Hi everyone

I'm looking for advice from people who have experience of rust on their XJ's - which I gather is every single person who's ever owned one.

I have a 1996 XJ. It lived its first 15 years in Vancouver, BC and subsequently in the UK, so damp but not extreme climates.

There is virtually no rust on the body, just a little (apparently superficial) rust next to the gutter strips on the roof. The underside seems to have surface rust but not more. Prodding around with a screwdriver beneath the drivers and passenger sides seems to suggest solid metal. Two mechanics have told me the vehicle is basically sound.

But I am concerned. The front carpets on both sides are damp suggesting water is getting in. So my questions are:

- Am I right in thinking that the apparent absence of rust underneath doesn't really tell me very much, and that I need to examine the floor from above, and
- the only way to do this is to remove the seats and the carpets and take a look?

I suspect the answer is something like 'yes, yes, grit your teeth and get on with it' but you never know....

Thanks for any advice.

 

Yes, yes, grit your teeth and get on with it. What? You asked for it.

My 95 XJ has lived in the UK since 95, has had a decent amount of use including launching boats then was sat for 7 years until I pulled it out last year.

Personally on mine, I removed the under side of the carpets as I saw them as a huge sponge just waiting to continue rotting my floors out. Audibly I can't say there's much difference by removing that insulation.

The whole job isn't that big and if you're concerned, I'd definitely recommend that you pull it all out and most especially get those carpets dried out, it should only take an hour or 2. Just so you know, my biggest input of water was from the top of my windscreen, so check the headlining for dampness to indicate it that's why your carpets are wet. This caused both front footwells to rot completely, it does not however explain what caused under the rear seat by the arches and both rear cargo corners to also rot away.

Over Christmas I pulled my interior and went to work welding everything I could find. My plan was only to sort by the rear hatch latch as I knew that was shot but found a lot more further forward. These areas that didn't visibly look too bad were bad when given some decent poking around. Once all repaired and sealed, I used a paint called Tecnogrip that's quite tough and rust resistant. If nearby, you can get hold of it from Colourtone. Even if you don't find rust, if you're planning on keeping the Jeep I'd say give it some form of rust prevention. I had a few patches of original paint that just flaked off around the path of the exhaust.

I'll attempt to upload some images from my work later as it's stopping on 90% uploading when I try.

 

 

If you are going to pull the carpet up and out, might as well coat the floors while you are at it. You can get something like POR 15 or Rust Bullet. All you have to do is follow the kit instructions. Scuff and prep the floorpans, then coat. It will last for many years and you wont have to worry about it again.

 

Thanks for those contributions. I was kind of hoping that some magic would make me the only XJ owner who didn't suffer rust but I knew I was in the real world!

Thanks for the heads up and the grounding. I certainly will do a coating of POR15.

Thanks also for all those photos - which make me think my Jeep isn't that bad. On the other hand I haven't revealed the rust yet and time will tell.

Thanks again.

 

Both front floor board areas on my 98 were holed with rust. The roof aft corners were missing and there were small holes adjacent to the rain gutter. The right rear fender well aft of the wheel was rusted through. This XJ never left south Florida. I ground out all the rust and repaired it with polyester resin and fiberglass. I used a mixture of fiberglass flock and resin to recreate the roof corners and reshape them. After final shaping and blending of the interior floor boards I ground the rust from the undersides and glassed them as well. I painted all upper and lower surfaces of the floor boards metal with POR-15 and topcoated with Rustoleum gloss black. I primed and repainted the roof and right rear fender repairs with a very closely matched color (gunmetal pearl). I also repainted the liftgate. It was getting kind of ratty looking.

My 96 has the front right floor board holed in a couple spots I'll repair in a few months when the weather gets warmer.

On both vehicles I pried the rubber seal surrounding the windshields up with a wedge-shaped nylon rod and, slowly moving along its length, forced black silicone sealant beneath the raised lip with a calking gun. I also did this on the liftgate windows. I cleaned up the squeeze-out as I went along.

