Project "La Mosca"

[johnsxj]

With the rehash of my Heep done and over with and my daughter finally getting her driver's license (she passed 1st try, just took forever for her to book an appt) it was time to start the quest for her 1st vehicle Of course me being me I figured a Cherokee would be a good choice with O.K. gas mileage, not to big/not to small size, 4wd for our nice winters, and the fact that it's a platform I'm kind of experienced with working on

After a fair bit of searching Craigslist, paper ads, word of mouth, keeping an eye out when OTR etc... I finally located one that met my list of requirements (I'll get to that in a minute) on Mr. McFly's "New England Jeeps and Parts" Facebook group. It turned out to be one I passed by on Craigslist due to price but the seller had put it up for $300 less on the FB ad so it just hit my range.

Now for those that are wondering "John, what do you look for when looking for a Jeep?" Well I'll tell ya.....
1) I'm CHEAP! So price is a prime factor. $1,500 is my cap.
2) Distance. The further away it is from me the lower the price better be!
3) I'm sick of ROTTED metal! I don't mind rusted rocker panels on an XJ they're easy enough to fix and it's very rare to find solid rockers in my price range. What I'm tired of dealing with is Flintstone mobiles with no floors, inner rocker rot, and of course uni-body rail rot. I've looked at plenty lately that were "rocker's just need fixin" or "it's just got a couple small holes near the rear seatbelts" ....
4) Communication! I seem to find every person that really doesn't want to sell what they've advertised. It's simple... person has add, I'm interested so I call and or e-mail, person SHOULD call or email back but rarely do If it's sold, pull the damn add afterwards.

So that's my short list/rant of what I look for and here's what I found...
'98 Cherokee Sport, 219K, 4.0/AW4/231, ABS, power everything except cloth seats, overhead console, alloys, etc, etc... for $1400.00





I know it's on the higher side but it already had much of the mechanical's taken care of (shocks, rear springs/shackles, PS box, ball joints, lower trans line, brakes, and tires with decent tread, 3" budget boost lift) heck even all the electrical stuff still works including the overhead console And best of all "it only has this 2-3" area of rust on the PS inner quarter and a little on the rockers" Well the rockers he had right, they're just starting to go but haven't gone. The inner quarter......




At least it's not the entire floor!


My post bring home inspection found a few shockers both good and bad...
Bad: Quarter rust is both inner and outer panel on the passenger side.
Good: Didn't find any other rot on the floor or rails other than the above pic!
Bad: Somebody only did front pads or didn't catch the sticky caliper pin so new front brakes again.
Good: It's got a fairly new alternator and somebody updated the exhaust manifold.
Bad: 3" spacers in front are too high for AAL lift in the back so it sits nose high.
Good: Front end components are all tight and there's even new sway bar links under there!
Good-ish: 255/70-R15 tires have about 1/2 tread (not 3/4 like ad had said) and look good on the Jeep with the alloy rims.
Bad: 255/70-R15 tires on factory offset rims rub the lower control arms on tightish turns and make the steering feel heavy.
Good: I'll have a set of Cooper Discover AT tires in 255/70-R15 up for sale in the near future....
Bad: Reverse lights not working.
Good: Daughter is not nearly as picky about stuff as her cousin was (Project Blue Cross)

Well that's enough typing for tonight. Stay tuned as we tackle yet another vehicle in the days to come!

[BlackNBlue-ISH]

Very cool! I've often thought about picking up a cherokee as a DD and keeping it all stock.

What are you plans for this? Just fix, then maintain?

[johnsxj]

Very cool! I've often thought about picking up a cherokee as a DD and keeping it all stock.

What are you plans for this? Just fix, then maintain?

Yep! I'm basically keeping this one stock other than the budget boost lift that's already in it.

It stopped raining long enough for me to snap some interior pics....



Miracle! A not sagged out headliner in an XJ


Of course when I opened the hatch I found a little water fall pouring out the trim


Which might be from hatch seal that's sloped down...


The worst of the interior was the steering wheel that's a little worn...


And what's a higher mileage 4.0 without some oil leaks...


No pics of the few little things I've already taken care of but here's the short list...
Heater blower only worked on high so I swapped in another ballast resistor that I had on hand.
The nasty steering wheel has been replaced with a not so nasty one from the parts wagon.
PS front door retainer wasn't connected due to a worn out mount on the door jamb. Parts wagon to the rescue again!
The non working backup lights were due to a dirty neutral safety switch. New units range from $70 to $150. I pulled the defective one out, took it apart, cleaned up all the internals, buffed the contacts, then put it all back together and back in the Jeep (plenty of how to write-ups on the interwebs). Hardest part was getting the switch off the trans then the 1/2 hour cleaning saved me that $70-$150

Short list of things to take care of before putting it on the road....
Redo front brakes (I'll put up pics as to why)
Rear quarter rot and little hole in floor.
Readjust the parking brake. It works but you gotta pull the handle way up.

