Jeep Cherokee (Non Grand)

Learn me?

Can a 4.0 HO 4x4 worth a damn be had for $2k or under? I don't really care if it's auto or manual.

To be more specific:

1) Are they as reliable as i think they are?
2) Are parts cheap?
3) Easy to fix?
4) Mild lift kits cheap?
5) Common problem areas?

Looking for a cheap, but NOT terrible looking winter go-anywhere machine for the girlfriend to drive and/or for us to play with. Would prefer as little rust as possible.

Am i asking too much for the budget?

93celicaGT2 wrote: Learn me? Can a 4.0 HO 4x4 worth a damn be had for $2k or under? I don't really care if it's auto or manual. To be more specific: 1) Are they as reliable as i think they are?

My wife has had one for years and it survived fine being run on a small budget.

93celicaGT2 wrote: 2) Are parts cheap?

Yes

93celicaGT2 wrote: 3) Easy to fix?

Yes, mostly IMHO.

93celicaGT2 wrote: 4) Mild lift kits cheap?

Lift kit and Cherokee aren't necessarily designed to go into the same sentence - it can make the 'death wobble' far worse.

93celicaGT2 wrote: 5) Common problem areas?

Rust, door hinges pull away from the A-post, rust, previous owners, rust.

93celicaGT2 wrote: Looking for a cheap, but NOT terrible looking winter go-anywhere machine for the girlfriend to drive and/or for us to play with. Would prefer as little rust as possible. Am i asking too much for the budget?

Out here (which is admittedly four wheeling country), 2k buys you a heap. In other places you seem to be able to get decent ones for that sort of money.

I'm on my 3rd 4.0 HO XJ. They are tough as nails.

3 inch lifts are dirt cheap if you don't mind pucks up front and blocks in the rear and you should never have to worry about death wobble with a lift that small. If you do you probably have other issues. You can clear 31s with the 3" lift.....33s with a little trimming probably.

I have 5.5 inches of lift on my XJ. I used dropped lower control arms up front....no death wobble, but a ton of work went into that lift since I pieced it together. There are great kits out there, but they are $$$ for the good ones.

The non-grand Cherokees are cheap to own and run. As the other poster said rust is the biggest thing to look for. The door hinges do fall off but they can be welded back on pretty easily. The way I would describe a Cherokee is bulletproof drivetrain, every thing else falls apart. A couple years ago I found a really nice one for $1850. It ran great and I ended up selling it a couple year later for $2700. You should be able to find a decent one if you keep your eyes open.

The trick is buying the newest one you can afford, and IIRC people say stay away from the ones with any Renault parts in them. I had a '98 Jeep 4wd 4.0 auto. It was great except that rust was coming through by the top corner of the windshield near the start of the rain channels. It was the vehicle I owned the longest. A great place to look at parts is www.quadratec.com. I guess I would have to disagree with Tim and that a good 2.5" lift should help in fitting some 33"s and ground clearance. Death wobble can be corrected and theres lots of information out there about it, its causes, and solutions. My only concern would be rust, everything else is pretty easy to work on and parts should be behind every parts store's counter.

<----- yes see my avatar.

I spent $1900 on this one. I have had it to the arctic circle.

I load it up with a ton of crap:

Dead nuts reliable and I do all my own maintenance, super easy to work on.

And soon it will be the ZAV.

i found one that was sitting in a driveway with a flat tire for 3 months. they were told it needed a ecu $600 repair after spending 300 so they parked it. I bought it for 1100. pluged in code reader it said tps what do you know changed that runs great. 99 4.0 auto 175k. i put on a hitch new tires then towed my challange car to FL.

Oh the only thing you have to watch out for is the Crank Position sensor, they can and do go out. they are $24 at autozone and you can Change it with at 13mm socket and a wabley extension. (it is located on the bell housing of the transmission)

*edit, you will need to get a full set of those star head socket driver things. Those star heat bolts are all over the Jeep.

