CA90XJ

Hey all,

I am still a newbie here but I'm about to be putting some work into my recently purchased 1990 Cherokee Pioneer so I figured now was a good time to start a build thread. For the uninitiated, here's my new toy:







And so on. She's bone stock inside, right down to the factory tape deck. The interior is surprisingly clean for its age, but it did have a layer of grime on it that I recently cleaned/vacuumed up. Manual windows, locks and mirrors and yeah, it's a 5-speed with the AX-15 (thank GOD, no Peugot).

So the first thing I have to contribute needs more photos to introduce:



As you can see, I'm missing two rubber strip trim pieces on the left side, as well as:



One more on the right. Hey, I don't really need those, right? And the rest are ready to fall off anyway. Better to go naked, I say. The results after a little prying and peeling:













Here you see the overall result. The leftovers:



After the brown dirt and sticky crap is scrubbed off I think that will be a good look going forward. Simple and uncluttered.

Next up: a new radiator, water pump, fan, fan blade, some hoses and a fan clutch (maybe), with lots of help from poster ck1. Will post pics once that gets going!

Atmos

that is one clean interior. 1989 5 speed pioneer was my first car
its a little late but in response to your old thread "what would you upgrade"
I would stay away from anything that has add a leaf or lift blocks.
although, I would buy an add a leaf from rustys off road for $450 and buy full packs down the road
cheap and effective and perfect for 31's
good luck on the build

darknezz

nice start, take care of that maintenance first like it sounds like you are.

check my build thread for budget lifting and what ive done

keep posted

CA90XJ

Last weekend forum poster ck1 helped me out with a cooling system rebuild. I already had one reply up for this earlier in the week but I closed out the window halfway through!

Anyway, the original owner of my XJ took horrible care of the cooling system and even after a recent flush the water was still very rusty looking. In all, our goal was to replace the radiator, water pump, fan, fan clutch, fan shroud and some hoses that looked old. I was only able to get some of that done. Here are the pictures:







That's pretty much all of it, including the new radiator which was a 3 row instead of just a 2 row. I bought a battery hold down but it doesn't fit and is cheaper than it looked. Also the fan blade and shroud I got were way too big, and somehow the fan clutch I thought I got wasn't there. Stupid NAPA. I learned my lesson: always double check your parts order and never trust a parts monkey.





There's the old radiator once we got the plates off the top. As you can see it's pretty old and on its last legs. Points if you can see where it's corroded and about to split outwards. It was the factory radiator, had an AMC sticker on it and everything.

A closer look:





See that? Bad.

Also, remember the damage to the right front side I mentioned above in the thread? Well that bent and damaged some things near the radiator, which is why I'm missing the main fan shroud in the first place. It also almost destroyed the electric fan's casing and that fan doesn't seem to even turn on. But mostly it bent everything up which made reinstallation of the new radiator lots of fun. Check out the damage to the factory radiator:







You can imagine there was quite a mess when the hoses were popped off the radiator and some water was flushed through the engine. You'd be correct:







See that? Nasty. Basically it was the color of rusty bilge water and it just kept coming and coming out.

Next the water pump came off. The result:



Some scraping and dremel scrubbing was needed to clean the crap off that. CK1 got it shining like new, and then the new water pump went on. I forgot to get a closeup shot of that.

Getting the serpentine belt on was tricky, but CK1 saved the day there. He finger tightened the pulley you see in the left of center area of the below photo (the one on the water pump), and was able to stretch the belt over the pulley to the far right and then ratchet down the remaining bolts on the water pump. It was quite ingenious. The results:





Then the new radiator went in, mostly due to ck1's expert wrestling, moving and jostling around to compensate for the bent metal structural parts. The results:





Since the radiator had to be forced in, it made reinstalling the plating on top difficult and some of the holes did not line up anymore. Some drilling produced this, which allowed reinstallation with some washers:







Finally everything was done:





The new hoses I got were nice and lifted everything off the top of the head. Now all my hoses have been replaced, as well as my overfill bottle a little while ago, so everything has been swapped now except the heater core, fan and clutch, but all of that seems to work for now.

CK1 and i must have burped the cooling system 5 different times and kept checking the levels and temp. It only threatened to overheat once, but of course we shut it down and burped/re-added coolant right when it went much over 220 degrees. To the Jeep's credit, it never went much over 210 (which seems to be the normal temp for this Jeep) once we got all the air out.

Also I wanted to give most (well, all) of the credit for this fine work to ck1. I mostly observed and am still pretty useless under the hood, but ck1 is proof that real Jeep guys know their stuff and will help out when someone is in need and has no idea what they're doing. This is a big weight off my shoulders knowing I'm sorted out with my cooling system now. I know how big a problem that is with these engines, particularly Renix.

