[Jeroen]

Live and learn!!

Both my Spider and my Jaguar are US variant. So they have a few items that are very specific to the US market. One of those is the radio!

There is a noticeable difference on how FM broadcasting (and thus reception) is done in the USA compared to Europe (Or other parts of the world for that matter)

North American FM broadcast channels are on the odd 200KHz frequencies: 99.5MHz, 100.1MHz, etc. In Europe, channels can be on any multiple of 100KHz, even or odd. This means that a digital tuner from the USA will not tune European stations properly, resulting in distortion. Some tuner models are switchable between the two schemes, but these are rare. Frequency synthesizing tuners in Europe do their actual tuning in shorter steps (for example 25 kHz). With analogue tuners you have no such problem because they aren't stepped anyway.

Read more at: https://www.epanorama.net/documents/...fferences.html

I knew all of this. When I bought my Spider in the Netherlands in 1997, the US radio simply did not work at all. Most of the stations could not be received at all, and the few I did receive were pretty poor. As luck would have it, my mother in law, gave me a very nice Kenwood Mask Radio/Casette/CD player which has been in my Spider from very only on. I have had only one problem with it, the flat cable connecting the rotating front broke. Somewhere in this thread you can find how I managed to repair it.

My Jaguar is an original US spec model as well. When we moved from Kansas City (Where it was my daily drive) to Delhi, all our house hold belonging and the Jaguar were shipped back to the Netherlands.

It required one small modification to the indicators to be allowed to run here in Europe. And the radio did work, sort of. I could receive most of my favourite FM stations, more or less.

So I never looked into it any further. But recently I have been listening more and more to a Dutch station (Radio 2) and I could not receive it on the Jaguar radio.

I posted on my Dutch Jaguar forum. Most of the advise was useless, or at best, get yourself an European radio, just swap them. I thought it unlikely that Jaguar had two different radio for different markets. (The radio is actually made by Denzo)

So I posted a question on my favourite USA Jaguar forum:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-radio-248150/

Sure enough, one more guy telling me it can’t be modified, and better just swap. But then there is this guy that goes by the name of M. Stojanovic. He is extremely knowledgeable on these Jaguars. And he has come up with some excellent suggestion to some earlier questions of mine.

So he replied with a link to the formal Jaguar Technical Bulletin. The radio has a country specific setting! You just need to know how to enter the menu!





Took me about 60 seconds to change it!! Very happy. I have now perfect FM reception, including RDS across the FM band!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

A few months ago I build a V8 model, see here:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techn...del-build.html (Betty, the formidable V8 | 1:3 V8 engine scale model build)

These models are quite easy to build. But I did enjoy doing it and they look nice in my garage. So I decided to build another one. The manufacturer, Franzis, has a different range. I picked the VW Beetle water cooled 4 cylinder boxer. If anything, my very first car, was a VW Beetle, bought for 50 Dutch guilders in 1977, about two weeks worth of delivering news papers! Mine was a 1300cc, this is an 1100cc.

I did not make a very detailled description or video, like I did on the V8. But here it is:

As with the V8, it comes with a very detailled manual. About 3/4 of the manual is about all kinds of (historic) information on the VW Beetle and this very engine.



The build part is very good, very detailled, just like the V8



I have it sitting in my (recently made) window sill, with my other home made engines and garage bits:



Some more images:











As with the V8, this one runs of a little battery operated motor. The pistons and valves move, the sparks lighting off are simulated, all in perfect sync! As with the V8 there is a little speaker simulating engine sound. But it is even worse than the V8. No way this is the sound of a VW Beetle boxer.

Other than the crappy sound track on the equally crappy speaker, this is a very nice model. Easy to build. Took about 5 hours, if that.

This week a few more odd jobs:

As you might recall I have been having some problems with my garage door not closing properly. Some time ago, I managed to sort of fix the rubber on the bottom of the door, that is supposed to seal the door to the garage floor when closed.

The problem with this door, its manufacturers, Hallington, went bust years ago. At the time of my repairs I googled and phoned around, but could not find anybody that could supply parts or service.

