new member - $1250 jeep "winter project"

Hi, new member here.  Been lurking for a while and figured I'd join and start a thread for my "winter" project.  I'm calling this a winter project because it's currently winter up here in Canada and I don't have a shop or even a paved driveway to work on.  When I feel like wrenching on my junk I'll probably be shovelling snow and waiting for days somew here close to freezing.  If you happen to live in a warmer climate or at least have the luxury of a paved driveway, you're probably horrified.  For the rest of you with a similiar situation as mine, you know my pain.   I'm not a computer wizard, but hopefully the imagine I tried to upload will work.

This thread will probably be boring for most, but I know there's a couple people on here with a soft spot for this era jeep so please chime in if you feel like it.  I have no plans to turn this into a crazy offroader.  I'm simply going to slowly fix this thing up and restore it to a bit of it's mid 90's glory.  Anyone with an attachment to a 25 year old 4x4 knows that it's basically just a shell to hang parts off when they wear out.  Jeep parts happen to be really cheap and easy to come across.  I know most of the quirks of these vehicles and best of all the thing is already sitting in my driveway, paid for.  Oh, and my significant other hasn't asked me about "the white jeep" for quite a while.

So I bought this 1996 Jeep ZJ (grand cherokee) around 3 years ago to drive a bit in the winter.  For some reason I've always had an affinity for these older chrysler 4wd station wagons and after owning 3 jeep XJ's over the years, I found myself without a Jeep in my driveway and I couldn't resist picking this up to fill some kind of void.  I bought it from the second owner for $1250 (canadian bucks) who owned it for a few months before a track bar bushing went poop and he decided this Jeep thing wasn't for him.  The original owner, whom he had bought it from, was a certified Chrysler mechanic working at a large dealership and I got a stack of his paperwork and records when I bought it.  There was no rust (quite rare for this part of Canada) and I've kept it that way by emptying a can of Rust-Check into every nook and cranny every few months.  The thing is literally dripping with undercoating oil.  environmentalists are probably frothing at the mouth, but there's still zero rust so I consider it a success.

After picking it up I spent a couple hundred bucks on a new track bar, replaced some tie rod ends since I was in there and gave it a basic tune up.  After that I just drove it for a while without any drama and eventually treated it to a new set of 30x9.50 BFG all terrains.  Eventually the rad went, so I replaced that and kept driving it a bit here and there.  It still ran great and I had around $2800 (canadian, remember) with brand new tires, lots of new parts in the front end, a new rad etc.

This is where it went from "winter beater" to "winter project"

It sat for something like a year until I decided I was going to turn it into a project.  By this point it was looking a little neglected, the alternator was toast, front brakes were reaching the end of their service life and the once pristine interior now had a saggy headliner.  I crawled underneath and noticed that the muffler was pretty rotten and would need to be replaced as well.

This is getting close to where we now sit.  I replaced the alternator and front brakes a few weeks ago, bled the brake system, drained both diffs and gave it an oil change.  Fired it up for the first time in a year to notice a HUGE oil leak just dumping oil out of the oil filter adapter.  Sigh, more problems.  I replace the oil filter adapter gasket ($6) and had the exact same problem.  After some investigation I determined the oil pump pressure relief valve is stuck closed causing dangerously high oil pressure and as a result, it's blown out the filter adapter gasket over and over.

Now I've got a new oil pump on order and since I've got the pan dropped, I ordered a new rear main seal as well.  Might as well pull the main bearing caps and make sure everything is up to snuff, too.  After that, it will be time to replace the muffler - a cheap cat back with straight through muffler will do, whatever is cheap online, then I'll just keep driving it and fixing it when things break.   

Welcome. You're with your people now. And I know how much it sucks to work in a very wet, cold gravel driveway. Having flashbacks now. 

Would one of those temporary tent shelter things for cars not be of benefit? For $300 Cnd bucks it seems legit to keep snow and wind at bay.

I did the temporary shelter thing and built a platform out of spare wood, railroad ties, and some pressure treated plywood. Held up well to several years of New England winters without a hitch, and attaching the frame to the platform made it less likely to all fly away.  The platform was also a huge upgrade over our gravel driveway! Being able to use a creeper was a big improvement, and the shelter did a good job of keeping out the rain/wind.

Looking forward to seeing you work on this project!

Watching this one.  Which engine do you have in it?

Rats.  You have reminded me of our '95 Laredo.  Didn't realize until we lost it how much I liked that thing.

