[Jeroen]

With a new car, different brand from my current cars, there is also the need to build up my network of people that can help out with parts, jobs and general advise and support.

The Jeep Cherokee is to date a very popular 4x4 car in the USA. There are several excellent forums. I became a member of one of them in 2009 when we bought our Cherokee in Kansas City. After we sold it and left the USA I never re-visited it, but my account was still active after all those years! Nice to be back on that forum too.

I find that by and large if you need specific information on a particular car the American forums are by far the best. Always lots of sensible advise, lots of folk that are happy to help you out. Americans have a unique way of dealing with cars. Lots of Americans, irrespective of status, job, background etc work on their own car. Some out of necessity to cut cost, but many just for fun, as a hobby.

Americans are a very upbeat lot. There are never problems and challenges, only fantastic opportunities. Always very refreshing to deal with them. Say, you put out on the forum you need to change the front lights. (As I did too). Somebody will immediately reply: Awesome! When you take the grill off to get access to the frame that holds the light reflectors, you might as well rip out the engine too. Replace front and rear seals. Taking an engine out on a Sunday morning before the traditional family breakfast is small change for the average American Car enthusiast.

There are literally hundreds of Youtube forums on Jeep Cherokee’s out there too. Type Jeep Cherokee XJ steering box replacement and you will be presented with several dozens video’s. I have viewed many of these. Some of them are very good and I will be referring to these, whilst describing the various jobs I undertook, will be undertaking.

I also found a Dutch Jeep Cherokee forum. Very handy too. They helped me find some parts suppliers. Would you believe it, Jeepparts.nl is a 10 minute drive from us. Literally the next village.

https://www.jeepparts.nl/c/automerken/jeep/cherokee/

I called them and spoke to the owner Edwin. Very nice chap, very knowledgable. I have since visited him many times. Essentially he runs a huge Jeep online parts store. But as I live so close to him, I can just phone him and pop over to pick up my parts.

I found parts availability in the Netherlands pretty good and pretty decent prices. Also, you can still get a lot of parts in the USA. Parts prices in the USA are really, really cheap. Of course, they need to be shipped, imported (4% import duty) and VAT (21%). The other thing, apart from the prices, the number of different parts is staggering in the USA compared to anywhere else. We will come to that during some of the jobs I undertook.

Edwin also hooked me up with another local business. Brinkman garage.
https://www.brinkman-vuren.nl

Same village as Jeepparts. They are basically an independent general garage. But they specialise in among others, Jeeps! Again, all 10 minutes from where we lived. I rocked up, in my Jeep obviously, to have a chat with them. Met up with the owner Martin. Very pleasant, very professional and very knowledgeable on my Jeep. Martin will be doing some of the odd jobs I don’t want to do myself or can’t do. Also, he will help out by doing a sort of Pre-MOT inspection, to see what I might have missed.

Lastly, when working on cars, you need all the documentation you can get. The previous owner had given me his Haynes manual:



The Haynes manuals are always tremendously handy to have. I still have quite the collection of them. I had this one in Kansas City too. I also gave it to the guy who bought the Jeep from me when we left KC. But the Haynes simply does not have enough details when you really need to dig in. So I always try to get the original Manufacturer Workshop manual. I have them on all my current cars.

You can find a lot of stuff online. I have found these guys very useful:

https://www.emanualonline.com/cars.htm

Yes, you tend to pay $15-25 for what is essentially a PDF file. But it is an excellent quality file. You can print individual pages, and they tend to be indexed as well, which makes looking up stuff a whole lot easier. They give pretty good service too. I had some problems with the file they send to me. It all got sorted quickly and efficiently.

I mailed the PDF file to my local printing shop. I don’t like to sit behind computers for very long these days. I prefer printed material any day.

The Cherokee workshop manual is a whopping 2300 double sided pages. The print shop printed them, and put them in three binders.



I am very pleased with the workshop manual. It is excellent. Probably the best manual I have ever seen. Very detailled, very well laid out, excellent drawings. Very happy with it.

When it comes to jobs on a new car, I always start with everything that affect the safety. So that tends to be tyres (the current ones are fine), brakes, suspension, steering and checking the fuel lines.

It became very obvious, very quickly that the brakes needed major work. Fuel lines are fine. Suspension and steering are all fine, but all the bushes in both stabiliser bars, front and rear, were gone. So I ordered all the brake and rubber components for the stabilisers from Edwin first. Some of the parts were on back order, so I had to wait a few days. But I did pick up a door hinge repair kit.