This week I had another good look at my garage door. I had noticed that the door was not straight anymore, one side appeared to he higher than the other side. One of the steel wires that moves the door up and down appeared a lot tighter than the other side too.



Even more worrying, I found that one of the steel cables was fraying quite badly!



So I decided to try again. Not sure why, but this time googling Hallington gave me several results. Long story short. Next week a company will come around to service my garage door. They will be replacing the door rubber and the steel wires and re-allign and service the door. It won’t be cheap. But a door not closing properly, or worse, falling on your car, is going to be a lot worse. I had a garage door fall on my car once before. Our garage in Kansas City was lovely, but the door was a bit wonky. One day when closing it, one of the guide wheels popped out of the rail and the whole door crashed onto one of our cars.

In theory I could do this job myself. But it involves dealing with this huge spring, whilst standing on a ladder. I will leave that happily to the professionals.

I have also started on a little job on the spider. The parcel shelf behind the seat is in a poor state. It actually looks quite ok:





That is, until you turn it upside down. The shelve itself has broken in several places. Also the plastic seatbelt guides are damaged, on one side completely gone. This means that the seatbelt don’t reel back easily. it is not a huge thing. So I am in no hurry. These parts are not available. So I have been phoning around. I am pretty sure the Spider Serie 4 has the same parts. The carpet is just stapled, so I am pretty sure I can rescue it. The rest I need to source second hand, or make up my own. I am going to experiment with some plastic sheets, see if I can bend them in the correct shape. More to come:






Spanner mate Peter and I are also in the process in trying to plan for a 5 day Spider trip in September. We will probably go into the Ardennes, Eiffel, Swartzwald, maybe a bit of Austria. I hope we manage to pull it off. We havent been on one of our Spider drives for a long time!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

I have tackled two jobs on the Spider during the last couple of days.

Job number one is the parcel shelve. I phoned around a bit. Nobody has a spare one, nobody has the seat belt guides. My best bet would be to wait for a Serie 4 Spider to be junked and see if I could rescue it.

I also learned that my speakers are not original. Also, they are mounted in different orientation! In over 25 years of ownership I never noticed!



So I decided to just repair what needed repairing only. Which is essentially only fix the broken seat belt guide. Everything else is sort of fine. The problem with upholstery work is; I suck at it. So I did not like the idea of taking it off, sawing off a piece of hardboard, shaping it and sticking the carpet back on. I know there is a good chance it just would look not as good as before.

So just the seat belt guide.

I bought a sheet of polycarbonate. Made a template out of cardboard.





Beginning to look good:





The next thing, how to get the sheet of polycarbonate into the correct shape, i.e. as per the template?

Getting the main shape cut was simple. Polycarbonate can be easily sawed (mine was 3mm thick)

But you do need one of these special blade holder thingies, as a normal hack saw was to short.



For the bending / shaping I went the “Jugaad” way big time!!! Don’t do this at home!! I had done a bit of reading up on the Internet on how to bend Polycarbonate. Watched a few YouTubes and came up with this:

I popped over to our local recycling shop. These are hugely popular. In this day and age of the consumption society, these shops are bursting at their seams with stuff people donate.

So I bought this second hand egg-boiler thing for Euro 2,50 (Price of normal cup of coffee)





Next I took it apart, because I was not interested in boiling eggs, but in the heating element inside!



It contained two heating elements, thermo-switch and two lights. I took the largest of the heating elements out:



Straightened it:



Pushed it into an aluminium tube:



Next I clamped the aluminium tube, with the heating element into my Workmate workbench, using two pieces of wood. The aluminium tube protrudes from the tube by a few mm.



I did not want to mess around with the electrical bits, more than I had too. So I just left everything else in place and hooked it all back up. The two heating elements are in series, so using only one did not make sense.



The whole set up:



I made sure all the contacts were safe, as could be, and I was wearing protective clothing and very thick gloves, for the heat and as (electrical) insulation. Just in case.

