I've been nervous about writing about my jeep for a while, had a thread posted on a friend's site as I worked on it and I've gotten it running and am on the last stages of getting it back on the road again.

a bit of background.

When I was a young teen I learned to drive on an 89 XJ with a manual transmission, I've never forgotten the experience and it colored my feelings about vehicles going forward.

jump forward a few years and a dead accord later after the engine went as at the time I was inexperienced and unable to repair it/get the $$$ to have it repaired and just before my 27th birthday I found the vehicle I originally wanted for my first car.

a jeep cherokee, and not just any jeep cherokee, an XJ, this one a bit newer than the one I learned on and in a beautiful silver color for 2 grand, it had an automatic transmission but that wasn't a deal breaker and I'd been looking for 4 months for a new vehicle and something told me to act on it.

the jeep and I were inseparable, that summer on the weekends I traveled across the continental divide heading west, to the space museum in Kansas heading east, to the sand dunes and desert regions to the south and even to the dense forests up north.

finally one fateful november evening in 2019 after a really bad snow storm a 50 ft sheet of black ice would do it's due and despite my best efforts the jeep and I crashed into a concrete filled bollard and Sleipnir and I would be towed home.



I didn't give up though, despite protests from family and an unwanted night shift schedule making time difficult I'd begun researching, planning, and finally after the thaw in march I began the tear down process to bring my jeep back from it's grave.



this was all new to me however. I'd had experience resurrecting old computers and appliances as a hobby but automobiles were something completely different.

The radiator, the transmission cooler, and the AC condenser were a complete loss, the fans trashed, and as I dug deeper I found the water pump pulley and harmonic balancer were cracked as well, still didn't give up.

so I found this forum and a few others, began reading posts and how-to's watching videos and acquiring the tools and parts as my paycheck and schedule allowed.

the pandemic struck in april and I could work from home which helped a lot.

finally in may the weather had gotten nice and I began my work replacing components, draining fluids and flushing out the system, and getting everything in good enough shape where I felt confident seeing if it would at least turn over and run.




By this point I was about $750 in including tools and parts, and after getting coolant into the radiator and checking the oil levels to my delight the jeep started up like nothing was ever wrong, the oil didn't leak and I'd begun doing the rest of the repairs, due to schedule issues and life doing it's thing It took a bit longer than I wanted to get things where I could take it up and have a mechanic look it over.

I decided to replace the mechanical fan with an electric one via the electric fan mod and a relay setup which worked exactly as I'd planned leaning on my experience restoring and modifying electronics to get everything together.



note the above was taken during a test fit and I'd re-position the transmission cooler to sit straight later.

I had to remove the AC condenser as it prevented the grille from mounting in front of the transmission cooler and radiator due to it's damaged state, surprisingly there was still coolant in it which leaked out when I removed it.

and this brings me up to where I'm at now.

a mechanic explained to me that there was a crack in the timing cover I'd missed which was causing an oil pressure loss, I've got the part and I've been doing research and planning to replace it on my next day off but according to him there was nothing obvious about the jeep other than the timing cover leaking oil profusely.

said mechanic also didn't charge me to find this out and the reason I'd brought it to him seemed to resolve it's self on the way over and he couldn't get it to repeat (a sticky valve lifter) but said he'd flush the engine properly to treat it after I get the timing cover replaced.

here's the jeep as it is right now.



as you can see I was able to recover the grille, the lights, and the mounting hardware fit just fine despite the crossmember being bent pretty badly as well as the front frame rails which through some miracle only bent in at the very end and didn't affect the handling or how anything fit together other than the bumper, with the radiator fitting without issue and the bumper needing some mounting holes drilled to attach to their new position.

the handling being unaffected was a boon given the effort and research I'd put into it over 11 months and I had no issues driving it up to the mechanic other than concerns over that sticky valve lifter.

total repairs are at around $1200 now but considering my initial estimates were $5000+ with a good possibility of engine replacement I'm in good spirits.

going forward and after I get it through emissions I plan to have the frame straightened and fix some minor stuff that I had no knowledge of how to fix before the accident.

after that I've got some fun ideas for modifications to make which I'll happily post here as I do them.

hopefully people don't get too much anxiety from the pictures of the wreck, but things have improved vastly since.

I've become adamant that jeeps are one of the best vehicles to ever work on for a beginner, easy to maintain, most parts easy to get to and swap, and instructions incredibly easy to follow if you take things one at a time, and this whole thing has been a huge learning experience in auto repair, a class I missed out on in high school but always wanted to take.