The hinges of the door of a Cherokee are welded to the chassis. The actual hinge mechanism is a very simple pin that hold the two parts of the hinge (chassis/door) together. The pin sits inside two bushes in the hinge. These bushes wear and thus the door starts to sag. They all do. I had the same problem on my Jeep in the USA as well.

So time to rig up a little door hinge pin and bushing replacement set up.



Here you can see the bushes on the hinge part still attached to the chassis



Getting the two pins out is a bear of a job. You have very limited access to get in there with a punch. I ended up grinding of the tops of the old pins with my little dremel.

Here the bushes are removed as well



Replacing the two pins and four bushes on the driver’s door took me the whole afternoon. But as a result the door is completely straight now. No sagging, which means it also closes easier.

next job; Stabiliser bar

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

The set up of the stabiliser bars on the Jeep is very simple, very traditional. Stabiliser bars minimise body roll. Well, that is at at least the idea, and of course, they do, but even with perfect stabilisers some cars will still do quite a bit of body roll into corners. The Jeep being one of them. Still, without them, or with worn parts it will be a lot worse. Apart from it being uncomfortable it also does affect the handling, so it is a safety aspect too. In addition stabiliser bars, small as they are, tend to add to overal structural integrity of the suspension set up.

On most cars, replacing the bushes on the stabilisers bar tend to be pretty straight forward. There are at least two caveats; rust and tension. As these parts don’t get replaced very often, everything tends to be rusted solid. Mounting the bar might require putting a bit of tension on it, which can be a real PITA for DIY mechanic such as myself. Especially if you, as I was on this job, all by yourself.

Lastly, as we will see, if they have been replace before, you might have to put up with mistakes made by the previous mechanic.

The set up on the Jeep is very simple:



As you will have noticed, my garage, roomy as it is, will only keep three cars at a time. I could cram four cars in, but the floor will collapse, it is not strong enough.

I made a special deal with the insurance company, this being a YoungTimer, it is supposed to stay in a garage, but mine can live outside 24/7. So when I work on the Jeep I need to shuffle my cars around. If on a project of more than a day, the Jaguar gets moved to a mate of mine, further up the dike. He has ample storage space, so I leave my Jaguar with him, whilst I can take apart the Jeep.

I was confident I could replace the stabiliser bushes in a day, so I just drove the Jaguar in and put it on some axle stands. Of course, I was wrong!!



On paper it is all very easy!!



It is literally undoing some bolts and nuts and that’s it. I always spray penetrating oil on all bolts and nuts the night before. Really soak them. Works really well.

On the front everything came off real easy. As you will see, definitely worn out:







As the bar and the brackets were all very rusty I decided to clean them with my pneumatic driven wire brush and give them three coats of Hammerite paint.

It took me about 25 minutes to get the stabiliser removed. It took me about 3 hours to put it back in place. Just because it slightly tensioned when mounted in place. Lots of swearing.

Next day I tackle the rear ones, so reversed in to have easy access:



Again, removal looks very easy on paper:



But immediately it can became apparent there was a problem: I could not remove the bolt holding the bracket in place.



If you compare to the drawing you will notice that the bolt should have been inserted from the other side. I suspect that they had the complete rear axle off and mounted these brackets first, before installing the leaf springs. Taking the springs off, was to big of a job, so I decided to just cut the bolt and get a new one.



You might also have noticed that the end of the stabiliser bar is badly corroded and worn thin.



New bushes would not be enough. And of course, the old bushes were really worn:



So I called Edwin of Jeepparts.nl. He did not have a new bar, but he had a decent second hand one. So I decided to pick that up. Cleaned everything and resprayed it. Installing it went pretty smoothly.

If anything it all looks a lot smarter! Newly freshly painted second hand bar, new bushes, new bold, new link as well! We are good to go. But in order to stop you need good, safe brakes. Boy, did mine needs some serious seeing too!!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

If ever in doubt, whether you should own a Jeep Cherokee XJ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3STMfI_PS4Q

Jeroen

[Uthappa]

Such beauties, these old Cherokees! Great to see it's getting some much needed TLC. Keep the posts coming, Jeroen.

[subie_socal]

Welcome back, Jeroen. Always a pleasure reading your posts . This is my favorite Jeep too.

[BlackPearl]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I bought another car!!

Congratulations Jeroen! Even I got an old car last week, a 1972 Land Rover Series 3.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

They tend to be owned and driven solely by wife’s of overpaid football players. The kind that writes a full column in the daily rag about her breaking a nail.

How I wish this was true! My wife would been very happy if I were an overpaid football player! But then my Range Rover Sport is a decade old as that was the one I could afford

Originally Posted by Jeroen

But according to my friend, owning a Range Rover Sport is a much worse experience. People absolutely loath the owners. They have keyed his car, thrown trash on it.... I know, very pathetic. But still.