I experimented a bit. The heating element worked really well. The idea is to heat up the polycarbonate to a temperature just under where it would start to melt. Then take it off the heating element and bend it in the correct shape. Once it cools down, it stays in whatever position you have folded it!!





I made a few mistakes at first. You really need to think through in which order you do the various required bends. I had to straighten a few ones and redo them.

But all in all, I was very pleased with the end result:





Mounted this newly produced piece of art on the inside of the parcel shelve:

Voila, one good looking parcel shelve and the seat belt works smoothly now as it doesn’t rub against the inside of the shelve and the loose carpet anymore:





The next job was the locking mechanism of the upright part of both seats;

It latches onto a large metal pin, mounted on the frame of the seat. These pins have a bush on them. And those bushes, all four of them, had worn out over the years.



Well, this was exactly why I bought my lath and mini-mill. So I could produce simple parts myself. And I did, obviously.

One of the old one bushes:




I decided to make them out of Delrin. Easy to work on and pretty robust.





Here you see two new ones, on the outside and two old ones on the inside:



It was a bit fiddly. I could not take the correct measurements easily. I would have to take one of the chairs out. So it was just going back and forth between the lath and the Spider with a Spider until I got it just right and then produce three more, identical to the first.

All done!!





Took the Spider for a nice three hour drive. Everything is working fine. One thing I have noticed. When the Spider’s engine is cold, it appears as if it doesn’t want to start as readily as before. Warm start is fine.

I suspect the idle control valve, the cold start thermo switch or the special cold start injector.

First thing tomorrow morning I will need to move the Spider again as they are coming to work on my garage door. I have set up a few simple test I can do, if it doesn’t start immediately.

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Great! I was looking forward to your next machining job!

[Jeroen]

Earlier this week, my garage door got repaired / serviced.



New steel wires!



The guy also replaced the rubber at the bottom of the door. I had to help him get the old rail that fastened the rubber to the door off. It was spot welded, about 30 spots. He was going at it with a hammer and cold chisel. Nothing my fancy pneumatic hammer could not handle thought. We had it off within two minutes.

He also serviced the complete mechanism, checked the guidance wheels, re tightened the spring. I am very pleased with the end result. Not only does my garage door shut completely, without caps, it is also featherlight to operate now!

I am also in the process of ordering a crankshaft sensor. I am not a hundred percent convinced mine are still good. But even so, it makes a lot of sense to carry a spare in an almost forty years old car.

The Spider has two identical crankshaft sensors. They can be checked with a simple multimeter. A good sensor should measure between 800 and 1250 ohms between terminals.

To be continued.

We are off today for a nice drive. Not sure which car we will be taking though. Choices, choices, choices.

This weekend my friend Niek and I are off on a Spider Swap. Niek had to leave his broken Spider with out friends B&B in France. He drove their (French) Spider back home. We are taking the French Spider back to them and will be returning with the Dutch broken Spider on a trailer. About 1100-1200 km in two days. Not too bad and, mostly, a pleasant drive.

Looking forward to it

Jeroen

[carthick1000]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Choices, choices, choices.

This weekend my friend Niek and I are off on a Spider Swap. Niek had to leave his broken Spider with out friends B&B in France. He drove their (French) Spider back home. We are taking the French Spider back to them and will be returning with the Dutch broken Spider on a trailer. About 1100-1200 km in two days. Not too bad and, mostly, a pleasant drive.

Spoilt for choices . Enjoy your drive. The weather looks a lot better today (and hopefully tomorrow too) for the next set of photos we will be expecting on this thread.

Cheers,
Karthik

[Jeroen]

Turned out to be a very nice day. Weather wise and other wise. I picked the W123 for the day.

First we drove to Oudenbosch to visit: https://vintagebrabant.nl

We had been there before. They are open only three days a week. Always a lot of stuff to see. My wife found a basket and some leather gloves for her period dress hobby.

I found myself some comic books.



Next we drove cross country to Willemstad. We often go there. Nice little town, on the water, old city walls, some nice shops. We had hoped to have mussels for lunch. Would you believe it, we were a day early. Mussels did not come in yet.

