polisher before.
All in all, I am very, very pleased with the result:
My good friend, spanner mate and also official classic car valuator Peter came around to appraise all of my cars. He put the value of the Jeep at Euro 15000 (INR 1345000). The value in an appraisal is used to ensure these classic cars. In case of theft or total loss, the insurance will pay the full amount. The appraisal is a reflection on what the current market is of a similar car, in terms of its overall and technical state.
Here is the first post and the introduction.
After picking up the Jeep I did several quick inspections of various bits and started ordering parts. I was lucky to find an excellent Jeep parts specialist (Edwin) in the next village from us!
With a new car, I needed to invest in the proper car documentation. The previous owners had given me their Haynes manual, but I also found, online, a proper Jeep Cherokee 1998 Workshop manual. Bought it, downloaded it and had it printed, because I prefer paper to reading on a screen.
First job was identical to the first job I did on our USA Jeep. Replacing the Jeep hinge pins of the driver door. Stupid design, not very robust, and the doors will start to sag easily.
Next I tackled the stabiliser bars and various rubber bushings. Over time these just perish on any car. Anything over 15-20 years is likely to need replacements.
Next job was the brakes. The Jeep has a very traditional brake set up. Front are disc brakes, rear are drum brakes. Vacuum booster and a front/rear split system (so not diagonally as is common on most cars)
Brake work is always hard work, especially if the brakes had not been looked after. The previous owner told me the front brakes had been replaced not too long ago. But in fact, when I started to take things apart it became very very obvious that all brakes, front and rear, had not been looked at for a very long time. In fact, I doubt it should have passed its previous MOT in this shape, let alone its next MOT.
So I replaced both front discs, callipers, pads and brake line hoses. At the rear, I replaced the drums, shoes and various other bits and also the rear brake hose (it has only one common line for left and rear brake) was replaced.
When you buy an old car likes this, it is anybodies guess as to what the real maintenance state is. There is only that much that you can tell by looking at stuff. I have a simple rule. I will always do a full maintenance service, which will include at least:
- new distributor cap
- new spark plugs leads and coil lead
- new spark plugs
- new air inlet filter
- change engine oil and oil filter
- change transmission oil and filter
- Change differential oil on both front and rear differential
- Change Transfercase oil.
Plus a few other bits. Replacing some other bits and pieces and fluids
It made a noticeable difference on how the car drove and also on the mileage I was getting. These Jeeps with the ancient 4.0L six cylinder in line are never frugal when it comes to fuel efficiency. But I am getting about 1;8 these days, which is not too bad!
The next job was a BIGGIE!! Replacement of the AC evaporator. This means the complete dashboard has to come out! Another good thing about the Jeep Cherokee; there are about a billion trillion YouTubes out there for every job imaginable. If anything the problem is sorting through a lot of crappy video’s till you find a guy that actually understands how to make a useful video that really helps the next guy doing the same job.
I knew the AC was not working, the previous owner had informed me up front. But he could not really tell me what had gone wrong, so I spend a lot of time troubleshooting the system first. All the electrical systems checked out, so my friendly local AC specialist Jack helped me pressure test the system and it was very obvious the evaporator was leaking. So I got myself some more special AC tools and a bunch of other parts. The evaporator is located inside the so-called Heater and Evaporator box underneath the dashboard. So I decided to replace the heater as well for good measure. I did not want to redo taking the dashboard out again. Also replaced the dryer. At 25 years of age, it is unlikely to be doing any drying!!
Dashboard out to replace AC Evap and heater core
It was a huge job, which kept me busy for days and days. I am a bit of an old git these days, things have slowed down for me, my memory isn’t what it was, so I spend half the time looking for tools that I have misplaced, to find I am holding it! Oh, the joy of maturity.
Jack came around to pressure test and recharge the AC system. Cold air once again!!
But with the AC system working, the electrical fan kicked in as well. The engine’s normal fan is belt driven, so the electrical fan had not turned yet. It made a huge racket! So I decided to open up the e-motor, clean it out and replaced the bearings. Lost one of the springs holding the brushes in place, so I had to make a new one on my Mini Mill.
