Twinkie

Just wanted to make a post to say thank you for all the helpful suggestions people have posted. I’m in the middle of restoring my first vehicle, a '94 Sport I bought new after graduating from college. When fuel hit $5/gal I got a DD that got better mileage as I’m driving about 600 miles per week and let my parents drive the Jeep in the winter weather. Lately I’ve really been missing my Jeep especially since I’ve started getting back out to the backcountry dirt roads. I still have a ways to go, but after searching the forum for problem issues & general maintenance tips I'm slowly starting to make some progress towards getting the Jeep back in prime shape.

Radi

So what's on the to-do list?

Twinkie

Well this chapter of the story started after sitting too long & the battery was down. I jumped it & headed into town to get gas. The drive wasn't long enough to charge it up to start again. The guy that went to jump start me hooked up the cables backward & blew out the alternator & ECU. I got them replaced & got it running again. Since then with some help on body work I've been concentrating on rust. The right quarterpanel was rusted thru & got that repaired as well as cleaned up the rockers. At the moment the interior is gutted & I'm sanding down the floor pans to put a coat of chassis saver on before putting it back together. I also had to clean the instrument ground after water had seeped in the windshield. All this in prep for a new paint job.

Finally I cleaned the ICV & TPS while giving my hands a break from sanding! I think I'll replace the water pump when I'm done as it was running hot in the summer or under load. If that doesn't do it I'll overhaul the engine. So, still a fair amount of work ahead of me, but hopefully when I'm done it will last another 20 years!

Vince A.S

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DFlintstone

Wow...I bought a pretty clean, pretty rust free 90 for $1,200, and passed CA smog. Yes, with issues but wow, not like yours!

Radi

Plenty of stuff that can make it run hot without needing an overhaul. Fan clutch, shroud, water pump, crud and scale in the radiator...

Twinkie

Well maybe, but I'm trying to get it back to as close to 'new' as I can. If I compare it before I started any work on it to others that are for sale in this area it'd be around $3K. It's just been sitting for two years and that's one of the hardest things on equipment. Plus it's my first 'car' so there is a fair amount of sentimentality to it as well.




Thanks Radi, I'm kind of thinking it may be the water pump. When it started running hot I flushed the radiator and it helped, but still would get hotter than I thought it should. The #6 spark plug was getting pretty dirty, so I thought I had low compression from a valve/ring problem. I ended up borrowing a compression tester and block tester from the auto store. Didn't get any sign of block problem and compressions were all 110-130. On the low end, but not major like I was expecting. But I didn't get a 14mm differential compression tester so there could still be some issues I haven't got to yet. While starting to clean the engine I did find some tan colored deposits (dry) in the little nook below the water pump so maybe it is starting to leak. It's been too long with only short operating periods, but I don't remember any coolant on the drive way. Since I want to keep it around long term I won't have a problem overhauling the engine if that's what it needs, but we'll see once I can get the last of the rust taken care of and drive it a little.

investinwaffles

I did an entire cooling system overhaul 2 years ago, and the biggest cooling improvement came from replacing the radiator. It was definitely scaled up, and I got a Spectra branded replacement for like $100 from Autozone. If you are draining the coolant, you might want to consider replacing the radiator. Make sure you flush everything REALLY WELL (especially the heater core) so crud doesn't get knocked loose while air is bleeding out of the system and plug up your new radiator.