So we had a very nice plate of fried sole. We walked around the little town. Chatted with some of the owners of yachts tied up in the little harbour.

Next we drove cross country to Drimmelen. The largest Marine in Europe.



We had some tea and walked around the marina, gorgeous weather. We were back home at about 17.00 hours, 180 km in all.

I did notice that my door handle was a bit loose. So that will need seeing to, which means removing the inner door trim / Door card. Not a big job on these W123s.

Tonight I got a message from Niek. He has already loaded the Spider on the trailer. So as soon as I arrive tomorrow morning we can head for France!



Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Last weekend Operation Spider Swap was executed successfully.

From my friend Niek’s home in Spankeren to our friends B&B Le Paradis is about 450 km.



I arrived at about 08.00AM at Niek. He had already managed to load up Cees his Spider on the trailer. Niek being very careful with it, had parked the combination in his car port and garage.



Before setting off, we checked the tie-down straps one more time:



Ready to roll: Niek has a very nice Seat, 4x4 and it is allowed to pull a 1900kg load. The trailer is probably about 500-600 kg and the Spider weighs in at approx 1000 kg. So we are good to go!



Normally when we drive to Le Paradis we all meet up at a Petrol station near Maastricht. This time we used it as our first stop. Toilet break, leg stretch, coffee break, and check those straps one more time. It took us about 1,5 hours to get there



From here I took over from Niek and I drove for the next two hours or so and got us as far as south of Luik (Liege). This trailer is double-axle, it was almost brand new. The combination with the powerful Seat was excellent. Drove very stable. We kept going on the cruise control at a steady 100 km/h on average on the motorways.

Going through Luik/Liege is always a bit of a pain, but we had not delays, not even a single red light, so it all went very smoothly. Once you’re in France, you need to remember that petrol station could be much further apart than what we are used in the Netherlands. So we had a final stop at a typical French supermarket place that also had a petrol station.



This was the view in the rear view mirror all the way. A bit odd seeing a Spider that close to our bumper all the time!



We arrived at 15.15 at Le Paradis. Exactly 6 hours after we left from Niek’s home. The last 120 km is all rural roads, so the average speed comes down considerable. Lots of little villages with 30 km/h speed limits and lots, and I mean, lots, of speed bumps. With a trailer behind you, and a friends valuable Spider on it, you want to take it slowly and carefully over those speed bumps!

Cees was very happy to be re-united with his Spider. Top down immediately!!



Started her up and off loaded her:



Niek’s spider was kept in Cees garage. We first moved the Seat/Trailer combination to a field behind the garden of Le Paradis. To get Niek’s Spider out of the garage it needed to be moved through the garden.

Classic cars are allowed to park in the garden, as a special service to guest:



But pushing a Spider across the garden was a bit much. So we used Le Paradis official Van to pull Niek’s Spider to the trailer





There we used the winch to hoist it onto the trailer:



Another tie-down exercise:



Niek’s Seat:



Cees took his Spider for a very short drive, around their estate into their garage, where it belongs!





By 16.30 we were all done. Cees his Spider back in his garage. Niek’s Spider securely on the trailer. The whole combination ready for 450 km back home again the next day, Sunday



We had a very nice afternoon/evening with Cees and Annelies and their other guests.

Next morning we had breakfast at 08.30 and by 09.30 we were on the road once again, this time heading north:



A slightly different view in the rear view mirror. But still a Spider creeping up our bumper the whole way!!



I had brought my own TomTom, next to Niek’s TomTom. It is always handy to have two GPS going, just to check routes/altenates etc. And the Seat had a quite nice GPS too. With the trailer hooked on, it also recalculates the routes, based on the various maximum speeds, allow for car/trailer combination in the three countries we travelled through.

