I am looking at a 98 cherokee to purchase. The body is in great shape. The engine runs perfectly and it drives well. The undercarriage looks good, there is some rust in spots but more or less the floor panels are clean.

The owner has done quite a bit of body work. The rocker panels have been replaced, some areas of the front wheel wells where rust was forming were replaced, and some parts of the lower front two doors where rust was forming were cut out and replaced. The work looks good and you can barely tell that anything was done to it. Also the floor boards were sandblasted and a new undercoat applied.

The question.. should I consider "repaired" rust areas as equal to not ever having been rusty when evaluating this vehicle?

There is some rust on the undercarriage, but I'm not good at evaluating where it is important and where it is not a big deal. And it's hard to tell when you're laying on the ground with the frame 2" in front of your face! As you can see in the photos, the frame looks clean in parts and rusty in parts. For example, in the 2nd photo, the connecting piece in the foreground on the right is clean, but the opposing one on the other side looks like it has more rust. The diffs are both rusty and there are areas of rust closer to the front and back underneath (no pics!).

Any advice would be a great help!

 

That looks good to me, but, you are there, you'll have to judge.

 

Based on pictures, it looks pretty damn nice! I'd say go for it!

 

The middle area/floorboards/ are in great shape. Most of the rust is up under the front end. Mostly on various parts and piece connected to the frame. I stupidly didn't take any photos up there! Guessing that a certain amount of rust is normal on the parts underneath a jeep.


If there is any area where rust would be a deal breaker, besides the floorboards, rails and rockers, please let me know. It's hard to tell the difference between normal and too much!

 

Frame rails are the biggest since it's a unibody. Or anywhere suspension components mount to the body/frame (unibody). But, I'm talking like rotted out stuff. If the PO took the time and spent the money to take care of the rust you mentioned, he must have cared about his jeep quite a bit. Rockers are like the first thing to go on every jeep. Most people just let them rot away and then buy a new one.

Unless you can get some more pictures of the spots you're concerned about, it's really hard to say for sure. But again, based on what you posted it looks pretty nice.

 

You must be from somewhere down south because I don't see rust. The "frame" looks as solid as ever for a 98

 

i have no use for regular undercoating. it often seals in moisture. had a turbo gt probe and it looked good till i realized too late that the rust was under the coating. id look close ,scrape some off and see whats there. rust treatment like rust bullet and others seem to be a good way to go.i posted pix of mine showing how it looks.
ill get back with link.

Floor pan seat reinforcement ( 1 2) just see the paint,ignore the methode i used to attach . a couple guys wont stopattacking me cause in their eyes i did it wrong! i ignore them .the rust bullet really coats stuff good. other products may be better?

 

That frame looks cherry compared to some of the other XJ's I have seen!