TLDR - Moss Green Pearl was used by Chrysler on several vehicles, and in 1998 it was used on XJ's and TJ's in a variant that is particularly more 'yellow' and has significant gold flake. It's amazing paint. The best jeep color to date, IMO.
I am a very proud owner of a nearly rust-free, very clean 98 XJ Limited in moss green pearl. Not the best pic but was handy....
In direct sunlight the color is this:
Notice that all these shades are the same JN color codes, in fact the ONLY differentiator is the "(L)" letter code there.... The main difference besides how dark, seems to be that the 1997/98 moss green pearl had a ton of gold flake or just yellow tint to it. or both.
I've ordered touch-up paint from TouchUpExpress, Paintscratch.com and also a MOPAR PJN from amazon (no longer available) and NONE OF THEM match this color - they all look like the sample chip just to the left, or the one in the middle. close, but not enough gold/yellow.
Anyone have any luck purchasing a verified match of this in a spray can, pint, gallon, touch-up stick WHATEVER. I have a few small odds to fix up that I can do myself, but the hood really needs a repaint. For this I may just go to a good shop... so maybe I should stop looking for paint and just find a good paint shop locally and have them try to match?
Your best bet is to take it to CarQuest or a body shop and have them make paint for you. They have a scanner that uses (infrared?) to determine the paint color, and usually it’s about as good as you can get.
Especially if you're looking for touch-up paint... because they can match it to the current shade of your paint, not just what the original code shows. That doesn't factor in all the environmental elements that change paint colour, shade, etc. over time. Not to mention UV rays.
Just got a 98 XJ. Moss Green and everyone in the family loves it. Has a few areas of primer so looking to paint and really leaning towards matching it.
I have a 95 YJ with PJN (Moss green). I needed to do some painting and found out the hard way how many factory variants there were for PJN in 1995. The variants were all over the place for color. I ended up doing what pineapple_tree suggested and went to a place that will mix auto paint and them use their special tool to get the mix for the 25 year old paint color. It wasn't perfect, but close enough for a 25 year old Jeep.
Thread revival for whoever ventures this way next - I never did find a suitable off-the-shelf paint, but I did use the one from Touch Up Express a few times on some larger areas like the bumper, where it doesn't need to "blend" inside one panel.... if that makes sense... whole parts. It matches well enough. I suppose if I did my entire hood with it (which was the reason for the original post) it might look OK. I actually just found a PJN hood in great condition within 200 miles of me.... for 100 bucks... call that done and a great excuse for a road trip with a few state parks along the way.
Also, my son (pictured in the OP) is now old enough and has wrenched with me long enough, that he knew he could google "moss green pearl jeep XJ", find a pic of himself on the first page, and change his Chromebook wallpaper. Instant 4th-grade celeb status. lol.