With the dashboard not yet completely back in place I also checked various electrical connections to the instrument pod. I had lots of lights flickering. The internet had suggested a good whack on top of it. Which did solve the problem, but it always comes back. The root cause is poor electrical connections at the back of the instrument pod, so those were inspected and cleaned too.
In between the various big jobs, I also did various other little jobs.
- Fixed the cruise control buttons
- Checked for rust under the parafan and ensured all drains are open
- Replaced the indicator stalk
- Replaced all the bulbs in the dashboard and instrumentation pod
- Worked on several bits of rust in the door frames
- Replaced both front light units
- Had the driver seat fixed (seat was torn)
- Did a very thorough clean and shampoo on the interior (all seats out!)
By now the Jeep was ready for its first MOT or APK as we call it. I discovered a local garage that has a lot of knowledge on Jeeps. The owner Martin is a nice guy and has helped me with several jobs and given me endless advice. He had checked over the Jeep a few weeks earlier. We had made a list of all the jobs I would do and what he would do.
Martin would do a bit of welding on one of the sills and also replace the rear shackles on the rear (leave) springs. I had done this job on my previous Jeep and it had been a huge pain. You really need to have the Jeep on the lift and you need to have a BIG torch. Because those shackles are rusted solid.
This is what came out of mine. And I can guarantee you it should not have passed its previous MOT with the previous owner. Martin fixed it all.
Next another pretty big job; replacing the radiator, cooling water pumps, thermostat, torsion damper and front crankcase seal.
Obviously, I also needed to buy some tools for these jobs.
The reason I decided to do all of these in one go is that I wanted to flush the cooling liquid system and I did not want to try and extract either the torsion damper or the crankcase seal with the radiator in place for fear of damaging it.
Getting the transmission lines of the radiator was a PITA and I ended up damaging the connectors and had to replace the complete line.
Replacing the thermostat and cooling liquid pump was pretty straightforward:
Next job was initiated because of a breakdown along the A2 motorway. Which I diagnosed eventually as a faulty battery (one of the cells was damaged), but also the alternator was not working properly now and then. So I ended up having to replace the battery and the alternator.
The one fluid I had not yet replaced was the power steering fluid, so high time for some fresh fluid!!
I had also noticed a bit of a peculiar noise coming from the AC compressor. I had heard that noise before on my USA Jeep. It’s the bearing of the clutch of the AC compressor. So out it comes. Jeep does not sell individual bearings, you are not even supposed to take these things apart. But I always do, I like restoring and fixing stuff, replacing only what is necessary.
Don’t tell my wife, but the installing of bearings and bushings requires the use of our kitchen microwave and deep freeze. Heating makes parts bigger and freezing makes parts smaller, so they fit easily!! Trust me, I am an engineer!!
Although the AC clutch bearing replacement was successful, unfortunately, I kept hearing other weird squeaky noises. Tried a bunch of different things to diagnose it. Would you believe it, in the end, it turned out my brand new alternator had a wonky bearing!! So I swapped the new alternator for a new alternator and all noises are now gone!!
My Jeep suffers a bit from what is known as “piston slap”. Basically, that means the piston is a little worn and wobbles a bit in the cylinder. It is a known problem with many Jeeps. Jeep expert Martin showed me another Jeep, only 55K kilometers and it had worse piston slap than mine. Also, you only hear it upon starting a cold engine. Once the engine is at normal operating temperature the noise is gone. The engine does not use any oil. Still, I was not completely happy, so I decided to investigate.
With the help of spanner mate Peter and my old neighbour Toon, we had a good look inside each piston with my little camera-scope.
We also checked the compression of each cilinder and concluded this engine is as good as new!!
At some point in time we used the Jeep to drive to Schiphol/Amsterdam airport. I left it with the Valet parking guys. Upon returning two weeks later the Jeep had a flat battery. Which was very odd, as I had just put a new battery and alternator in.
So I decided to investigate for possible parasite drains:
Long story short; the electrics on the Jeep are fine. The valet guy must have been in a hurry and twisted the ignition key past the normal stop into the so-called accessoire position. In that position, a lot of systems are powered up and subsequently, the battery was drained.
The Jeep has a proper towing hook. So it has already proven its usefulness as we helped a friend of ours clean out her apartment.
Keyword: 1 yr with my used 1998 Jeep Cherokee: Covered 8000km, spent Rs 5.4 lakh