I had my 1994 for over 3 years and it had 220K+ on it when it finally rotted out. Floors and around the windshield rotted though. Only issues I had were the crank sensor quit once on me once and the alternator stopped working when I filled it full of mud. I also had 3-4 inches of lift with 31’s. I tried 33’s and they hit everything in the front when flexed and I did not want to trim anything. The 4.0 is really easy to work on. Only other issues you might look for are a cracked exhaust manifold, rear main seal leak, valve cover gasket leak, or oil leak at the oil filter housing. All those are cheap easy fixes except for the rear main.

here's my old jeep here's some of the rust

Oh here ist he "build" thread on a local forum of mine. It shows all that I did to the jeep and how much I spent on it.

It is only two pages long, so a short read.

http://www.cicenet.net/showthread.php?t=7577

Many great memories in my old XJ. Gave it to my little brother 4 years ago. He still drives it everyday and maintains it on a college budget with over 300K on the clock.

small lifts (2" budget boosts) are fine with a tight front end but much more than that and youre going to need front springs, longer lower control arms, Slip-Yoke Eliminator or transfer case drop brackets (yuck), new rear leafs, longer shocks, and ideally a longer/adtustable front track rod to recenter the front axle.

i had a 2" BB front and rear, plus quadratec's replacement Heavy Duty rear leaf pack and Comanche shocks. a front v8 ZJ grand cherokee spring pair with the BB spacer rides nicely along with aftermarket shocks that are long enough. that netted me around 3"-3.5" lift, but i had vibration until i put in a SYE and used a second front driveshaft for the rear. solved all the problems.

i'd start with the absolute cleanest you can find and still assume some floor rust. mechanically theyre really quite solid, and i find them pretty easy to work on unless theyre all rusty, then every damn bolt you have to assume will break, at least in new england our challenge jeep came from the south and was pretty clean but still had a couple rust holes in the floor. however EVERY bolt came free without issue... a first for us up here.

91+ had the newer better engine and iirc no longer had the front axle disconnect garbage. both manual and auto transmissions are good units.

Some parts are a little expensive. Renix Jeeps can be a little different. If I were looking for another XJ, I'd be looking for one newer than 1991. That's the first year of the HO motor.

Rust will be a problem in areas with snow. Heck, even down here in Florida, rusted floor boards are still expected. The passenger side floor board has 2 things attacking it, one from the top and one from the bottom. From the top, you get runoff from the AC, from the bottom, you get heat from the exhaust.

Stay away from the pressurized coolant tank models. Again, that's also the Renix Jeep. They have a massive rats nest of coolant hoses that often fail.

I bought my Jeep for $600. It needed a rear block freeze plug. It still has to be finished up, but overall, it won't cost a heck of a lot more to get it running again. It needs floor boards. They're like $150 a side for molded ones.

My Jeep wasn't an atypical purchase in these parts. They're very easy to find running under $1000, and ready to daily drive for under $1500.

I'm ok with SOME rust, but would rather it be on the underside of a truck that doesn't need much work at all. SWMBO won't want to roll around in something that has a real rusty body.

Basically, i figure at the price i'm looking, if it only lasts me two years, i'll be happy with it.

Looking at Indy Craigslist, are there any in my price range that look like something i should be flying out the door to look at? (besides the camo one. it's AWESOME, but she won't be ok with that.)

The lift idea won't necessarily be for off-roading, more for more snow clearance on unplowed backroads. Off-roading is a rabbit hole that i'm not willing to go down at the moment.

SWMBO Single White Male w/Body Odor?

parker wrote: SWMBO Single White Male w/Body Odor?

That's even funnier once the true definition is explained.

She Who Must Be Obeyed.

doesnt need a lift to be awesome in snow. just good tires and working brakes. the lunchbox locker i threw in the back of mine was AWESOME both trying to go straight or trying not to. bfg a/t ko's are totally worth the money too.

hell even offroad with open front and rear axles, just no swaybars and good tires an XJ will surprise a lot 'built' rigs. i miss my jeep

edit: i miss my lifted non-race jeep

WilberM3 wrote: hell even offroad with open front and rear axles, just no swaybars and good tires an XJ will surprise a lot 'built'

Stuffed 235/75/15 on stock suspension with disconnected swaybars. Stock tires will rub when disconnected.