So you are implying that the Dutch green brigade are a bunch of uneducated people who think that the Range Rover Sports are more polluting than the old Jeeps?

Anyways thanks for the information, I will not drive down to Netherlands in my Range Rover Sport.

Without going further off topic, all the best for your Jeep Cherokee and wish you many miles of happiness with it.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by BlackPearl

So you are implying that the Dutch green brigade are a bunch of uneducated people who think that the Range Rover Sports are more polluting than the old Jeeps?

The Dutch green brigade, probably any green brigade in the western world, consists by and large of the most well educated people in the country. That does not necessarily make them smart, fair, balanced or knowledgeable on cars.

Love the Landie and I have enjoyed your travelstories in the Rangie too!

Jeroen

[Theyota]

It's great to see you back Jeroen! I think you were gone for a while....and I was wondering what happened to you. You are one of the posters here who I read with a lot of interest. You seem to have incredible knowledge about many things and you share it with humility.

[Jeroen]

On to the brakes! I could see it coming this could be a multiple day job and I was proven right. So I also moved the Mercedes. Put the Jeep in the Mercedes place, which is at the far back. I can leave the Alfa Spider in its place and still park either the Jaguar or the Mercedes in my garage as well.



The brake system is very simple and basic in its setup. Front are disc brakes, rear is drums. Vacuum power booster on the master brake cilinder. No ABS (was optional in those days), Rear brake proportioning valve and parking brake is a mechanical, cable operated affair, actuating the secondary shoes in the drums.

Pretty simple set up at the front:



Identical to the instruction. I am using my big C-Clamp to push the caliper and piston in.



Will you look at this! The brake pad is pretty much worn!! Way below its minimum!





The rotors were about 0,1mm below their minimal thickness, so those got replaced as well.



As a rule, when I replace the rotor and calipers I will always replace the brake hoses as well. Easy as most connections are undone, brake fluid is drained, might as well do all in one go. Rotors come off real easy.



Before putting all the new bits on, I cleaned everything thoroughly and also spray painted some bits with Hammerite.



This is how eventually it all looked:



Did the right side as well. I will say this for the mechanic who put the calipers and rotors on: He/she did a good job, everything was covered in ceramic anti-seize paste. Worked a treat, everything came apart real easy!!

The above image was taken after I had done all the brakes front and rear and did the bleeding as well. In previous post you will have seen me using both a vacuum and a pressure testing. Here I am using a hand held vacuum bleeder. I have had this unit for years, if not decades. I had used it on the Mercedes vacuumsysteem, but never on brakes. Works really well and very quick too. So I will probably use it more often.

The rear brake is drum and shoes affair. Not overly complex to work on. But you need to keep track of where everything goes. I always take lots of images as I take it apart. And always do one side first, so you still have the other side as reference. Even when you have a good manual such as the Jeep’s.



A few of the images I took, so I could see where all the bits go:



Here you can see the adjuster screw assembly very well



Some more details





Once you pull of the drum (which came off on both sides with no problems) you basically need to take out two retainers that press on to the hold down springs. There are special tools for that, but I just use a long nose plier. Has been working for me for the last 50 years. You also undo the main springs

The two shoes with all kinds of other bits, springs, cables etc come out in one swooping go.



Again, a lot of cleaning, brushing before everything went back on. I also had to pop over twice to Edwin at Jeepparts.nl to get more parts. Eventually, just about everything inside that drum got replaced. Just to be on the safe side.

Looking good!



Me, looking content and dirty after this job.



Working on brakes is always very dirty work. And you need to keep your wits about. Can’t afford mistakes. So whenever I work on brakes these days, I will have somebody helping me, or checking my work afterwards.

After I had bled the whole system the pedal was rock hard with little travel. However, when I started the engine, the pedal stroke increases very substantially. The car brakes fine, but I don’t quite understand why such a long pedal stroke with the power booster on.

I took it to my new friend and Jeep specialist Martin. He could not figure it out either. Next week the Jeep will go for its annual MOT and he is going to investigate a bit further. He will also replace part of the metal brake line, going from the proportion valve to the rear. I could see it was rusted, but also the nuts were almost round. I don’t want to be on my back, on a concrete floor, wrestling with a unruly metal brake line. Also, I don’t have the tools to make a new one. So I leave that last brake bit to Martin.

This Jeep had its last annual MOT (or APK as we call it) in May 2021. The Owner gave me the old MOT report, about 10.000km had been added in one year. The MOT report will, apart from mentioning the vehicle passed or failed, also mention any repairs carried out during the MOT and also some advise on items to keep in check. It stated that the braking system showed wear.

