Last weekend I purchased a new 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee after realizing that my 5-speed “Holy Grail” project hadn’t gone anywhere in five years and wasn’t likely to go anywhere in the next five years. This nice 1993, I figured, would replace that project and give me an opportunity to drive a ZJ now instead of sometime far in the future. There’s only one issue: There’s no chance I can drive this thing now, as it’s got some issues. Here’s what they are.
When I first saw this Jeep ZJ, I knew I was buying it. The shiny paint, the 100% rust-free body, the rare unkillable AW4 automatic, the 95,000 miles on the odometer, the low $1700 asking price — it was a no-brainer.
But despite the low miles and shiny paint, this Jeep is far from perfect. It was cheap for a reason. So let’s get into that.
The Paint Is Nice, But Far From Perfect
As beautiful as the ZJ’s paint is, it’s got sap on it, and to get the sap off a previous owner appears to have hit the paint with a green side of a Scotch-Brite pad. It’s not great.
Here’s the sap, which I’m hoping to get off with alcohol or Goo-gone (my typical hand sanitizer method did not work):
And here are scratches from failed sap removal:
I think the clear-coat swirls can be removed with buffing, but whether I plan to do that myself, I haven’t decided. There are some other scratches that I plan to improve with touch-up paint:
And the hood, while still a nice color, appears rather flat. I’m not sure there’s much clear-coat left:
Also, in the door jambs you can see some of the paint lines:
Around the handles and on the roof you can see where the new paint is peeling a bit:
The side pinstripes almost seem like they were not quite painted over?:
And here and there there appear to be some blemishes:
So it’s not immaculate paint, but it’s better than I’d expect from any non-garage-kept vehicle here in SoCal.
The Body Is Beautiful, But There Are A Few Dings
There are light dings throughout the body, with the worst being on the hatch and rear passenger’s side door.
They’re not huge and don’t bother me too much.
The Steering Makes The Jeep Undrivable
Some of you noted that, instead of driving the Jeep after buying it, I had it towed to work. The primary reasons for that: 1. I don’t know the state of the gearbox/engine fluids 2. The tires are wack and 3. The steering is horrible.
The first two are no problem, while the last makes the Jeep truly undrivable. The amount of slop in that steering is horrendous, and I’ve driven some of the jankiest Jeeps on the planet; none were this bad.
The problem, strangely enough, appears to be at the top of the steering column. Looking under the dash while Griffin turned the wheel back and forth, I noticed that the steering intermediate shaft was not turning. What’s going on? Is it the splines up top? I’m very confused.
The Interior Is…OK
One of the strangest things about this ZJ is the fact that the leather interior is completely custom. Why? Why not just snag leather seats from a junkyard ZJ?
I think the answer is that the original owner saved money by purchasing the Laredo model instead of the Limited, but they wanted leather, so they went to a shop called Classic Soft Trim in Pittsburgh, PA to get completely custom leather seats and door card inserts.
The seats are a little worn, and the driver’s one has a hole in it. My plan is to clean them up real nice and see what I think then.
I also need to replace the dome light and fix some of the headliner at the rear of the Jeep.
The Grille Is Really Janky
The front of the Jeep needs a bit of work. The lights are broken/missing, and so is the header panel. Plus, the grille is cracked and barely holding on.
I’m so confused about what’s going on at the grille. Not only is the grille cracked where it would mount to the radiator support, but the steel cooling module protectors are completely loose, and the transmission cooler normally bolted to them is also just flopping around at the front of the Jeep.
What is going on here? Why did someone break the grille and undo the bolts holding the condenser/radiator protection brackets to the radiator support crossmember?
The Underbody Is Even Jankier
Sliding underneath revealed more jank. Why did someone install the driver’s side lower control arm upside down? This is how it is supposed to look:
More importantly, why did someone drill a hole into the bell housing?!
Not to mention, the flex plate sheetmetal cover is missing; I’m assuming that’s because the flex plate bolts got loose as they do in all AW4s. Still, that doesn’t explain the hole.
Overall, I’m Hopeful
There are some other issues. The hood latch cable, for example, needs to be replaced:
And the antenna is broken:
And the badge letters are too far apart:
But the Jeep has zero rust:
And just look at that new paint shine:
I’ll fix the paint blemishes, sort the steering, replace the tires, redo the front end and underbody jankery, clean the interior, treat the exterior plastic bumpers so they look dark and new, and then get this jeep on the road. Then I’ll add my rare spare tire carrier and other fun bits from the project I’m giving up on.