Still got some parts, left, too.  I'll check inventory and post a list later in case it's anything you are interested in.

Thanks for the welcome everyone, this seems like a great community.  I really like the variety I see in peoples projects, there's a bit of everything here.

Regarding the temporary shelter, it's a really good idea, and of course makes perfectly good sense but this kind of suffering is nothing new, I've been doing it this way for the last 16 years.  We're actually in the middle of building a house for ourselves, I've done everything myself so far (framing, plumbing, electrical, finishing etc) and it's turned out to be quite the little project.  The end is actually in sight now and I got the approval to build a proper shop this summer, so I'm pretty thrilled.  Until then I think I'm going to be crawling around in the gravel for a while though.

HundredDollarCar said:

Watching this one.  Which engine do you have in it?

It's got the 318/5.2 - my first choice would have been to find one with a 4.0 since I've had that engine in my previous jeeps and just love it; easy to work on, dead reliable (except the 0331 head issue in 2000/2001) and they're actually pretty good on gas, however the 5.2 is fairly robust as well and when I was actually driving this thing regularely I really came to like putting my foot into it, it's pretty quick.  The 318 offers some pretty decent aftermarket support and one day down the road I wouldn't mind sticking a bit hotter cam in there when I have reason to get into the engine a bit more.  Of course, with the 318 also comes the NV249 t-case and D44a rear axle, both which are considered a bit of a weak link, however the axle was rebuilt within the last 35k and the 249 is (or at least was, when I was last driving it) behaving as it should with no binding from the viscous coupler so it's all good for now.  I'm on the lookout for an NP242 gear box to swap in though.

DarkMonohue said:

Rats.  You have reminded me of our '95 Laredo.  Didn't realize until we lost it how much I liked that thing.

Still got some parts, left, too.  I'll check inventory and post a list later in case it's anything you are interested in.

Thanks, please do let me know what you come across!  What engine and drivetrain package was in your 95?

Welcome to the mad house.

Nice to see another Jeep build on here. 

Jeeps of the past, just because:

I had this 1990 XJ for a quite a few years, I bought it as my first 4x4 when I was 19 (I'm 35 now) and I rebuilt or replaced just about everything on it.  The renix era jeeps weren't so hot, but it was fun.  10 years ago I sold it to a guy not far from me and he kept driving it until an unkown electrical gremlin finally forced him to park it a year or two ago.  I ran into him a few months ago and he offered for me to tow it out of his yard for free.  FREE!  At the time I had too many other projects on the go and not enough space so I told him I would think on it.  I'm hoping that in the spring he's still game because this would make a perfect donor to pull the NP242 gearbox I'm looking for.  I think it would be pretty cool if I could pull a couple parts off it to stick in my current project, lots of nostalgia for sure.

Next in my jeep owership came this 1998 XJ.  Loved this one although I didn't have it for long.  Driving home one night (sober as a stick, I must add) I fell asleep doing 110km/hr and drove it off a 50' embankment.  Big air bomb scare, that's for sure.  I was pretty lucky to walk away from this with a minor concussion and a few bruises from the seatbelt.  This was actually a really quick jeep, the 4.0 in it had some real gumption compared to others I've owned (I still can't figure out why it hauled ass compared to other 4.0's I've owned).  Obviously, it was toast and there wasn't much I could pull off it.

And my last XJ, a 2000.  The underside was slowly rotting out but otherwise it was dead reliable until the 0331 head blew up on me one day.  This one was a 5spd (NV3550 transmission) and was fun to drive offroad but that was about it - jeep stuck some really terrible gearing in the axles and it was pretty slow and boring on the highway.  I put alot of offroad mileage on it with zero problems.  I used to do alot of mountain biking and build bike trails, hence the brush saw leaning against it.  

All these jeeps got small lifts (ZJ coils and a spacer in the front/bastard pack with whatever donor leafs in the back) and were pretty good offroad with small tires.  I do ALOT of backroads exploring and they make a pretty great base for that, the ZJ will as well.  The grey one required me to do a hack-n-tap slip yoke eliminator and monkey around with the driveline angles a bit, but that's about all.

Your last XJ looks a lot like my XJ did when I started. 

clunk said:

Thanks, please do let me know what you come across!  What engine and drivetrain package was in your 95?

