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Jeep #29: Maintanence

When I did not have the rear main seal addressed when I had the original work done.  I only had stuff that might strand me done by the mechanic I had used.  Today I spent the day dealing with the rear main seal.  I have the Haynes Manual, but there are better write ups online for this bit of work. (I used one from a site called dailydriventj, any web search will get you hits (keywords, wrangler rear main seal replacement))

In a nutshell the process goes like this: Empty Oil, Remove oil pan, remove rear main seal cap, remove rear main seal from cap half, and from engine block, clean mating surface of the rear seal cap, install new rear seal into engine block, then into the seal cap.  Now the important bit, use anearobic rtv on the seal cap, anearobic rtv cures when it has no air, IE after it is torqued down to specs.  Install the Seal cap, and torque to correct specs (85ft lbs), finally reinstall the oil pan, after cleaning any old gasket off, and cleaning both mating surfaces.  Finally refill with new oil, and might as well replace the oil filter, and your oil change is done as well.  It took me about 5 1/2 hours to get it all done. Not counting the break I took to pickup the lightbar I had found the night before.   But its anywhere from $500-$800 to do it at the shops, and the supplies are about $70.  Including oil and new oil filter.

Here are some pics from the process:

Oil Pan Dropped

Oil Pan Dropped

Half way through process

Half way through process

Reinstalled and cleaned up!

Reinstalled and cleaned up!

The pan still had a cork gasket, so I doubt it’s ever been off before.  Getting the upper seal half out of the engine block was a pain in the butt, that was the hardest part.  But it is a messy job…

Jeep #29: Lightbar FOUND!

Craigslist score..  Only things I had left to source are fog lights, lightbar, and winch, so I almost didn’t check craigslist last night.  So Glad I did.  It is a 3 piece bar, so it may need shortening, as typically these are a bit tall.  But that easier then building one from scratch.  $40!  Also once I got it home I tried lining up the holes, and they do not match the existing bolts, so perhaps this was from a TJ?  I can deal with redrilling correct holes though.

Jeep #29: Restoring Interior Part #2

So For the last few weeks, I have been watching craigslist like a hawk.  And I scored big time.  An independent (not a junk yard or specific jeep parter) in Denver was parting a 95 sahara.  I bought just about the whole interior from him for $400.  The jeep was a hard top, and was wrecked 5 years ago and has just been sitting…  The interior is almost perfect.  there is a single rip in the drivers seat bolster that is about 3/4″ long, little to no fading at all.  LOVE hard tops for this reason.

The differences between a 92-94 Sahara and 95 Sahara Interior are the following: The correct carpet color is green (mine is green already, check), the 95 has spice carpet.  The center console 92-94 is green, 95 is spice. The Dash 92-94 is gray, 95 is spice. The interior door panels are spice in a 95, 92-94 has green, and the pockets on the half doors are all spice vs spice and green trim. The rest is the same.

I got his seats, all 4 seat belts, roll bar padding, and carpet.  He threw in the carpet, when I tried to haggle his price, so I figure I can resell it to recoup some of what I spent, since my carpet is good, and this one was the wrong color.

I needed all this, as you’ve seen the condition of my seats.. ICK!  The drivers seat belt has a cut in it 1/2 way through, I had picked up a junk yard replacement, but it was very faded and looked bad. And the roll bar padding was filthy and wasn’t coming clean, and had some burns/repair marks in it.

My plan, is to not install these items until I paint the jeep, since I will be taking everything out when I paint, I might as well only do all the removal once/replacement once, instead of multiple times.  Once that’s done I’ll sell the extra belts, and seats (if I can considering the shape they are in) to recoup at least some of this cost.

Without further ado: Pics:

Seats and Roll Bar Padding

Oh and those extra brackets and seat sliders can be sold too.  I’m soo excited about how nice these seats are!  And you can tell how nice the roll bar padding is as well.

Old vs New Pocket

Old Ratty Chewed on pockets - New(to me) Nice ones!

Jeep #29: Restoring the Interior

With most of the mechanicals taken care of, I began working on the interior. The Jeep was not well taken care of, supposedly it was a 2 owner jeep (carfax verified), and both owners in the same family. Obviously this family doesn’t take care of it’s vehicles… I took the whole interior out except the front seats, and gave everything a good cleaning.

Here the interior is out, and the filth is obvious, look closely and you see the stains on the front seats and the damage to the pockets. The Previous Owner had described this as, “excellent interior, except one rip in drivers seat” Yeah Right! That rip was bad! Not to even mention the rest of the issues..

So not only was it ripped, but it had already been repaired once, and the seat foam was starting to come out of it.

Here is the filthy Carpet And here is the Broken center dash bezel.

So After Cleaning the Jeep thouroughly, cleaning the carpets, and sourcing a nonbroken dash bezel. I currently have this:

The seats will need more work, and or replacement, as the passenger has burn holes in it, and that rip may not be fixable.

Jeep #29: Build Up Begins – Bringing her Home

My build began with the purchase of a 1993 Wrangler Sahara on August 18th.  She had 129,000 miles on her, and was purchased from Arizona.   She looked, and the previous owner had described her to be pretty much exactly what I was looking for.  I was mislead…  And buying a car long distance leaves you little recourse in such a case….  Here is what she looked like then.

You’ll notice she has half doors, but a hard top.  The previous owner no longer had any of the soft top hardware, but she was originally a soft top, as she has original half doors. The hard top is an aftermarket “rally top” which are $2000 to purchase.

The Previous Owner promised me she would make it to Denver.  I Didn’t even make it from Phoenix to Flagstaff before she broke down.  She was loosing power on hills, and dying on me.  UGH.  Thank goodness I have AAA.  After towing her to Flagstaff and doing repairs, the rest of the trip went easy.   But once I got her home, she still was not passing emissions…  So after a trip to my local mechanic, and more $$$. she is now 95% mechanically sound.  She is still leaking from the rear main seal, which is a time consuming repair, but one I can do myself, and as long as I watch the oil level it won’t strand me.

If I had gone to see the jeep in person before buying I might not have bought this particular one…  The seats had much bigger issues than the owner disclosed to me, and front end has been repaired, though the frame is straight, thank goodness, and the respray (in original color) was cheap and poorly done.  But when you fly out to get a long distance car, you kind of kill your options.  I did further negotiate down the price, but not enough really to offset the additional costs and especially not enough to deal with the extra mechanical issues it had.   That puts a dent in my paint budget….

As for what she is missing.. The only stock option she is missing is the original fog lights and a soft top, which is why I was so interested in this jeep.  Finding the correct map pocket half doors can be very difficult, so I wanted those.  Being in Denver the hard top though should make winters much easier to deal with.  And I figured buying a new soft top was easy and cheaper than adding a hard top.  So since this had the rally top with the half doors this one I felt was going to save me a lot of headaches…  Instead I guess you can say it caused me others…. 😉

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