1995 Jeep Cherokee Refresh

Round #1 of fixing the death wobble was to replace the steering stabilizer and the sway bar end links. I was going to replace the bushings in the track bar as well based on many, many recommendations. However, they need to be pressed out and that's a pain and a new bar complete with bushings is $20. So I am just replacing the whole bar, just waiting for it to arrive.

When I touched the fender liner, this happened:

The liner disintegrated in my hand.

Lucky for me, new ones are like $3 so I popped on in.

The next step is getting the thing to go into 4WD low, and getting the windshield wipers to work at more than a snail's pace. I read online about the circuit board going bad, but I don't have the common fault and new ones are impossible to find. Perhaps off to the junkyard again!

Time for another update. I grabbed a new circuitboard from a junkyard and that fixed the front wipers. Well, they work better, but they are not exactly autobahn-ready. I greased up the linkages and I think they are working up to OEM spec, but they are clearly designed for slow trails. While working on the fronts, the back stopped working. I pulled the motor mechanism, and found the tiniest little nick on the gears on this thing:

It was enough to stop the wiper from working, and buffing it out solved the problem. Except that the motor was pretty old and the circuits were rusty and new ones were cheap...so I just swapped in a new unit. I could have rebuilt the old, but I do have a life. Both wipers working now!

The next project was to stop all the oil leaking onto the street. It was basically coming from everywhere and nowhere, so I decided to start at the top and replace the valve cover gasket. No pictures of the actual work work because it went so fast, so here is my daughter taking the Jeep to the first day of school as a Senior in High School.

 Note the new, not-dry rotted tires. Mom is happier about that.

This may have slowed some leaks, and was good insurance no matter what, but it didn't actually stop the leaks that were getting to the street. So I worked my way down, and found that the distributor had a seal that was probably past due for a replacement. So I dropped in a new O-ring there as well.

Not my photo, but here you can see all the things that were leaking. The seal on the oil filter, the seal on the 90-degree adapter that connects to the block, the oil-pressure sending unit, and the distributor. All have been addressed and are no longer leaking, but oil is still making puddles on the street.

After some digging with a flashlight, I discovered that the oil I was seeing was actually power steering fluid. I decided to do a rebuild, and pulled the power steering pump. Pretty easy as I already replaced the lines earlier in the build. Then the question became, how do you get the pulley off?

I saw the hex machined into the shaft and being late a night, decided that this unscrewed the pulley in some way. I had a bit that fit, so I went that route. No amount of force, lubrication, swearing, bashing or heating caused the pulled to unscrew.

This is the point where you say "use a pulley removal tool!" and I say "a what?". Yeah, learned that pulleys in cars are often press-fit into place, and you need a special tool to install or remove them. I learned this when I went to the parts store and bought a new pump hoping that it would have a pulley already installed. They told me all about the tool, and I cursed myself for not Googling the procedure. Oh well, now I have a new pulley, new pump and a new tool!

not my photos, I was too busy cursing my stupidity.

Right now, you are probably asking "what about the oil pan?" And you'd be right, the oil pan was rusted enough to be porous, and the drain plug was buggered and leaking. Thing is, I replaced that a while back and forgot to post it. So here is the recap. I Googled the procedure (so yeah, why I skipped that step in the power steering pump is a mystery) and discovered that you could wiggle out the old pan without removing the rusty exhaust.

Not too bad for the mileage, looks like it will make it to 300,000 with no problems. I then wiggled the new one into place.

Yes, somehow it fit up into there. The procedure isn't too hard, but it takes a lot of time on your back in the grease and dirt. The pan is secured by 138 bolts in 27 different sizes, so bring a lot of sockets and extensions. Oh, and you might get dirty. 

The thing is, Jeeps of this age also leak from the rear main seal. Which is kinda difficult to replace, mostly because you have to drop the oil pan. Guess what I did no know then, but do know now? Yeah, I am pretty pissed about that as well. So I will probably get in there and drop the pan ONE MORE F-ING TIME and do the rear seal.

Wow, my thread got moved to Classic Motorsports and erased from the search results. Thanks Google for helping me find it again!

Know what that is? It's a freeze plug with a hole rusted in it. It is located beneath the intake and exhaust on the Jeep 4.0. Dang.

Not much you can do, pull everything.

Good time to replace that cracked exhaust too. 

Drive to two Napa stores because freeze plugs are a dinosaur apparently. 

Shiny. 

Am I the only one that can't see the pics?

Can't see them either

I just started reading this thread tonight, and notice that the problems seem to keep coming and the descriptions get more and more terse, sort of amplified by the missing pictures.

This may break the last of my perverse desire to own one of these things.

While looking for this thread to add a link I realized that I haven't posted in a while.  I have been remiss in chronicling the Jeep because I haven't worked on it in a while.  