One of the things about these Jeeps is they typically have poor moisture sealing door seals. My 96 has never had the driver's door removed and I can feel the air drafting onto the back of my left upper arm when traveling down the road. It may be due to the seals becoming crushed over time. I'm going to see if I can find a replacement of recent vintage for that door. If it solves the sealing problem I'll replace all the door seals.

The liftgate seal of my 98 was allowing water to enter because the latch bolted to the lower-center jamb prevented the liftgate from making full contact with the seal. So, I unbolted it and using a 1/4" carbide bur in a die grinder I elongated the bolt holes to allow the latch to be moved further inward (towards the front of the truck) another 1/4". I tightened it in that position and slowly lowered the liftgate down. I could feel the liftgate making contact with the seal. I could not feel that contact before elongating the holes. Then I pushed on the lower edge of the liftgate hard enough to latch it. Satisfied the latch was correctly re-positioned, I further cinched it down.

I want to think that the doors, once correctly positioned to ensure their respective contours and break lines match each other and the fenders front and rear, may not be making full seal contact. This can be checked by placing rolled-up paper towels just inside the door seals and dowsing the outside with a water hose pressure nozzle. Once a leak is found it needs to be remedied by whatever means.

 

Yeah like everybody says you are just going to have to bite the bullet and check it out. My '00 while not rust free is pretty solid. One of the reasons I bought it. You can never really be sure until you get in there though. I put power seats with removable headrest buckets in. She came with manual one piece ones. When I peeled up a little of the carpet to put in the harness for the power seats I was pleasantly surprised. With that small section anyway. At some point I want to put some sound deadening in the floor. At that point I will really see what is going on. I did find somewhen I put the privacy glass in the XJ. Behind the passenger side cargo bay plastic. I wire brushed and hit it with some POR 15. I did not prep with the Cleaner and the Metal Prep. When it comes to rusty metal I have had some good success without prepping. When I first started using POR 15 I bought the little starter kit. Wanted to play with it and see what it was all about. Comes with about 4 oz of POR 15. I used it where I wanted to prepping per the instructions. After I did what I wanted to do I had some left. So I just started slapping it around under the Jeep. No prep. Not even wire brushing. On clean metal it pretty much just peeled off. No surprise there. On the rusty metal it held up pretty good. The last shot is of my gas tank heat shield. Again no wire brushing or prep. I got at it the best I could. Well 2 years later I pulled it to install a gas tank skid. I was very impressed at how well it held up. I have used it on cleaner metal. Wire wheeling it to scuff it up and using more Metal Prep and for longer then the instructions say. Jury is still out on how this is working though. Last I checked it seemed to holding up well. I think for cleaner metal POR 15 might not be the best option. Even with the additional prep. Time will tell.

 

The seals under the roof rack let water in too. Gotta remove the headliner to deal with that (at least on my yr)..

 

 

Do yourself a favor and make sure to spray some penetrating oil (in the states PB Blaster is well regarded, my Dad likes Liquid wrench) on the fasteners that hold the seats in. The fasteners are not very durable (except perhaps the rear stud) and rust badly. Take care when removing them - if they break, you'll be able to get the seats out (they come out pretty easily) but drilling them out is not fun. (Ask me how I know... )

 

Just did mine 2 months ago. As I found out on my 67 stang and this cherokee rust is always worse than what you think...or maybe just my luck?

Bought all four of my pans from fixmyrust.com as they had the best price for the Key Parts brand panels and fit with them was dang near perfect. I used POR 15 on the rails and brackets but on the pans I coated the seams with Rust Bullet (don't know why but sure i had a good reason for it), coat of enamel primer and two coats of enamel paint oh also put two coats of seam sealer. A air chisel makes cutting thru those factory spot weld easy just take your time and do it right. I spent 2 months but working couple hours a day and weekends all outside.

I bought me a welder and plug welded mine in and used burn thru paint for welding seams... also on this don't go cheap as one brand I used I had lots of splatter I think the other cans I used were SEM brand. Be prepare to buy lots of wire wheels,cut off wheels and cheap paint brushes (rock brushes) and don't forget to wear PPE.