how much do people with plows make? i heard they make quite a bit of money for the season.

 

It is the same engine as in the 89. Just remove the intake and exhaust to get to most of them , but there is one on the back side of the head and some (2 I think) behind the flexplate on the transmission mounting side of the block.
Hope that was the info you were looking for.

 

the guy I hired on with pays 20/hr and gives you a 10-99 to operate his vehicle, thats what I get. Another driver of his made 9k last season, so I'm going to stick with it. A close friend of mine who originally got me into it makes 50/hr to run his own truck. The sweetest plow job though has to be the county truck operators. I dunno what they make but those trucks are awesome.

I had applied for a job at an aamco trans shop and interviewed back in oct, they just called me tonight and want me to come in and meet the owner monday. They need an R&R guy. If they take me on I am going to try and do both jobs as long as possible since the plowing is usually at night and it's not steady work. It has been lately but it can only snow so much, right? The best benefit of the aamco job is I'll have access to their lifts and tools for my immediate family's vehicles. (I have to do the work of course) My friend has a lift I can use but there is always something on it when I need it.

thank you Blue, I have been searching around a bit about them and it looks like copper coated is the way to go. Also read a few posts about them rusting through. Hoping I won't need to pull the head or engine and one on the side of the block just rusted out. I'll replace as many as I can get to and see what it does. Also I want to put in a block heater while I am in there, are there any favorite models?

 

also, I found some interesting looking rubber freeze plugs that look like they may be much easier to install. http://www.autozone.com/R,126244/vehicleId,1638702/initialAction,partProductDetail/store,3577/partType,00456/shopping/partProductDetail.htm

Anyone here running those?

 

what a day! Woke up at 7am thinking we would go get the jeep and get it out of the way early. Well, chicagoland was hit with an ice storm last night. The Indiana toll road was closed from Ohio to Illinois, it was brutal out.

So we did the smart thing and waited until the ice melted, around noon we took off. The trip was smooth, and I ended up buying the truck.



It's a 1990 cherokee laredo. I talked the guy down to 400 bucks. I may have been able to get him lower but he seemed like a good guy and I felt the truck was worth the 400 I paid. The body is very clean overall. There is some rust on the rear doors, so I will eventually replace those. A lot of the newer XJs I looked at had rusted out rockers, this one is SOLID.

The engine fires right up, and I drove it onto the trailer in 2wd no problem at all. The drivetrain feels very strong. When I got it home and off the trailer I slippped it into 4Low and it works great!

All fluids check out good, except there is not much coolant in it. As I mentioned above the engine needs a freeze plug, and judging from where the steam is coming from it is on the drivers side rear of the block. The truck gets hot fast so I had to shut it off after just a couple few minutes. I ran out of daylight today but tomorrow I will begin tearing into it.

My biggest concern is not the freeze plug, I have that under control. There is what I think is some lifter "ticking" noise coming out from under the valve cover. I need this truck to last, so my next question is: is it possible that it has a stuck lifter or something? I will make a video of the noise after I can get some coolant flowing thru the motor, for now I am not running it anymore.

 

I found a couple piles of paperwork and brought it inside to look over, it appears the truck got a new cat. converter in late 2005 and a battery in 06. Lots of oil change receipts too, that's a plus. found a paper that says it passed emissions in Oct. 2007, another good thing since we have the testing here too.

The truck also needs:
front grille, wipers, brighter interior lighting, and a tail light bulb for now. The headliner is dead and will be replaced.

Total cost thus far is 480 dollars, 400 for the truck, 80 for the tow.

 

The cloth seating and carpet are pretty nasty. I think with some hardcore scrubbing/shampooing the seats will be OK. The carpet is going into the dumpster for sure, I've seen what some of you other guys found under there.

I need 2 window cranks for the front doors, and the setup that goes around the shifter rod here:

And of course the headliner. The interior has held up pretty well though for a truck that is almost 20 and with 150k miles.




It is pretty nice out despite the rain and fog so I wanted to go play with my new toy. Not much I can do to it until I hit the auto parts store tomorrow, so I installed a deck I had laying around since my explorer went out of commission.
Since this is a budget project I just lopped off the old connector and used some info I found here to wire it up.
https://www.cherokeeforum.com/showpo...28&postcount=6

The only thing I found to be different with my truck is on one of the rear speaker wires the post above calls for a gray wire with white stripe- there was no such wire in my harness. I pulled the cover for the rear hatch off and found a green with white stripe back there. Connected to that up front and I have 4 speaker stereo. Not bad.