Niek and my TomTom are identical, model, HW, SW updates etc. Even so, we noticed considerable differences in the routes shown on our respective devices!! We are talking about more than 25 minutes/ 90km difference. My TomTom showed the fastest so we kept that as our master. We found the difference, for some reason Niek’s TomTom took us more on Motorways, but that added considerable distance and time, compared to mine. We double checked the route planning settings but everything on these devices was identical, except the route calculated/shown. The Seat GPS was even more off!



Our return journey went very smoothly. At 15.15 we reached the Alfa Romeo Specialist that will fix Niek’s Spider. Off loading took us all but 15 minutes:





Another twenty minutes to get back to Niek’s home where I had left my own car. Combination parked. Niek will drop off the trailer tomorrow morning on his way to work.



It took me just another hour of almost all motorway driving to get back home again.

All in all, a very successful operation, well planned and executed. It was good to see our friends Cees and Annelies again, so shortly after we had visited them earlier this year.

It will be interesting to find out what needs doing on Niek’s engine. Cees had already determined that the thermostat was stuck closed and virtually no compression on any of the cilinders. So that could get expensive and complex.

We will wait and see!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Fixed the wonky door handle on the Mercedes W123 last night.

Those of you whom have followed this thread have seen me taking the door card of before. And once again, let me rave a bit about the sheer brilliance of German Engineering on this W123. Only car where I can take the door card off, put it back on, nothing breaks, no rattles or squeaks afterwards, all within less than five minutes. As we all know, since, German Grundlichheit has taken a nose dive and current Mercedes are utterly pathetic, compared to the build quality of the W123.

A bit difficult to see, but the handle had about 1-2mm play on the door!!



Here you see the door card. I have already taken various bits off, All that remains is to undo the various plastic clips holding the card in place on the door frame. My trusted special little tool to the rescue, as usual.



Door card removed. Still the original Factory plastic in place. Had to peel back a tiny corner.



I have bought some unusual tools over the years. People often wonder what good these very longs screwdrivers I have, are for? Well, sometimes a regular screw driver is just to short!



My regular screw driver was short by about 5mm. Not much, but it won’t work.



I could only see one bolt. I thought ze Germans would have, at least, used two? So I had to use my little camera thingy to check the inside of the door.





Could not find another bolt, so one bolt it is.

Noticed another little potential problem. The door catch mechanism is still working. I noticed that when I open the door, the plate with the hinge in the A-frame seemed to move about quite a bit. I compared to the right door and that one was rock solid. Not quite sure what is going on here. I had to use my little camera again to get into the fender to check. Bolts appear to be tight. Not sure why there is so much movement. Another job for another day.



Jeroen

[HimuraKenshin]

Was there not a post by Jeroen stating that this would be his last post on the forum? Where did that post go?

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by HimuraKenshin

Was there not a post by Jeroen stating that this would be his last post on the forum? Where did that post go?

Any reason provided for his absence? I loved reading his threads, particularly this one and the one about his cycle.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by rrsteer

Any reason provided for his absence? ...

Yes. He will be much missed, but he decided to move on. I think it was part of a heavy pruning of his online commitments.

[Jeroen]

Hight time I post some updates on this thread! Over the last period fiddling with my cars has of course continued. I just wasn’t online to talk about it. I will try to make up for that in the weeks to come. I am not going to update over the whole period, but rather focus going forward. Well, I will rewind the clock a few weeks.

I bought another car!! As it is we are fortunate to have six cars; Mercedes W123, Jaguar XJR, Alfa Romeo Spider, Ford Focus, Ford Fiesta and some German company tin can. I will be formally retiring in the not so distant future. Which means handing in the company car. Also, we have decided to do away with the Focus. i suggested to my wife to do away with her Fiesta and she could have my Focus. But she likes her little Fiesta. Also, my Focus is an automatic and she likes her manual Fiesta. Or as she calls it; I can really give it some stick. I have driven behind her on numerous occasion and I have various labels for her driving technique, but “giving it some stick” is not one of them. But we will down two cars in a little while. So time to get another one!

Anyway, I have owned a long list of cars. My list of cars I would like to own is even longer. Both new and old/classic. I must admit that there are few new cars I like these day. Porsche Panamera, Renault Alpine A110, the odd Aston Martin. Those are really special cars. But unless I win the lottery I don’t see myself buying a new one. So back to old cars.

