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Posts Tagged ‘Sahara’

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…. 😉

Jeep #12: I found the Jeep

This is the start of my build. It is a 1993 Jeep Wrangler Sahara. (The correct car is a 1992 Jeep Sahara, there is no difference between this car and the movie car).

I purchased this car today for $4000. Its quite a bit of money but it is probably worth more. The previous owner had a lot of work done to it and provided me with receipts for thousands of dollars worth of work rannging from the clutch, to brake lines, and frame repair. It only has 73,000 miles on it.

Came with full hard doors and a hard top. The first owner may still have the half doors and soft top. I hope I can get my hands on them. There is a bit of rust as you can see, but it is all quite basic. The worst is on the windshield frame and on the full doors. I will be cutting out metal when I can (or replacing parts). It will all be repaired right.

After purchasing the Jeep I brought it over to my buddy at Tires Plus and we did an “Inspection”. Went under it and found some parts that need to be replaced such as the steering damper, sway bar links, transfer case seal and rear axle seal. I wanted to take a look at the parking brake and find out why it wasn’t working properly. Turns out the parking break was SEIZED ON in the driver side drum. The brake was getting hot. We just cut the line and it released the brake.  Problem solved.

Noticed the frame has some rust where the rear leaf spring attaches. I hope that will be a easy fix. Do they have frame end kits I can buy to weld on?

We checked the oil and it was rather low. So we also did an oil change. Now the car has a slight knock, but I think it will be ok.

After repaying my buddy at Tires Plus with food, we hung out in the parking lot and figured out how to disable the seat belt buzzer and get the lights to work. I guess we were at it for a little while the battery ended up dying and I had to push start it.

Time for a new battery too!

Overall, I am loving this thing.

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