The deck is a clarion dxz555mp that plays Mp3 data discs, so you can fit a couple hundred Mp3 on a CD-r and play them in the car. It does the track names of the Mp3 too, which I like. There are screensavers on it, and it has a lil remote if you are into that, I just tossed it in the center console. It's a pretty nice deck for the 160 I paid for it new.






it seems to flow well with the interior, and it sounds great even through the stock speakers. Those will be replaced with kenwood speakers I have in the immediate future. I was able to get the dimming working too, I could not figure it out in the explorer but it works in the jeep. All the wiring is soldered and taped for years of reliable service. Hopefully the truck lasts that long.

If anyone wants the stock deck for some strange reason speak up fast, cuz I have no use for it.

My first task went very smoothly, it's been years since I have installed a deck but the XJ was easy to work on. I reused the bracket off the old deck and it's in there good too, I'm hoping it won't skip much.

total cost: still 480 dollars

 

Well, right off the bat I'll tell ya you have a NP242 transfer case in there... Make note of that...

Or as Van Wilder says... "Write that down."

 

Added that info to my profile so I don't forget, thanks. Is this the transfer case that is easy and cheap to rebuild or did I get the newer kind?

I'm procrastinating a little today. It's like 60 degrees out though, so I better get started tearing the engine down to find that leak. I scored a haynes manual last night for free, my friend scott used to have an identical XJ (colors, year, everything), and the book does not cover his wrangler or 98 cherokee. Will pick that up when I go to the parts store later.

 

That's a good lookin XJ! Good to see you're already tearin into it and getting your project rolling. It's even got less miles on it that my 95! Good luck on geting it running and ready for the road, and keep us posted on your progress!

 

Thanks Funkle! The weather is working against me today so not much is happening other than research. I can't believe it's 60 and raining, it was 5 degrees a week ago. I've got a car on jack stands blocking my garage. Waiting on a trans harness to show up for it by mail and then it will be mobile and I can work on the XJ under a roof.

I looked at a few other jeeps before snagging this one. I found an 89 that was stuck in 4x4, but also stuck in first gear, passed on it. Found a 94 grand cherokee that looked ok but had the ignition all busted up, passed on that. For my price range this was the jeep to buy.

The lifters are making a ton of noise. I got a lead on a 4.0 cylinder head from an 89 cherokee for 125.00 shipped. It has just over 100k miles on it. I am thinking buy the new head, have it checked out and swap them. Then change all the freeze plugs I can at that time, do everything at once and have a fresh top end on this thing.

Does anyone know if the 89 head will work for certain on my 90? Sorry for the abundance of noob questions but I am trying to avoid costly mistakes. I need to get the engine squared away so I can move onto the fun stuff.

The goal is to drive this truck to work when I get called out to plow snow, it has to be reliable and solid.

 

I know your pain with the weather... REWSTER isn't all that far from ya, and I'm over by 57/80/294 in IL... I was out fixing both of mine today in the rain... It might be damn near 60, but it's still cold when you're getting rained on!

To me, all transfer cases are easy to rebuild, as for cheap, I haven't had to do my own in years, so I couldn't tell ya. Being that there's a ton of 242's out there, I wouldn't doubt its fairly cheap.

 

caught a slight break in the rain so I went back out to play.

Popped the door panels off the front doors to install my speakers. The fronts are kenwood KFC-X136 5-1/4" two ways and the rears are KFC-6909 6x9 three ways.


The kenwood 5-1/4" speakers fit the factory locations perfectly, no drilling or hammering required.



I got hungry and it was raining on me so I called it a day, but here are the 6x9 that are going in the rear:




I dug up a 6x9 template online that prints out full size. Next I will drop the cover off the rear hatch and use a jig saw with metal blade to cut the rear speaker holes larger. I will need to wait until it is not raining so I can use the saw, it was kinda scary using the soldering iron in the rain.

My driver's door panel was soaked so I brought it inside to dry. It seems the vent window is leaky... Hoping I can find a proper fix for it beyond silicone.

 

Cool- I picked this truck up roughly in your neck of the woods yesterday. Yeah, the rain is cold. I kept thinking "I hope this is worth catching a cold over"

 

Hey, take a bunch of pics on the 6x9 install... I've been mulling around with the idea of going with those, 5's, 6's or 5x7's in the rear hatch of my 92, I was just wondering all in all how much of a PITA it might be...