Other things to take care of but not high emergency....
Swap out 3" front spacers for 2" units to get rid of the "gasser" look that's going on.
Dizzy cap/rotor/plugs. Fires right up and runs great but those pieces have passed their prime.
Replace the valve cover gasket. Oil belongs in the engine not on it
Different set of tires. Kuhmo has some highly rated ones and a $120 rebate going on.....
Cure the water getting into the hatch thing. Bending the seal mounting lip up might cure it. Worst case I get a new seal.
Fix/replace the dead fog lights. All the factory wiring is there so why not.

Now if the big brown truck will show up with my bargains I can get back to work

[johnsxj]

The big brown truck and little white truck with the blue stripes have been making regular visits the past couple days so I was able to knock the list down some

Wednesday night night while waiting for parts I pulled the rear tires to check the back brakes. The shoes had decent material on them and the drums looked good so it was just a matter of cranking the adjusters out until the shoes JUST rubbed on the drums. The tires spin free and the parking brake handle travel is cut in half

Seeing as the parking brake was a quick fix, I decided to swap out the spark plugs I had picked up on Tuesday. The thought of pulling all the spark plugs out combined with this Jeep having 219K on the clock but running smooth and quiet got my curiosity up so I broke out the cranking compression gauge..... With a warm engine all the cylinders put out between 165-180psi I was so sure I had made a mistake that I tested again and got the same results Seems that this engine has been well cared for!

With the new plugs in place and not that late I figured I'd tackle one last project which wouldn't affect a single mechanical thing. The PS front bumper end cap was pushed in pretty good and looked worse than the dents all down that side. Being a new driver's 1st vehicle my usual rule is not to worry nearly as much about cosmetics as I do about mechanicals (odds are good the corners will get banged up at some point) but that cap was bugging me and I had time to kill. My first idea of sliding under the front with a long rod and hammer to pop it out didn't work. 2nd try was pull the four bolts (only 1 snapped), remove the end, and pop it out on the ground with whatever worked. Turns out my size 9 foot was more effective than a block and BFH but that plastic is tough and there was still an area pushed in. Final try put my shop press and 1/2" socket extension to use. It ain't purdy but it's better than it was


Thursday night after the brown truck made it's visit it was time to knock the list down further....

I didn't know "8 month old" brakes were supposed to look like this (pics don't do justice to how bad the rotors are!)



Sure the pads had been swapped but nobody looked at the rotors or caliper mounts.
PS was a straight forward R&R and other than a sticky slide pin on the caliper was a slam dunk.

When I took the DS apart I discovered a fairly common Jeep problem (here's where our Editor in Chief gets to steal a story for Tracks)...

PAD DIVOTS!!!!



There's supposed to be little stainless caps on the areas where the brake pads slide. Often times they get lost or damaged when replacing pads and lower cost brake pad sets don't come with replacements so people just toss in the new pads without those little caps and motor on. The problem with that is the caps serve two purposes, 1- they give the pads a smooth surface to slide on when the brakes are applied and as the pads wear down. 2- they act as a wear surface to keep the locating ears of the pads from digging into the cast knuckle as the brakes are constantly applied preventing what I had in the pics. When you have those divots the pads can't slide, causing poor braking, funky wear (see the 8 month rotors/pads), and more damage to the contact areas.

On earlier XJ's and YJ's it wasn't the end of the world as the caliper mount with the pad sliding surface's were a separate part that bolted onto the steering knuckle. If it got worn, you found another one and put it in. On later XJ's, YJ's, TJ's, and Grands it's all an integrated casting with the knuckle. "The book" cure is to replace the worn knuckle with a new or good used one. Seeing as new knuckles cost $$, nobody stocks them and good used ones take too much time to find, I use a fix that's not in "The book" and only takes a few minutes for anybody with a welder, grinder/flat file, and steady hand....

....Clean up the divot areas with a wire brush, sandpaper, etc.. to clean out the worst of the rust (also clean an area of the knuckle for the ground clamp!) then fill the divots with a little weld bead.


If you have a steady hand you can use a small grinder (shaky hands go straight to the flat file ) and clean down the welds so they're flush with the rest of the pad bearing surfaces so they look something like this...


