LairdDev

I just purchased a 1988 Jeep Cherokee Laredo and looking over it, it has some problems. If any one has any ideas on what is wrong them that would help a lot!

*Cranks for a bit before it starts.
*Heater is out, I can only get "a little" heat out of the defrosters.
*There is a little lack of brake pressure when I go down a hill. (I will have the pedal all the way down and it goes for a little before stopping.)
*Emergency brake does not work at all
*Cant get the back trunk door to open.
*And for some reason the wiring in the door messes with the radio. (I have to open the door after its running to make the radio work. And to change stations, I have to change it to what I want, then open the door to make it actually change to the station.)

cruiser54

Welcome.

Cranking a bit before starting is normal for your vintage of Jeep.

Click on the link in my signature below and do Tips 1 through 5.

Eliminate the heater control valve in the engine bay to get full flow of coolant through the heater core.

If air is only coming out the defrost, use the pic below to find the vacuum leak.

Inspect and adjust your rear brake shoes first to address the braking issue.

Leave the radio off for now.

jay_sco

Pretty much what Cruiser said.
Your jeep is pushing 30 years old, it may not fire right up like a new vehicle. Now if it cranks for a minute or two before starting it may require some maintenance.
Brakes, have you inspected them? We have no info to go off, but plan on new shoes/pads/hardware, and check linkage. Parking brakes are very simple to troubleshoot, if you do some "noggin pokin".
The hatch door, again, hard to say without having it in front of me. Lock jammed? Body slightly twisted, stuck latch? Could be a few things, you'll have to play with it.
The radio...that just sounds wacky. Again though, you give no info. Factory radio, aftermarket? Installed by someone high on meth? Pull the radio and check the wiring. Report back.

DFlintstone

Welcome Laierd. Always listen to Cruiser, we are very fortunate to have him here.

Don't mess with the adjuster for the e brake too soon. (it's just for stretch in the cable me thinks). The auto adjusters for the rear brake shoes rarely work right. I've tried repeatedly going forward, breaking, then in reverse, breaking, a bunch of times, (feeling silly), but I think that might actually get the lever to work on that star wheel. Better of course is to pull the drums and have a look at what you are dealing with. That said you can manually adjust the play in the rear brake shoes through the slot on the backing plate. Getting that right should take out petal free play as well as play in the E brake cable. Btw, lot's of shops will do a free brake inspection.

Your 87-90 Renix Jeep will need to crank about two revs at 300 rpm before it fires.

You can try back flushing your heater core....if it only does defrost, you likely have an issue with vacuum to the heater controls. See Cruisers diagram. Vacuum to there from the intake actually goes down through the front bumper!

For the back hatch...try pushing in hard while pushing the button. Also try parking with one or the other rear wheel up on something. One of my 90's, parked right, the hatch will hit the tail-light while trying to close due to the rear 1/2 of my uni/frame being cracked to bits. (any cracks up around the hinges? Oh...needs to be open for that)...Once at a JY a worker there, took him about 30 seconds to pull the interior panel and hit that latch on the rear hatch...Btw, the button will go in easy when it's locked. Unlocked you feel resistance.

Mine just have broken speaker wires to the doors, I get two, three, four depending. The tuning is controlled by mysterious (button gods), and is not related to the broken copper wire, where it flexes at the door jamb. (now after a year, one Jeep, I can actually turn the radio off on, even select FM or CD!)

LairdDev

Thanks for all the help. Sorry I do not have much info on the jeep I work from dark to dark not much time to look under the hood. I will get to it this weekend.

The heater me and my friend have played with it. We sat there and adjusted the heat from cold to hot and low to high. But all we could find is a little heat from the defroster. But this weekend I plan to find it and fix it.

A guy at work helped me fix the E brake. But now after applying it, it will stick for a little after disengaging. I don't live on a hill so its not really a bother to me.


But with the back hatch we have tried unlocking it with the keys, tried using force, and other things but like I said I work from dark to dark. This weekend I will try to mess with it and hopefully post some more info on the problems.

cruiser54

The cable is adjustable under the passenger side dash.....

Stabsthedrama

I know the long crank time is inherent to these Renixes, but I still swear by my 4 hole injector upgrade cutting my crank time down considerably. It's also a lot safer and has noticeably better throttle response. The response and crank time could be that they were old and crudded up, sure - but honestly when I took the originals out I was pretty surprised how clean they were, the ports weren't gunked up at all.

cruiser54

True story. The Op needs to know this is not an avenue to travel down at this point since it is somewhat normal.

DFlintstone

My "0ld" 90 I've had since 02, first I did 703's, then PIONEERED the 746's, fires pretty quick. My "New" 90, the PO just had installed stock injectors.

It WAS slow to fire, but with Chevron Premium it will fire faster. Now back on 87 I have long crank again.

Friggen forums, people posting stuff that doesn't seem to make any sense!

An unrelated footnote. For the ECU to recognize two revs might depend on where the engine stopped, and how long it takes it to reach 300 rpm. IE, if it's looking for #1 to come by twice, and is stopped before #2, it will see two in barely over one rev.

67 GMC

Most likely this. If there's no change from hot to cold, the slider on the cable that opens the damper may be loose or gone or the cable disconnected. Heater core could be plugged as well but why assume the worst until you've checked.

Does the fan work at all speeds? Could be the blower itself-You didn't give us much of a problem description.

The back hatch-Need some description-Does the button push in all the way, does locking it stop it from going in etc. If pushing it goes all the way in, but the hatch doesn't budge, the little metal tab inside could be bent. That's a bear to fix with it not opening. You'd have to remove the inside hatch panel to access the latch. Even then, not sure you can do anything with the hatch closed. Might be able to push or pull on the mechanism to pop it open.

More details needed on your posts so the Jeep guys can advise properly.