I did pull the pan again and replace the rear main seal.  It was an easier job than I thought, though it had little effect on the oil leak.  It's good maintenance so I'm not worried about it, but I still have a leak from somewhere.  Grrr. maybe old Jeeps are like old Harley's and just leak some oil no matter what? Could be the front crank seal and that looks like a real PITA, so I may just let her keep adding oil.  I did replace the heater valve thingy, it was leaking some coolant and was plastic so no big deal there.  

I also found a set of new snow tires mounted to wheels when I was at the U-Pull-It yard. For $300 I got to run real snow tires last winter, extending the life of her all-seasons a bit.  Nice score. 

I took some time to paint the wheels to make them look more presentable, and put a new coat of paint on her stock steelies so they look nice too.  I found the missing rub strips for this side of the Jeep and replaced those.  

The most recent issue is the headliner is sagging.  I have a temporary fix, but will probably pull it into the garage and do it right at some point. The Jeep is off at college, parked on city streets, so let them worry about the oil spills for a while until I can get around to dealing with it.  

OK, so I tackled the headliner.  Step 1, remove a billion pieces of interior trim and drop the headliner. 

Step 2, scrape all old crap from headliner 

Step 3, use spray glue to attach $10 worth of felt from Wal Mart.  Do not bother matching the interior color. 

Step 4, reinsert and re-attach all the trim. Don't forget to cover the rear speaker bar too. 

Ransom said:

I just started reading this thread tonight, and notice that the problems seem to keep coming and the descriptions get more and more terse, sort of amplified by the missing pictures.

This may break the last of my perverse desire to own one of these things.

Do not despair, Freeze plugs usually don't rot on motors with a cared for cooling system.

Check the PH of your coolant...

Or just change it every few years....

In reply to bentwrench :

Thanks, I did replace it, it was B-A-D.  I also tried to fix the missing pictures, hosting with Google Photos is apparently hit or miss.  

Another update, no actual photos because repairs were done in the dark, in the rain, on the roadside, with lots of swearing.  Anyway, the blower on the Jeeps HVAC stopped working.  That means no heat or defrost for winter, and that won't do.  So I googled the issue and came up with 4 possible culprits. The resister was easy to swap out, but no bueno.  The switch itself on the dash was a bitch to get at, but again, no change.  The blower motor was easy to swap, and that was the ticket.  Or maybe all three were bad, who knows, but it works now. The switch (left in the pic, with the blue wire) melts on 9 out of 10 Cherokees.  That's fun! 

The fourth part was a relay that doesn't exist on the 1995 model. I bought it because Rock Auto suggested it.  1996 had it, 1997 had it, but for some reason the 1995 model is an outlier is several ways.  Odd.

The day after getting heat, the Daughter cannot get her key out of the ignition.  Apparently, removing the dash has broken the park interlock mechanism.  So that got ordered and will be the next PITA repair.   

Back again, and what fun it is to have an old Jeep sometimes.  The shifter interlock required removing some of the dash and center console, and was quite fiddly to get right.  Seems to be working now, and I took the liberty to replace all of the burnt-out bulbs that I found.  She had no lights on her gear select, 4WD select, HVAC or foglights, so that was a nice upgrade. 

The power windows and door locks stopped working suddenly.  They were intermittent for a day or two, then went out completely.  So I checked all around, and discovered that the fuse and circuit breaker were missing.  Not blown...gone.  Is someone pranking me at this point?  Grrrrr.  

Let her warm up in the driveway to check it all out and noticed a lot of coolant on the ground.  OK, whats up with that?  She reports nasty noises from under the hood, so I check to find a shredded serpentine belt.  Parts had wrapped around the fan, but half was still on and working. Weird.  But a belt is an easy swap. 

Daugher calls in tears, the steering went out and she "almost died by crashing into another car". Turns out she lost power steering, still had regular steering. Kids these days, am I right?  (When I was your age, I had a manual choke, a 4-speed and high beams were on the floor grumble grumble.) 

Put the belt on tighter this time, but no bueno.  The pulley on the water pump is wobbling and throwing the belt.  Why?  The waterpump is toast.  They only last 131,000 miles?!?!?  Jeez, poor quality Chrysler/Jeep/Renault! (lol) So I swap that out, the new one is too thick and I have to shim the pulley (also Grrrrrr).  I also put on new rad hoses and flush the coolant for good measure. Good to go! 

Nope.  I gently rubbed a fuel line, and it popped off.  OK, replace that too.  Good to go! 

Nope. The heater control valve is leaking.  The one that I paid extra to get the "good one" last year is leaking, the cause of the original leak we noticed BTW.  OK, that's on order.  But its a small leak, I will take it to work and see if everything else is OK. 

Nope. The other fuel line is leaking. DOPE!  OK, both will be swapped out tonight, and if anything else breaks, she's driving the Kia this winter!