It’s far from mint, but it’s better. Even if I have a bit more to do than I may have initially thought, this at least seems manageable.
How many years?
It’s really “How many more Jeeps until one is completed?”
If your new ‘mint’ Jeep has been crashed in the front, as suspected, do protect yourself and family by confirming the airbags and associated wiring are there and in good shape, or replace them.
Airbag, singular. The one in the steering wheel for the driver only. I suspect both her Lexus and the i3 will have had to fail to proceed to get Elise behind the wheel of this, and only after it’s proven itself since the Comanche is right there and has a track record.
Thanks for clarifying.
Well, if driver’s side only, that’s cheaper. Still, seems prudent to check/replace the steering wheel bag if fixing the paint is considered a priority, as the many photos indicate.
It’s clear that your definition of ‘mint’ is not MY definition of ‘mint’
LOL
Let me direct your attention to the contents of a particular driveway in Troy, Michigan not five years ago now…Compared to all that, this is showroom fresh!
God… I remember driving by his house all the time (I lived in Rochester and he was right on Rochester road) and it literally looked like a junk yard out front. Insane.
David, looks like a great project but for the sake of your family, be sure your lovely wife is on board.
I wonder about this… I HAD a wife that put up with this stuff for a while, until she didn’t. I learned a lot.
You don’t know the difference between interest and lust. Probably never will. That’s what makes your misadventures so much fun from those not balancing your checking account.
Another sap removal trick you can try is acetone. On cars with the factory paint and clear coat, I’ve had good luck using acetone to remove road tar and road paint from bodywork. I usually get a microfiber soaked in it and blot/gently rub a little bit at a time till the offending material is gone. The sap looks thick enough that you could gently saturate it with acetone and then carefully scrape it up/off.
Given that this thing has been repainted, I’d recommend testing acetone on every panel you intend to use it on, since you don’t know how each panel was prepped and painted. If the clear coat is thin or gone you might end up stripping paint too.
Also, if you intend to do the paint correction yourself, you should invest in a paint thickness gauge to evaluate how much clear coat is left on each panel.
Hmm, maybe I should have considered David’s definition of “MINT” a little more when I made my comment on the first article in the series.
None the less sounds like a quick steering column swap is the first thing on the list. Hopefully the one in the cat’s Jeep is in good condition and there are also some of those front end pieces somewhere in the pile of parts. Since they are plastic it shouldn’t be too hard to remove the evidence of said cats.
SO GEEKED! I have always loved ZJs so much and altho the XJ is cool, I’ve always thought it overshadowed the ZJ by a huge margin. I can’t wait for you to get this eggplant dialed! Here’s how I’d do it:
This would also allow you to do one big supercut vid or ADD/fast cut short vid of the total transformation and success start to finish.
Bonus points if you can get footage towing an XJ out of trouble. Good luck dude, I’m rooting for this project hard.
Love you DT, but it sure seems like you, once again, traded one project for another project.
Will this vicious cycle ever end? No one knows!
Meh, this has issues but rust is SO TIME CONSUMING and in the end you’ll always just have a rust repaired vehicle that will never be as nice as even this one in it’s present state. This one just needs a few weekends and it’ll be a great vehicle, just you wait.
Yeah, if my Beetle was rust free, I’d be done spending money on it. Over the last 22 years (since I was 11!) I’ve gone through every system, rebuilt the engine, front end, brakes, all bearings, electrical, etc. but there’s still a rust problem that will require the full disassembly of the whole damn car. I’ve just never had a place I could do that, but this year we bought a house with a big garage. There’s too much rust for me to tackle (I’ve never welded before) but there’s a couple local folks who do VW restoration that I’ll outsource the welding to.
David lives in SoCal now. There is no shortage of rust free vehicles that don’t have to come home on a flatbed.
Here is everything right with my $1,700 ZJ:
It contains significantly less cat urine than my Holy Grail ZJ
More cats == less mice.
DT, the only person I know that thinks rust-free = mint. God bless him. Good luck and looking forward to the follow up column, “More things I found wrong with my mint $1700 Jeep ZJ, no there’s now kittens.”
“No there’s no kittens” or “no, there’s now kittens”?
Punctuation aside, Shinynugget appears to have nailed capitalization.
no, more posting with my phone. all Thumbs.
I honesyly predict very few follow up columns on this. Like the military jeep build, it was sporadic at best and frankly a huge let-down. That whole series sucked.
Yeah and you’ve already got all the parts you could want from the other Jeep anyway.
