Picked up a 92 XJ for my stepson. It's been in Arizona it's entire life. Almost no rust and it doesn't look like it saw much use off road. It's got at least 106,000 miles. Probably more because the speedo works when it wants to (it's on my things to fix list).

Cleaned up the engine bay and sprayed a little paint here and there. The thing looks as good, if not better than my 01 Dakota and the wife's 08 Rubicon unlimited.

Other than the typical desert dry rotted rubber and plastic this thing has held up really well for being 16 years old.

3" RC Lift kit, different set of rims and tires go on this weekend. The owner is 15 and is ready to go on it. I've spent the last four weekends just messing around with it mechanically. Having a blast with it and tempted to get one for myself to wheel around. It would be nice to not worry about Arizona pinstriping it. Should be good to pull around behind the motorhome too. It seems to be pretty light.



Home made battery hold down. It had none when we bought it. The dealership wanted over $150 bucks for all the miscellaneous T bolts and other pieces parts to put it back together. Made this from some scrap aluminum I had laying around the garage.

Removed, and cleaned up the valve cover new gasket, air box, fuse box, and this thing and sprayed all to match. Just cause it's gonna get wheeled doesn't mean it can't be pretty.





Found 5 matching rims and four 31X10.5 Toyo AT tires on craigslist (one on the right is from the set). The one in the middle was included in the set, but is not a match. It will be the spare and is brand spanky new. Far left is the stocker.

 

Dang that thing is clean!!!

 

Thanks Since I'm the one doing all the work on it, it has to be clean. I hate working on greasy stuff. It's easy to keep em that way. Now that's it's cleaned up I can just hit the whole motor with some simple green every time the oil gets changed.

Per usual the pictures look better than up close n personal, but yeah it's not too bad. We probably paid a little more than we should've for it though. We searched for a while and they seem to hold their value here in Arizona. Looked at some that were way cheaper, but trashed and all banged up.

It had/has all the normal Cherokee issues and I've been working my way through them.

Power door locks inop, power windows slow, leaky valve cover, power seat motors are about worn out but managed to get them working again, Speedometer like I mentioned, some steering linkage problems. Radiator and cooling system was filled with straight tap water and everything was rusty. Flushed everything, new thermostat, hoses and clamps, temp sensor. Typical older vehicle stuff.

The forum has been a tremendous help and I'm a searching reading fool.

 

Nice score. I bought my '96 in Tucson, and its been here in Mass for the past five years - still not a spot of rust anywhere on the body. Undercarriage looks mint too.

 

Thanks. We're pretty happy with it. Like I said there were lots of little things to fix, but it's getting there. We put the 3" RC lift on yesterday. What a major improvement on the ride. The thing needed shocks real bad when we bought it. I started pricing shocks and we found we could get the lift w/shocks for about the same price. Made it an easy decision. Between the new shocks and springs it rides like a truck ought to now.


Sometimes I wonder if a guy couldn't do well by transporting these southwest vehicles east/northward and selling em. We didn't even PB blast anything until we hit the shackle bolts for the rear (and by that time we had already finished the front). We hadn't needed it and I had completely forgotten about it until then.

Before



After



Quickie home made spare tire carrier. I'm wanting to do a home made rack like some of the guys have posted up. Looks like a fun project and theirs came out looking nice.