Next up: I replace the shroud and electric fan I didn't have. The fan blade will wait but I bought a fan clutch from Rock Auto because you never know.

Also I might need a new temperature sensor but I need to find one first. Those are difficult to find so far. This is the really fat sensor that screws into my radiator.

alsxj

Very nice pioneer man! Xjs are a great rig to learn on if you haven't had much experience under the hood. They're pretty simple. And good move on getting running right before any mods. Whats your plans for her?

CA90XJ

Well I do want to get it running right first and foremost, definitely. I need a bunch of fluids changed out before I feel better, and the steering is definitely in need of replacing. Beyond that I think I want a lift (no more than 3"), some decent tires/suspension and then whatever stuff I need to get out to the wilderness (like a CB, etc). It might be nice to fix the A/C and eventually paint it and pretty it up some but that stuff's not even on my radar screen yet until it's mechanically squared away.

I'm still very new to this so any recommendations would be appreciated.

jeeep1994

niceeee

ck1

hey Ryan..Jeep looks good..she still running cool?...get that e fan and shroud on soon!
Cameron

p.s. thanks for the Kudos glad I could help you out

CA90XJ

OK so obviously if I had more mechanical skills I wouldn't need as much help with this stuff but here's a list of the things done since the last update:

1) Finished the cooling system rebuild by adding a fan shroud and a new electric fan that actually works! A third coolant flush later and I finally have all GREEN coolant with no rust-colored sludge water mixed in.

2) Had every single fluid drained, flushed and refilled including front and rear diff, transfer case, clutch, tranny, brakes and power steering. The clutch and brake fluid were a dark molasses color! Not good.

3) Had the other 4 fuel injectors replaced so now I have all 6 brand new fuel injectors. No more leaky gas smell!

4) The CCW air hose popped out of wherever it was during all of this. I guess the original owner did not have it route this way anymore:




So some improvisation had to be done. Instead of this, the hose wraps behind the main intake air hose there and attaches to the back of the air cleaner with a little plastic elbow. No more faint smell of exhaust!

5) The taillights have been quite the PITA. Basically I was down to one working brake light on the left and one working turn signal on the right. Some new socket assemblies later and I had two turn signals but no brake lights. Some new fuses and apparently some bad wiring later and I had everything, but now since replacing a reverse light bulb that was missing, now my reverse lights are out again. Wtf? I'm letting this go for now since those aren't quite as critical as brake lights and turn signals but dammit, they worked! Wtf?

6) I ordered a new OEM replacement shift **** from teamcherokee.com. Hopefully it's a better replacement than the $10 AutoZone POS that keeps getting loose as I use it.

7) New brakes on all four wheels. And when I say new, I mean every single thing is new as every single thing was worn the hell out. So we're talking new rotors and pads in front and new cylinders, drums and shoes in the rear. It stops much better now!

The suspension was checked during all this and it's old, but fine and the shocks aren't leaking. Also nothing obvious is wrong with the steering even though it has a tendency to wander a bit. Maybe I just need to get used to that. But overall I figure I can start light wheeling now with what I have, once the weather cools down of course (no air conditioning!). I figure I can pound the shocks I have until they're blown and then get something like Old Man Emu that's higher up anyway. Might as well get full use out of the parts I have until I get some more $!

Also just for kicks I actually ran the Jeep through the car wash yesterday. It looked good without gunked up dirt on all the windows and all the flaking clear coat trimmed back and scraped off. Nice, lol. Maybe I'll post new pics.

CA90XJ

Recent pics! Plus a shot of the new, rigged-up battery hold-down I got. I used the existing two threaded rod things, some washers from Home Depot that fit, and a plastic hold-down bracket in two pieces that I got from Pep Boys. The results:



Also here is the CCW fresh air hose in its new routing:





Overview of the whole engine bay, as of today:





And I took some pics just because it was looking extra snazzy for an almost-23-year-old Jeep, especially after its carwash trip yesterday:







This thing is finally ready, I think with one or two minor tweaks (like a spare tire) to take out to the desert and camping this fall! I can't wait! This must be the high Jeep owners get that keeps them coming back for more, eh?

Brandon77

Oh yeah it's a High! lol

CA90XJ

Recent addition of stickers:



Under the passenger sun visor:



I'm planning to go on my first desert romp with ck1 and a bunch of other forum posters so we'll see how she does!

Batman33165

Looks great, definitely a great way to prolong the life of the jeep by doing all these things before doing anything big