It certainly showed wear and I would be very surprised that it passed last time.
Anyway, all is good now.

I don’t have any photographs, but the exhaust had two leaks as well. Here is the interesting thing of Jeep ownership and working on your Jeep. I could fix those leaks by just sliding underneath the Jeep and the exhaust, plenty of room to spare, without having to jack it up!!

As I mentioned, a lot of parts had been installed with ceramic anti seize paste. I remember somebody suggesting that to me on an earlier post, way back. I have always used Copper paste. But I have now converted to this new ceramic stuff. It is very convenient to use. And can be used on everything. You can’t really use copper paste on metal / aluminium connections. Say a wheel hub and a rim, because of galvanic action. This stuff appears to be very effective.



Next, tune up and replacing all fluids and filters

Jeroen

[DicKy]

Super glad to have you back again!!! Looking forward to see more enlightening posts from you.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Mostly image and unfortunately it is not good. In the UK they are known as Chelsea Tractors. They tend to be owned and driven solely by wife’s of overpaid football players. The kind that writes a full column in the daily rag about her breaking a nail.

Here in the Netherlands we call them PC Hooft Traktors. PC Hooft is the most luxurious and expensive shopping street in Amsterdam. Go figure who shops there. Even so, a friend of mine has one. Like me he also has a BMW 5 series. Now and then we compare notes; no one will let you out of your drive, or let you merge, if you drive a BMW. That is well known. You have to basically push the car into the traffic, or you are stuck for ever. And when you do, you are known as an aggressive BMW driver. They will take images and video’s of this antisocial behaviour and you and your Rangie will find yourself on TikTok, Twitter and Youtube with a billion thumbs down....People pursuing a green agenda will go ballistic when you tell them you own a Range Rover. They will spit on your car. Once my friend found his car smeared with excrement. I know, very pathetic. But still.

Do you know the difference between a Range Rover and a hedgehog? (If you don’t just google it). As you can image the joke begins to wear thin very quickly.

Remember seeing an old post of you about how people view cars differently in Europe and the USA. For all its faults, the New World certainly doesn't have vestiges of feudalism still lingering around.

When we were to buy our first family car, my dad was confused whether to go with a Cressida or a Cherokee XJ. Went with the safer option (read Cressdia) and have to say it did influence my future automotive preferences to no end.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by DicKy

Remember seeing an old post of you about how people view cars differently in Europe and the USA. For all its faults, the New World certainly doesn't have vestiges of feudalism still lingering around.

In the USA people like to show off their wealth, their possessions. Everybody does so openly and people admire it. Someone owning a nice car is part of one’s success, to be admired and to be congratulated and serves as an inspiration.

I always had people complimenting me on my Jaguar in the US. It is an unusual car. People were always commenting and telling me they want one too. Here in the Netherlands I get questioned on how much petrol it uses.

The Netherlands is probably worse in this respect than most countries. The Dutch when, all is said and done are deeply Calvinistic. So we strive for total depravity. Those that don’t, we key their car. Especially if it it is a Range Rover!

I did look at a gorgeous Range Rover Sport not to long ago and wrote about it in this thread too:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-d...ml#post4895313

Of course, these key scratchers are on a roll these days. A couple of years ago, at least some would call them petty and pathetic. These days this lot operates under the guise of a green agenda. Which, they think, morally, puts them on the high ground. I call them the Dutch inquisition.

I have no beef with anybody pursuing their beliefs. But you can’t touch my stuff, let alone damage it. Despicable!

My Jeep has so many scratches, nobody would notice. Once I have sorted everything else I will start work on the body and paint.

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

The Dutch when, all is said and done are deeply Calvinistic. So we strive for total depravity.

Are you sure that's the right word?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Are you sure that's the right word?

When it comes to spelling and grammar I have been wrong before,


But…….
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Calvinistic

As you know my faith in the Internet is infinite 😅😅

[Thad E Ginathom]

I should have used bold for clarity. It was the word depravity I was querying.

I have no knowledge of Calvinism, but have thought that it is a rather puritanical protestant form of christianity? I wouldn't expect depravity, eg drunken orgies and the like.

But I now find that there may be biblical/theological usage, that I have never heard before

What is depravity in the Bible?
: a state of corruption due to original sin held in Calvinism to infect every part of man's nature and to make the natural man unable to know or obey God.

source: google

So I'm now confused. And looking forward to hearing more about the Jeep!

[keroo1099]

Great to have you back and posting no nonsense DIYs. Have fun restoring the Jeep.