Baystate Jeepers

A guy at work told me about a lady in Fitchburg he knows that's hard up for cash and has a Jeep for sale.........

A few phone calls, a trip to the storage center, and $500.00 (Her asking price, not me low balling ) and I came home with "Ol' Yeller"

The good: 2000 Wrangler Sport, 4.0, 5 speed, less than 87K , PS/PB/AC, black soft top, clean interior, NO ROT! I mean only some surface rust on the body (see pics) and the frame has more black than "reddish brown" on it still

The bad: Both door uppers and rear window are shot, no radio (wasn't gonna pay an extra $200 for the mystery JVC unit it had), it MIGHT need a new cam/lifters/oil pump, 3 out of 4 corners need some body work, missing one fog light, sway bar links are shot, and it has the Dana turdy-5 rear axle.

Here's some pics of the bad stuff.....




That's the worst of the windows.

Holy turd! - that was a steal

Kurt wrote:Holy turd! - that was a steal

The real robbers will be the DOR via the RMV "Sales tax is based on the NADA clean trade in value." And they don't care if you bought a vehicle cheaper due to condition issues

John, or anyone else for that matter, if you are going stock then I have a front and rear bumper with bumperettes off an 04 Rubi. (Probably everyone else has them available too.

Free for the asking, no delivery though.

Max

Johnny ! You Dog ! What a great steal . FjR68

Max wrote:John, or anyone else for that matter, if you are going stock then I have a front and rear bumper with bumperettes off an 04 Rubi. (Probably everyone else has them available too.

Free for the asking, no delivery though.

Max

I might just have to take you up on them!
I definately need a rear bumper.

John,

Now we just have to figure our how to get them to you.
I'm in Tewksbury and easy to find.
I'll PM you.

Max

Max / John

I can swing by Max's most any day and pick them up.
He close to where I work.

Kurt, that would be sweet if you could pick them up for me!
I'll owe you some beer for your effort.

John,

I PM'd Max this morning. Hopefully I can grab them today for ya.

Looks like my parts TJ sitting at my Mom's house.

Nice find for $500!!!!

Now that the rain has stopped, I got a chance to poke around the engine a little.....

Interesting discovery when I pulled the valve cover


That could explain the rough running issue and I was starting to think it was suffering from "0331 disease" when I saw the sludge. Wiped down the head between #3 and #4 didn't see any cracks and when I popped the drain plug there was no sign of H20, just oil that had reverted back to crude

Still gonna hafta pull the engine and give it a thorough check out..... turns out the dancing pushrod's lifter lost it's top and all the rockers & pivots are scored to hell

Kurt, I MIGHT have a "home" for that engine in your garage.......

Id put a cam and lifter set in it and run it ! FjR68

johnsxj wrote: Kurt, I MIGHT have a "home" for that engine in your garage.......

Sweet! I have an offer for you.
Will discuss when I drop off Max's bumpers tonight.

Tonight I confirmed that the TJ has "0331 disease" I had pulled and cleaned the head last night, looking at it today I found this....


If you look close, the brown streak has a hairline crack in it right where many of the early 0331 castings let go.

One shiny piston and five dirty ones tell you something was going on! On the plus side, none of the bores are scored to hell unlike the last engine

Look close and you can see the some of the guts to the "dancing pushrod's" lifter!!!!

I did pull some of the lifters and didn't see any abnormal wear on the bases Gotta drop the oil pan and take look see at the main and rod bearings IF they check out, I can get a new lifter and head then call it a day. If the crank is shot, I might be able to play musical cranks with the one from Blue Cross' old block.
Sadly, what might have been the easy way of swapping in Kurt's spare engine won't work due to a lack of cast in mounting bosses on Kurt's engine