Your definition of mint paint is like way way way way different than mine.
David gets his definition of mint from the spearmint-flavored car trees you hang from your mirror.
flavored?
True car-tree connoisseurs know that saliva is the only way to fully express all of the aromatic compounds contained within.
There are parts of the paint that both exist and have clearcoat, those are nice. At least the parts that aren’t scuffed up. It will 80% clean up I suppose.
David Freiberger would agree. This thing is mint!
dont get it right, just get it running
I had one of these. I bought it new in 93 and kept it for 9 years. My good (but short) memory is that there was a recall related to the steering. Maybe the front collision damaged the recall’s repair. While the mechanicals on these were really good, the engine computer and related sensors had a lot of problems that were expensive/impossible to repair. That’s why I dumped mine at 9 years old. Good luck with it. I think you are going to need some luck!
I’d agree with the premise that it was hit on the front, resulting in jankyness. I’d bet a dolla that the steering weirdness is part of that, too, and that some bigger tasks might be found as you unwind said jankyness. But $1,700 is almost free and you have a donor that can probably supply everything you need if you’re willing to sacrifice it.
Now… to just magically make more time…
What do you expect for $1700 these days? The worst part about buying something like that is finding the time to fix it. When you’re young and single time is easy to find. Married with kids is another story. I learned a long time ago just buy the nicest version of what you want because in the long run it’s probably going to cost less money. I would honestly tear it apart first to see what hidden nightmares you find before you get yourself too deep in this thing.
A collision on the front driver’s side followed by driveway repairs could explain the control arm and haphazard assembly of the grille area. The hole in bell housing lookalike either allowing leaking fluids to escape ( I’ve only ever seen that when there’s a clutch to keep dry ) or someone wanted to stick a borescope through to peek inside
Are you sure this isn’t a rebuilt wreck ?.
That’s my diagnosis
I swear I single thumb typed The hole in the bell housing looks like, but the iPhone thought that The hole in bell housing lookalike was more sensible.
Well it means something, I’m not sure exactly what.
I can’t believe the number of non-words that spellcheck thinks are fine for texting.
This is absolutely a rebuilt wreck. Since the steering problems appear to be on the top side of the column, I’d bet they were caused by a clumsy attempt at either replacing or hiding a popped airbag.
This. It was in a nasty collission hence the repaint, probably a new hood, fenders, grill, bumpers, headlights, all of it was replaced on the cheap from junk yard parts.
“Mint Condition” = The condition a mint is in when it goes through the wash in your pocket.
You have 6 months until Moab…
Are we talking about the Moab who was born from an incestuous union between Lot and his eldest daughter after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and lots wife getting turned into a pillar of salt?
Only if David is some sort of time traveler. Or his next daughter is named Moab (NHRN) and I just happened to accidentally predict the due date.
DT talking about this Jeep (Just Empty Every Pocket) is like someone in an abusive relationship talking about their partner not being that bad.
At least it won’t be $38K (or whatever) like the Range Rover the other day.
This thing is 100x worse than any L322 RR
Back in ye olden days, it was pretty common for dealers to sell a leather interior upgrade on a mid-line model that came from the factory with a cloth interior. The Acura & Isuzu dealer in Cincinnati where I worked circa 1992 did this pretty often. Customers liked the fancier seating and dealers loved the extra profit that was made on the deal. Various companies manufactured the necessary leather interior kits which were typically sold and installed by a local trim shop. Maybe that’s what happened here. I find it very hard to believe that this Jeep was shipped to Pittsburgh and back for a truly custom-fitted interior.
My parents wanted navy blue leather in their first Honda Accord and the dealer had an upholstery shop put one in. Looked good and lasted a long time, as did the car.
I don’t think David meant to imply that they shipped the truck there to have it installed, but that they bought the kit from the Pittsburgh company. Or just as likely one of the many companies that do leather kits.
After I bought my 14 Ram 1500 Bighorn, I just kept watching eBay until a Katskin leather kit popped up in a complementary color for a decent price – which took about 6 months (most that kept appearing were brown for some reason, and that was the one color that really wouldn’t work for a dark grey truck with a grey interior.) I installed it myself, and added heated seats pads while I was at it, so for about $600 and 2 days of labor I added heated leather seats to my crew cab truck.
No chance. This is a junk yard interior from some other vehicle or different Jeep trim level.
Where the hell are the cats?
Waiting………
“It’s far from mint, but it’s better.”
Yes because you won’t feel bad treating it like a proper Jeep.
Now go make it roadworthy and take it to Moab!