Figured it out!!

I went around disconnecting sensors and trying to start it, hoping one of them would be the culprit. Finally when I got to the cam position sensor I disconnected it and my gauges came back but still wouldn't start.

I went and looked at the connector, I don't know how I missed this:




The frayed wires were touching and grounding out. I depinned the connector and fixed each wire then put it back together, the pump primed and it started right up! She runs great, nice and quiet. So overall this was a success, got rid of the old knocking motor and dropped in the used 1996 Grand Cherokee engine. Once warned up I still had a tick over 40psi oil pressure and no check engine light.

 

Working on getting other things buttoned up on the Jeep now, but she does run well. I'll have to get a video of it running. So far its ran about 10 minutes and no check engine lights, but I haven't driven it yet. I want to get all the old fluids changed out before I drive it (still need to do the rear diff fluid).

While under the car before I had seen some rust where the front seats bolt up, there's brackets welded to the underside that the seats bolt to (one is a stud). I was punching around with a hammer/screwdriver and low and behold, it went through my floor in one spot. So I cut out some of the rust and I'm going to patch over it. This is the passenger side, haven't looked at the drivers side yet:




This one isn't too bad, going to spray some Rustoleum on it from both sides. This is with the seat removed and carpet pulled back btw.




The worst area, tried cutting out as much rust as I could.

I did end up cutting some of the seat support bracket out when I cut that hole, so I'll have to weld some extra support underneath. Shouldn't be too terrible. I hate rust.

 

Awesome work on your Cherokee. I love the extra detail you've done...especially the quality painting! Keep it up and look forward to more of the build.

 

Thanks! It's still a work in progress, but it should be on the road fairly soon. My DD is a 2002 Altima 3.5SE, but I'm planning on DD'ing the Jeep during the winter

 

Fixed my hole!




Not the prettiest, but solid. I had already done most of the grinding in this pic, but no one will ever see this so I'm not going to be picky.




A view from underneath, looks like it got a little hot when I was welding. There's still some surface rust on the bracket but the majority is gone. Going to weld another support piece in for the bracket since I chopped some out.

While I was under there I took a pic of the drivers side bracket for reference. It has a little rust, but not nearly as bad.




The rest of the underside is pretty solid, no other rust besides the leaf springs. However when I was getting up from underneath I had the passenger side door open and saw this:





And this I already knew about:




Both rear lower door hinges look like this, no idea why.




The top ones aren't nearly as bad.

No idea why they are rusty, maybe it's a common problem on XJ's? I haven't actually looked into it, but it looks like they would be a PITA to clean up and paint because they're welded to the car, but hey I'll try.

 

Good call on the DD during winter....I'm hoping I get some cruddy weather to enjoy it here in Seattle(and well cruddy weather in general...its good for my occupation😀

 

0

 

More rust repair! -___-


Finished the passenger side floor, painted over the plate I welded in with Rustoleum Rust Reformer and then that same silver paint I used in the engine bay. Underneath I also welded in a piece of rebar for support:







A little hard to see with the undercoating on it, but the rebar is the rod looking thing. Welds look ****ty but they're solid.

Side note, this heat shield wasn't even on my truck! I happened to be at the junkyard getting some door hinge pieces when I saw this on every other XJ. So I snagged a good condition one for mine.




Stops the floor from getting too hot with the muffler right there.

Reinstalled the passenger seat and then took out the driver side seat to find this




More rust, and the seat bracket bolt is broken off in there. This happened before I even owned it.




Not as bad as the other side, but annoying.

Drilled that crap out in short order, going to grind the rust down, paint and replace the bolt with this (old kind on left, new on right):





On a separate note, I bought some gray paint and painted the bumper ends, but I'm thinking I need a shade or two darker. What do you guys think?

 

Son of a b!tch! More rust, this time in the driver side footwell. Keep in mind my frame has no rust, so I don't know why the floor has these random rusty spots. I took my driver side fender off to bang out a dent, and then saw the rust, it was covered up by the plastic inner fender liner that's why I didn't see it sooner. I'm actually going to have to weld this one, the metal is pretty much gone and the only thing holding it together is the seam sealer inside the car:




The rusty area is paper thin, I can make it move with my finger. I would leave it, but I don't want my foot going through the floor one day.

Also noticed the condition of the windshield washer fluid pumps, dear God they're rusty:




From the previous owner, this XJ spent most of its life in Delaware. From all this rust, I'm guessing that wherever it was in Delaware was close to the coast and that salt air just had a field day with all the spots Chrysler chose not to paint/undercoat well.

 

Great thread, thanks for sharing all the info and pictures. I really enjoy them.

 

Thanks! I try to document as much as I can

 

Besides the hole I had to cut, here's a shot from the inside of the rust (mostly surface rust):




Just going to grind this down lightly and use Rustoleum.

But here's the hole I had to cut to get rid of the bad rust:




Inside view



Outside view from wheel well


Hopefully tonight and tomorrow I'll make a plate to weld in there and close it up nice and good. Pretty sure my driver side rocker panel has rust, but I'm over it. Just wanna drive my Jeep!

 

Ok I'm over rust repair on this Jeep. Just finished welding up that big *** hole in my floor with some 1/8" sheet metal.




Tack welds



After welding and grinding




Painted with Rustoleum




View from the inside, painted and then used gray seam sealer


Also I bought this from Tasca Parts, its the heat shield for the intake that came on later models that prevents fuel vapor lock (from the exhaust baking the intake). Going to install it soon, I think it can be done without removing the fuel rail.




Here's the link to the part, shipping actually costs more than the part itself: http://www.tascaparts.com/oe-mopar/cbxcb060

I also have 2 cans of paint coming from PaintScratch so I can finally get rid of this maroon driver side door. My Jeep is Silverstone Metallic, so the maroon door looks retarded. I also decided to completely remove all the plastic door molding/trim pieces. I was going to paint them but it looks so much better with them off. Pics to follow!

 

Intake heat shield installed! It was ridiculously simple, no need to remove fuel injectors, rail, etc. You just unbolt the bracket holding the three throttle cables from the intake, unclip the coolant sensor connector and lift the EFI harness off the head studs, remove the front air tube from the valve cover to air box and then slip the heat shield in under the rail. Then re-assemble, took maybe 5 minutes start to finish.

Finished product:

 

Started working on my brakes this weekend too. I finally got to bleed them since I never did after replacing the hard lines. My neighbor has a vacuum bleeder, easily the best thing I've ever used for brake bleeding. You hook it up to the air compressor, stick the hose on the bleed screen, squeeze the trigger and it pulls vacuum on the line, sucking the air out until its just clean fluid. Easily a one-man job now.

After bleeding I took one of the rear drums off, and quickly decided to replace all the hardware, shoes, and wheel cylinders since they look ancient. The rear shoe on the driver side is literally falling apart:




Big crack in the middle and the bottom already has some chunks missing

Side note, this leaf spring clamp on both sides is rusted through. I plan on replacing the leaf springs at some point though, so I'm not gonna worry about it.



In the front I'm replacing the pads and rotors and greasing the slide pins. Here's the rusty mess before I started:








I went with Raybestos pro-grade rotors and Wagner ThermoQuiet ceramic pads, $85 total shipped from RockAuto.com. A view of the finished product:





I'll take a pic or two of the rear drums when I rebuild them. I just ordered all of that crap from Advance, it's a mix of Carquest and Wearever which I think are both Advance's own store brands. $55 for all of that said and done, and I think the shoes are actually ceramic too.