jenmoser

My roommate sold me his 1988 Jeep Cherokee Laredo for $550. The engine and transmission are supposedly newer, but he never took care of it. The mileage is unknown to me, when you look at it though it indicates 194,000. It wasn't leaking oil, coolant, or anything until today.

I've already put new tires on it, brakes (the others someone installed backwards and upside down), and just yesterday it passed an emissions test after I bought a new gas cap (other one had a crack on the inside).

So I put the new gas cap on and the car went from sounding real loud and annoying to almost instantly quiet and was running easy yesterday.

Today I go out to the car and a fuel injector started leaking gasoline when I turned on the truck. I pushed it back in and its continued to leak when the car is running. The engine is now leaking from the cap on the top of the engine just slightly. I also found oil in the air filter when we opened it up. Which leads me to wonder if a gas cap just messed it all up, i.e. brought out the problems with it???

We have one friend who said just replace the "O" rings and another friend told me to do everything plus the gas filter because the previous guy put 20,000 miles and didn't do anything other than an oil filter and tune up.

When you try to start the car it takes a little while to turn on (about 8 seconds). The battery in it is very small (545 cold cranking) and when my friend put his battery in it the car started right away. Everyone is telling me that the battery is too little for the car, but according to some guy working at Autozone down the street from me that is the right one. I had someone else tell me that even if the battery is too little the starter would most likely be the problem.

I'm going to have all this checked by a real mechanic but wanted to get someone else's opinion especially on the fuel injectors.

I'm new to Jeeps, but this car has been so good to me already and easy to fix I already love it. I had a Ford Bronco II about 10 years ago and swore I'd never own a small truck again, but fixing this car has me hooked.