EricM wrote: Oh the only thing you have to watch out for is the Crank Position sensor, they can and do go out. they are $24 at autozone and you can Change it with at 13mm socket and a wabley extension. (it is located on the bell housing of the transmission) *edit, you will need to get a full set of those star head socket driver things. Those star heat bolts are all over the Jeep.

I kept an extra sensor in my glove box. If you goes out, you can unplug and plug it back in a couple of times before it would need to be replaced. It only takes 15 - 30 mins. to replace.

My Cherokee was one of the most reliable vehicle I've owned. Had over 275k miles before I decided to junk her due to rust. It still ran great when I drove and sold it to the local salvage yard.

I've got to say, if my Jeep is running well, I'm not going to take it to the junk yard. I just think that motor is too good. I'd make an awesome dune buggy.

my responses in-text below. I had a '90 XJ 2-door. Renix engine control sucks. HO without it is sooo much better.

93celicaGT2 wrote: Learn me? Can a 4.0 HO 4x4 worth a damn be had for $2k or under? I don't really care if it's auto or manual. To be more specific: 1) Are they as reliable as i think they are? Yes, pretty reliable. Primary maintenance is on suspension/axles 2) Are parts cheap? DIRT cheap. And a huge amount of used stock parts, since so many people upgrade. On the various jeep forums you can get pretty much anything for peanuts. Most jeep forums even have sections for "free parts"....Jeep guys almost give stuff away when they upgrade, not like sport compact people who think their old stuff is still worth $$$ 3) Easy to fix? Extremely. Buy a large torx bit set though, lol.... 4) Mild lift kits cheap? Very, very very cheap for decent stuff like Skyjacker (or even Rancho). A bit more for good stuff like Old Man Emu 5) Common problem areas? "death wobble" - worn bushings, track-bar, steering bars. Death wobble is really scary and happens when you don't expect it. The more lift/bigger tires you have, the worse it is. There are ways to fix it so it never happens. Rust. look under the rear seats especially. Cherokees like to leak, so water pools in low chassis areas. Trackbars wear out pretty fast, but are cheap to replace. Quadratec is a big parts catalog that is inexpensive and has almost anything you need. Looking for a cheap, but NOT terrible looking winter go-anywhere machine for the girlfriend to drive and/or for us to play with. Would prefer as little rust as possible. Stock brakes suck bad. And suck worse if you go with bigger tires. Am i asking too much for the budget? You can find them in that range. I didn't much enjoy my XJ in the winter though. 31's were too wide. I would stick with stock-size tires for snow/ice. Heater was sub-par in mine, not sure if newer ones were better. Interior pretty much sucks.

btw, here is the cure for death wobble. tried and true. Once I installed it, I never had it again:

read about DW http://www.kevinsoffroad.com/techarticles/deathwobble.html

buy this: http://www.kevinsoffroad.com/tbconversion.html

Kevin's stuff is excellent....

I love my Cherokee. Everything that has gone wrong was to my own doing except the alternator, that just took a dump. It has a lot of abuse from the previous owners so there have been some easy repairs. Parts are very easy to come by too.

Other than that, they are really reliable. Mine has 190k on the odo and runs great.

Since we're on the topic of XJs, I CANNOT find the proper coolant routing for the life of me. I've paged through Haynes manuals, and they seem just as useless as the other Haynes manuals I have. They're easy enough to work on without them, but this is something I'm stuck on.

My Jeep is an 89 with the 4.0 and a manual.

Sorry to thread jack.

I messed around last night looking for lift kits, and holy E36 M3. CHEAP for very complete and comprehensive kits. I was planning on being ecstatic in finding anything under $1000, and it seems i WAY overshot that number.

Me rikey!