Ours was the 5.2 Magnum with 46RH and NV249, same as yours, although ours had a D35 out back rather than your D44A.  My folks bought it brand new and it was never abused, so the VC in the 249 was still perfect, and the thing was just magic in snow.  I regret not keeping the 46RH as it would have made a good swap for the 727 in my J20 with a little judicious cutting and TIG welding.  That was one of the few automatics I've driven that really felt like it worked just right.  The whole drivetrain was great, actually, other than some oil consumption (suspected vacuum leak at the intake valley pan), a leaky rear main.  And wiggling the distributor cap in and out at tune-up time required more profanity than I like to use in the driveway.  Other than that, really a nice powertrain for the kind of driving we did.

On the parts - let me consult my various poorly-kept records and see what's still kicking around.

Computer says I may still have a single-DIN radio bracket and trim panel set, which I de-textured and refinished for a more factory appearance, and an aftermarket radio wiring adapter set:

A full set of Husky Liner floor liners in grey:

And a full set of factory carpet floor mats, also in grey:

Uh, what else...right.  One passenger-side glass Euro-market H4 headlamp (one of the best changes we made to the ZJ):

I believe I still have a retractable cargo cover:

And finally, the pièce de torsional résistance, an Addco rear sway bar (no. 688, 7/8" dia.) with greasable poly bushings and poly-bushed end links in stock and +3" lengths:

Let me know if any of this interest you.  I'm close to Eugene, Oregon - not sure how far into Canada you are or how practical shipping would be, but we can talk about it.

I just want to say how good it feels to be part of a community that uses the phrase "pièce de torsional résistance."  Also (to use other words that seldom go together), welcome, Clunk.

DarkMonohue said:

clunk said:

Thanks, please do let me know what you come across!  What engine and drivetrain package was in your 95?

Ours was the 5.2 Magnum with 46RH and NV249, same as yours, although ours had a D35 out back rather than your D44A.  My folks bought it brand new and it was never abused, so the VC in the 249 was still perfect, and the thing was just magic in snow.  I regret not keeping the 46RH as it would have made a good swap for the 727 in my J20 with a little judicious cutting and TIG welding.  That was one of the few automatics I've driven that really felt like it worked just right.  The whole drivetrain was great, actually, other than some oil consumption (suspected vacuum leak at the intake valley pan), a leaky rear main.  And wiggling the distributor cap in and out at tune-up time required more profanity than I like to use in the driveway.  Other than that, really a nice powertrain for the kind of driving we did.

On the parts - let me consult my various poorly-kept records and see what's still kicking around.

A full set of Husky Liner floor liners in grey:

 

Let me know if any of this interest you.  I'm close to Eugene, Oregon - not sure how far into Canada you are or how practical shipping would be, but we can talk about it.

I'd be interested in the husky floor liners (the rear swaybar would be cool, too, but i think the shipping would make it a no-go).  I'm about 3hrs north of Spokane, in the middle of nowhere.  I have no idea if shipping would make it impractical, maybe we can revisit the idea in the new year when I've got some time to look into what it would cost to get them up here?

Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:

Your last XJ looks a lot like my XJ did when I started. 

 

That's a very nice XJ, that's when you started?  Where's it sitting these days?

Not much progress.  I had to drop the y-pipe to get space to pull the oil pan out, spent a couple of hours cursing the y-pipe to manifold bolts yesterday.  first 3 came out easily, last one not so much.  Of course this is the one that I can't possibly get a dremel in to cut it out.  There's supposed to be a welded nut on top but of course, it's either broken free or been replaced at some point.  Nearly impossible to get a wrench on it without pulling my wrist and a couple of fingers out of their sockets to get at it.  So I threw in the towel and drove around on my tractor for a while to make it all better.  Will re-attempt in the next few days.

I'm picking up an NP242 for $100 later this week, I'm pleased because the local wreckers wanted $300-500 (crazy!) and I had a couple guys reply to my wanted ad on craigslist but they all wanted around $300 as well (also crazy).

Otherwise, I checked my service records and found that the previous owner had replaced the oil pump with a Mopar unit around 25k ago, so I think I'll just return the Melling M72 pump I was planning to swap in  and rebuild this one if clearances look good.  All that's wrong is a stuck pressure relief valve so it makes more sense to clean and rebuild this near-new one than spend the money on another pump.  Also was pleased to find that the records show they used a Mopar re-usable oil pan gasket..if it's in good shape when I get it off I'll just clean it up and re-use it, no sense spending more money on stuff I don't need to.  Free is good!

clunk said:

I'd be interested in the husky floor liners (the rear swaybar would be cool, too, but i think the shipping would make it a no-go).  I'm about 3hrs north of Spokane, in the middle of nowhere.  I have no idea if shipping would make it impractical, maybe we can revisit the idea in the new year when I've got some time to look into what it would cost to get them up here?