Now you can pop your new caps in place and finish putting the brakes back together! I'll admit the new pads I bought (AC Delco Ceramic) didn't have the full caps but they did come with an assortment of clips that go onto the pads that not only allow the pads to slide easy but came in different thickness' to shim the brake pads for a better fit (way to dark by that time to get a good pic).

With the front brakes back together I spent a quick 5 minutes to swap in the new distributor cap and rotor.
The engine fired right up and ran good with the old cap. How I had no idea!


Another visit today from the brown and white trucks got me a valve cover gasket set, rear quarter patch panel, and ONE 2" coil spring spacer Turns out in my rush to find a deal on spacers I didn't notice that TeraFlex spacers are "sold individually"! What I want to know is who only buys one at a time ON PURPOSE?!?!

Doesn't matter at the moment anyways. I get out of work at 6pm and guess what time the rain started today? Yep, you guessed it..... 5:50pm

[del_TJ]

Wow, those were some deep knuckle divots! I repaired one side on my TJ, but it wasn't nearly as bad.

[johnsxj]

Well I think I've got most of the projects wrapped up on La Mosca.
Last Sunday I spent about 7-8 hours taking care of that 2-3" of rust that looked like this once the bumper end cap was removed....



Ended up completely removing the inner quarter panel, patched a small spot on the rear bottom point, used the new patch panel up to the sharp bend on the body line (repair gets hidden by the bumper cap) fabbed a new inner quarter with a hunk of sheet off the old roof skin from my heep then fabbed a little patch to finish off the bottom of the wheel well.

Monday we got lucky and only spent 1/2 hour total at the RMV and they actually charged tax on the correct value

Wednesday night I did some investigating into the stiff, heavy steering.... I knew a new steering box had been put in so the first check was to make sure it wasn't over adjusted. Disconnected the drag link off the pitman arm, steering wheel moves nice and easy. Next step was to pull the steering damper. The damper valving felt a little firmer than usual but even with it removed the steering was still heavy and the Jeep didn't want to return to center after a turn. Scratching my head a bit, I remembered hearing that front axle u-joints and ball joints can seize up and cause issues like we were having. I knew the u-joints were O.K. having checked them while doing the brakes (cut the wheel over fairly hard then spin it while feeling for binding) and I knew the driver side ball joints had been replaced but the passenger side looked like it hadn't been touched in many miles. Off with the passenger tire, disconnect the drag link off the knuckle, pull the axle shaft, and low and behold the knuckle would turn the middle 1/3 easy enough but got really tough beyond that Lucky for me I had a brand new set of Spicer ball joints I had picked up for trail spares so it was out with the old and in with the new which made for a vast improvement

While I was under there I figured I'd level things out in the front end. The original plan was to replace the 3" spacers with 2" but of course I had missed that TeraFlex sells theirs in singles not pairs. Earlier in the day I had done some tape measure work and figured that pulling the factory front coil pads would at least get the front end sitting level so out they came and I no longer have the 60's gasser look going on!

It was only 10P.M. by the time the front end was all back together so I figured "what the heck, I'm already dirty" and replaced the valve cover gasket. With the cover off I confirmed my suspicions that this engine had been pretty well taken care of. Everything just had that nice caramel color and not a single sign of sludge!

Friday afternoon it was off to Monroe in Fitchburg to get the new 235/75-R15 tires I ordered installed. Their techs did a great job on the mount and balance, even taking time to clean the corrosion build up off the rims and apply bead sealer to head off any possible leaks, all for $56.50!

With the new ball joint and tires installed the steering was much better. I ended up putting in a new steering damper on Sunday and now my daughter can drive it without getting pulled over for suspicion of DUI. The only other little project that I should do is install an adjustable track bar to get rid of the slight pull to the right from the budget boost.

That pretty much wraps up "La Mosca", just in time to have "Blue Cross" aka "Boomerang" show back up with bad battery cables

[mrfreakinwhite]

Especially after you fixed the gasser look, that is a nice looking XJ.

[Carl McFly]

oh what the............. ............ how long was I gone for??? apparently long enough for John to find and rebuild another XJ! Congrats on the find, she looks great and she obviously needs to be 100% for your daughter. *If I ever get off my lazy azz and back in the saddle, I'll be cranking out another issue of Tracks before the snow flies. Hopefully. One things for sure, I won't be scrounging for content

*Yes, that was sarcasm. Been wicked busy the last month or so, with family commitments and stuff but I'm working my way back to the dark side. Of the garage

[johnsxj]

Heck Carl I sold Ol' Yeller Monday night, now on the quest for another XJ or possibly a WJ for a new DD.
Depending on what I find (got a better budget to work with what with the profit I made on the TJ) I may just have some more tech stuff to post