OK, I admit I let my 4X4 fever cloud my better judgment. I didn't perform due diligence before pulling the trigger on this purchase. Maybe I got suckered.

I crawled under my new purchase last night (2001 Cherokee Sport, 59,000 miles) and discovered way more rust than I wanted. I found dangerously rusty fuel lines around the return canister in the back, rusty brake lines, rusty calipers, rusty rear drive shaft and rusty leaf springs. Aside from the rust, this Jeep is really nice. Is there any remedy for this or should I just unload it and take the loss now rather than later. I can do some of the work myself if it's WORTH doing.

 

Sand blast it, paint it, sell it.

 

If you load some pics of the " bad " areas then we could help alot more.

Brandon

 

x2^

 

Clean it up and drive it...

I just bought a 97 Country with 98k and did the same thing you did. When I got it home I started poking around more and was pretty upset with all the rust (no body rot though). I just started cleaning it all up, breaking loose anything that was flaking, blasting it, and painting it. My return fuel vapor line is pretty much non-existent, so I ripped it out and put a new one in. I didn't pay much for it, so I'm just fixing what needs to be done so it lasts and am going to drive it into the ground.

I thought about dumping it, but I didn't see the logic in cleaning it up to sell it... Might as well clean it up to make it last then keep it.

 

I live in Minnesota, all of our cars are like that. You'll be fine. Clean up what you don't like, and drive it anyway you want to go.

 

I'm allergic to rust.

 

im curious to see this "rust". odds are, its probably not that bad compared to what we have to deal with up here.

 

I agree. Whats rusty to some may not be to others. As long as there's no major rust in structurally important areas, I'd keep it.

 

Check out stuff called Ospho. Here's the link http://ospho.com/index.htm

It converts any surface rust and its pretty cheap. I've used it and it works well.

 

Rust? You live in Houston?(Texas,I presume?) Come up to New York and look under the vehicles up here. JUNK! It's very common to replace rusted lines on a vehicle only five years old up here.

 

Is there a kit with all the steel brake and fuel lines I can buy as a unit or will I have to cut, bend and flare them myself. I'm tending toward replacing them all, along with the rubber parts on the fuel return canister (is that the correct term)?

 

your jeep is rusty because it's been sitting. with only 59k miles, they never drove the damn thing.

i bought a 93 xj with 150k kms (about 90k miles) and same thing, rust, but some body rot. it's never been driven much).

i say fix the lines, check the floor everywhere and above the cat for rot.
if there's none, replace the lines and build it up, sounds like you found a nice low mile jeep.

 

I may be wrong, but from what your describing, it's just surface rust. The kind that you see on the brake rotors when you haven't driven for a couple of days. No big deal.

 

How important are the rear axle bump stops?

Pictures of my rust mostly in the rear.



From what I've read, it's probably not beyond fixing, eh?