No problem at all.  They're not likely to go anywhere.  Or you can shoot me a PM with your postcode and I can rough out costs through USPS (assuming that's still the best option for US-Canada shipping). 

Hmm, well things didn’t quite go as expected.  Pulled the oil pan and oil pump a few days ago expecting to find a bunged up pressure relief valve in the pump but aside from a bit of gunk on the pickup screen, everything inside the pump was tight and within spec, no problems with the relief valve.

so I guess I’ll do a leak down test (which I should have done before I pulled the pan and pump) to see what’s going on.  Prior to sitting for a while and developing the oil puking problem, it was running fine - it never smoked from the tailpipe and oil consumption was pretty minimal.  I’m pontificating here, and this is a long shot at a guess, but I might have a stuck ring or two from sitting for a year causing high crankcase pressure which keeps blowing out the seals.  The leak down test will reveal all.

anyone with more experience than me care to offer any advice or opinions on doing a leak down test on a cold engine that’s been sitting for a long while?  Ive run it a couple of times for a few minutes at a time here and there over the last year.  Ive read that results from a cold engine shouldn’t be trusted.  I’d actually rather do the leakdown test without even sealing the oil pan back up or putting the oil pump back in.  Bad idea?  My only reasoning here is that if I have to re-ring the pistons, I’d probably attempt to do it without pulling the engine so with the oil pan already off, I’ve saved some time and effort - as long as the cylinders are within spec I would just give them a quick hone, push the piston out the top, re-ring and re-install.  What I should probably do is pull and rebuild the 318 since it’s up there in mileage but I’m really just trying to get this going for an occasional driver than might see under 5k on the odometer every year.

I've always heard you should do the leakdown on a warm engine, but I don't have enough experience to tell you you shouldn't do it on a cold engine. I'd bet the results would be below spec with it cold, but if only one cylinder has stuck rings it should stand out from the others (I guess?) Comparative testing instead of absolute value testing, if you get my meaning. 

For your reference in future issues, here's a link to my build thread on the 5.2 ZJ I had. TLDR is I did a LOT of work and then sold it because I was no closer to having the reliable, all purpose vehicle I wanted. Not really the Jeep's fault. If I'd been in a better place financially I'd have kept it as a trail truck.

Been a while since I updated this, things have escalated rather quickly.  

I hummed and hawed for a while about where I wanted to take this project - I pulled the main bearing caps and checked a couple of rod bearings as well with plastigage, they all fell within spec and the crankshaft actually looked "fairly" good, however I got a little peek at the cam while I was under there and it wasn't looking so hot; a fair bit of pitting and wear on the lobes.  Probably pretty normal for a 200k mile engine but something just "had" to be done.

So, what to do what to do.  Option one was to pull the intake and heads and slide a new cam and lifters in there, replace the timing chain, water pump and do a little refresh then button it up and call it good BUT you all know how it goes, once you get in there things usually get out of hand.  As the saying goes, if you're going somewhere you might as well get there.  

So here we are with option two; full rebuild with some performance goodies, hoorah for more HP and torque out of the 318.  This will be my first engine rebuild; pretty happy to have the chance to dig into it.  My wife (bless her heart) okayed the use of a corner of the unfinished basement to do the rebuild with the stipulation that it doesn't take forever and I don't make a freaking mess.  Couple challenges I still need to figure out is how to get the damn block into the basement since I've got an icy gravel driveway leading up to the walkout and also how I'll get it done without making a freaking mess or without taking forever.  More on that to come in the next few weeks.

Since I'm working outside, I wanted to pull as much off the engine as I could while still being able to close to hood at the end of the day.  We've had pretty mild weather and barely any snow this winter but the last thing I wanted was to have the engine on a stand in the middle of dissasembly when a sudden freak storm rolls through and drops 2' of snow on everything.  At least if it's under the hood, it's always under cover.  Picked away at things for an hour here and there over the last week and got it down to the short block.  Nothing too exciting here, just some photos of the work along the way.