 

This is awesome, I love seeing a “totaled” XJ brought back to life! There’s a Facebook group called “XJ Preservation Society,” they would love to see this

 

I removed the timing cover today, after removing several pulleys to get at it I managed to get it off and can see how badly it was cracked in the accident.






the timing cover was pretty badly damaged but tomorrow I'm heading down to northglen to get the bottom gasket and a timing chain guide.



hopefully everything will run normally after I give everything a once over, the timing chain didn't have much play which is expected and the gears looked ok, nothing interfering with the timing chain it's self though I will likely need to replace them in the future.

I'll update as to how the jeep is running after I get everything re-assembled and make sure there's no leaks from the new cover and gaskets.

honestly, so far I've only spent $120 on replacing the cover which brings the repair total up to about $1400 including tools and fluids and such.

not bad with the rest of the engine running normally!

 

Got the gaskets and timing cover installed today.

not nearly as difficult as I expected and seeing shiny new metal on the engine is a cool feeling.



the harmonic balancer went on without a hitch as well.



and finally the radiators and everything else was put in place right when it was getting dark.



I need to work the next 4 days but come sunday I'm double checking everything, adjusting the serpentine belt as needed and making sure there's no leaks or anything to worry about.

then monday it's off to the emissions place followed by the DMV to get the license plate renewed.

 

Great job saving it from the crusher!

 

So the jeep is street legal and everything is running decently.

the transmission is slipping a little but that's to be expected and it was a problem before the accident.

also the power steering pump has a leak in one of the hoses but again that may be just because it's a 20 year old hose.



Drove it up flagstaff as a test and was able to narrow down the various little remaining problems but nothing too serious yet.

also took a picture of the interior



the airbags went in the accident so I'm looking into replacing those.

and the steering wheel could use some adjustment but otherwise it's the same as before the wreck.

the interior is essentially stock though.

need a better place to stick the GPS, and I'm trying to decide if I should modify the glove box a bit skinnier to fit the cassette tape player I have planned to fit in here or if I should move the bottom switch panel elsewhere and fit it there.

the Radio came with it.

and the ever classic hula girl is actually a solar powered thing which moves even when the jeep is parked, given to me by my grandfather.

here's the cassette player for those curious.

It is a realistic 12-1982 Underdash cassette player.

it plays type 1, type 2, and metal cassette tapes supports asms and dolby NR.

it's also got a built in pre-amp.

only problem is it's stereo so I need a fader **** after the selector switch for the jeeps front/rear pairs of speakers.

I've already gotten it cleaned up and working via a DC power supply on my electronics test bench so I know it works too.

and one unusual feature, it has headphone output on the front.

I've thought about using an AUX cable to connect the headphone out on the cassette player to the aux in on the radio but it would look a lot nicer if it was all not visible.

 

So update about a year or so in.

It's been my daily driver all through the past year, when I need to run errands or just go geocaching on my days off (I work from home right now)

did end up replacing the power steering pump lines, both of them.

did an oil change shortly after I got it fixed the last time, going to do one in april once the snow melts a bit since it's real easy to do (not sure why more people don't?)

Had the jeep refuse to start several times this past week.

replaced the starter, battery, and battery cables because they'd all gone out at the same time. first the starter, then the battery, then it refused to start again so I replaced the old original battery cables because they were starting to look a bit like the underside of an old boat and cleaning them with the special wire brush battery terminal and connector cleaning tool wasn't fixing it no matter how shiny I got em.

starter wasn't too difficult, had to get a set of flex adapters to reach that 15mm bolt though which was long overdue for my toolkit.

also wanted to thank the advice I read on here regarding which battery cable connectors to get. I ended up getting the brass marine terminal style ones and ended up doing a fresh wiring job with the wire lugs and terminals using a crimper/stripper/cutter in the auto parts store parking lot while it was snowing!

will update with pictures tomorrow because I really like the modularity and look of them!

also, for anyone looking because I'm an idiot and lost mine a while back when I did the radiator replacement and finally remembered to get them, the front header panel headlight nuts which mount to the fenders are 6mm or m6 flange nuts, use a 10mm socket to put them on, measured with a special sizing tool I picked up to verify before heading to McGuckins to get them (always seem to have the little bits I need there...)

Looking at doing a headlight harness next, found some old guides, probably going to use 12ga wire for the power conduits and I think 30 or 40 amp relays?