Started here

label everything along the way since my memory isn't very good.  Once I got in there I was happy I decided to do a full tear down and rebuild; found quite a bit of carbon built up just about everywhere.

And just about down to the short block a few hours later.  I was worried what the cylinder walls might look like but I'm still seeing the factory crosshatching and no ridge built up at the top of the cylinder so here's to hoping that a quick hone will be sufficient (the machine shop will give me the final word once I get the block in to them).

Interestingly enough, when I pulled the heads I found some not-so-happy valves; I don't remember it running too poorly (well okay, there was always a bit of a misfire at idle).  I'm on the fence about having these heads rebuilt; by the time I get them hot tanked, magnafluxed and then ground and rebuilt (if they aren't cracked, since 318 heads are notorious for cracking) I'm at around or over half the cost of a set of better flowing, non-crack prone replacement heads.  Still haven't decided what to do there.

Also a while ago I picked up an NP242 transfer case, cracked the case open and everything looked good inside so rather than make more work for myself by rebuilding it I simply bolted it back together, replaced a weepy output seal and will get that back under the jeep at some point this week.  Pulling the old case out using my floor jack and a piece of 2x10 on top seemed sketchy in the soft gravel driveway so I built this contraption out of some scrap junk I had laying around; old scissor jack, few pieces of wood and some fasteners I had in the pile and it worked very well.  I screwed a couple of 2x4 skids underneath so once I had the case down, I just slid it out from under the jeep.  Only miscalculation was that it was a pretty tight squeeze getting it out from under the jeep, but it it went.  Re-installation should be pretty easy.

In reply to clunk :

Welcome to the forums. Just what part of Canada do you hail from? The early pictures look a bit like BC, but I'm not sure.

I wouldnt risk reusing the old heads if they're prone to cracking.   It also doesn't seem like you need to get into the bottom end.  
 

Seems like this all came from the oil filter adapter seal leaking twice.  You diagnosed it as high oil pressure from a sticky relief valve.  But now you think it's from high crankcase pressure?  
the seal doesn't hold back both, so figure out which one and go from there. 

i doubt it is from high pressure at all.  Perhaps, but I'd look at just poor installation to begin with.    

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

In reply to clunk :

Welcome to the forums. Just what part of Canada do you hail from? The early pictures look a bit like BC, but I'm not sure.

Thanks and you're right, I'm in south central BC.  Yourself?

In reply to clunk :

Currently in Michigan, but I was born and raised in Quebec, then lived in Ontario for 20 years. I did spend a summer working at a copper mine in BC, near Logan Lake, almost 40 years ago. I have a niece and her husband in the middle of a move to Kelowna from Calgary, my parents live on Vancouver Island and my sister lives on Pender Island.

jfryjfry (FS) said:

I wouldnt risk reusing the old heads if they're prone to cracking.   It also doesn't seem like you need to get into the bottom end.  
 

Seems like this all came from the oil filter adapter seal leaking twice.  You diagnosed it as high oil pressure from a sticky relief valve.  But now you think it's from high crankcase pressure?  
the seal doesn't hold back both, so figure out which one and go from there. 

i doubt it is from high pressure at all.  Perhaps, but I'd look at just poor installation to begin with.    

Yes, a good point on the heads.  Originally suspected high oil pressure and a bad relief valve based on the pegged factory gauge - could be faulty?  Also coule be the very cold weather and thick oil.  I'm quite sure the oil filter adapter was properly installed - everything squeeky clean with brake cleaner, torqued to spec etc.  It's been on and off with around half a dozen gaskets (3 paper gaskets "dry", new filter adapter plate from Mopar, still leaking so tried cutting a thicker cork gasket a couple of times, no avail, tried with another stock paper gasket using form a gasket #1 this time around, still leaking, tried with a cork gasket and form-a-gasket no #1, still leaking.  WTF?!).  

My understanding is high crankcase pressure caused by either a clogged PCV valve (not the case) or combustion gases leaking past the rings (possible) will overwhelm the PCV and blow out oil seals and cause leaks.  I'm obviously not an expert, just learning along the way over the years.  If I'm incorrect in what I've learnt, please learn me!

Trust me when I say I have spent some serious time deciding if I want to leave the bottom end alone or pull it and do a full rebuild.  I'm sure the bottom end is fine, but I think it's foolish to come this far and not go all the way.  I'm most concerned about what kind of junk might be lurking in the oil passages at this point, putting it back together without adressing that could lead to some expensive tears down the road.