Again, the list is long, so I had to narrow it down. As some of you might recall I also like to cycle. So a car where I can just throw in my bicycle in the back would be great. I don’t like my bicycle on one of these roof racks. Or worse, one of this bicycle racks pivoting on the hitch!

I have always had a soft spot for the Toyota Landcruiser. Problem is they are quite rare and very expensive. But there are two other cars that I have always liked; The Jeep Cherokee and the Range Rover Sport. Second hand with say 300K kilometers on the clock they tend to be sort of affordable. Although second hand prices of the Cherokee in particular has been rising over the last couple of years.

I have already owned a Jeep Cherokee. We had one when we lived in Kansas City. An 1998 XJ Sport. Great car, I always enjoyed driving it. And I have been keeping an eye on the second hand adds for a while now.

But I really like A Range Rover Sport too. But there are some problems with it. 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.

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. He will get the finger from every other motorist on the road even when he drivers perfectly calm and correct. 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.

And of course, the worst is: whenever he stops at the petrol station (which you do a lot with these cars, and you’re there for a long time filling up this mammoth sized petrol tank too) some punter will walk up to him and ask him:

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.

So I decided to get myself a proper Jeep Cherokee again!!

And here it is:



And it still fits my bicycle!



I looked at quite a few Cherokees over the last few months. A decent one with about 250-300K on the clock will cost you anywhere between Euro 12-22000. Which is quite a bit of money for this sort of car!

I eventually found this one. A private sale. A young family had owned it for four years. It was there family car. They really liked it. But they were getting something a bit newer and more fuel efficient. I went to see it on a very wet, rainy and windy sundae. I have a rule. Never ever buy a wet car. It is impossible to see the paint properly, you won’t go underneath it, because the ground is wet.

This is a 1998 car, that was imported into the Netherlands in 2002. As Jeeps go, it has very few of the options. In order to be legal here in the Netherlands they had to bolt on a rear fog light. They put a cheapo switch on the dashboard, rather than get a proper Jeep fog light switch.

Even so, we took it for a test drive. It drove well, no rattles, no peculiar noises, it tracked and brakes well, steered well. All the buttons and switches worked. The owner showed me some whatssup messages from his mechanic on recent work carried out.

Long story short I bough it on the spot for Euro 5000. It had been more than 20, maybe 30 years at least, since I bought a car myself from a private person. The owners did not have much experience either. But we googled a bit. The owner was missing some of the registration papers, so we fixed that online in 30 seconds flat. Then we transferred the car, online, in my name, another 30 seconds and I paid them online, maybe 20 seconds. All on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Very easy these days.

I agreed to pick it up the next day. Drove home and got the insurance arranged on line too. Next day, I took the train back to them, they picked me up from the station, drove to their home, I got the keys, a Haynes manual and off I went. I filled up the tank right away and drove home.

The next day, spanner mate Peter and professional car valuer extraordinair happened to be in the neighbourhood. We had a good far more detailled look, took some bits of. Peter put the replacement value at Euro 8500. The original online insurance was a third party only. Once I had the value from Peter I rang up my regular classic car insurer. One small problem; My garage is full. The Jeep will have to live on the drive. However, on these classic and young timer policies they require you to park your cars in a garage overnight whilst at home. Luckily, the Jeep did have a proper alarm. I pointed out that there have only been two attempted break-ins during the five year we live here. And the Jeep won’t be visible from the dike at all. So they were happy to insure it for me, parked outside!

During the next couple of days I did some general cleaning and checked various things. Boy, this car was dirty. And there was plenty of evidence of kids in the back seat. I took out a bucket load of M&Ms, lolly pop sticks, Lego bricks, cookies, peanuts from underneath the back seat!

I came to this initial list of stuff I would fix on my new Jeep:

Driver door was sagging: Known problem on these Jeeps.
Replace all the rubber components on the stabiliser bars front and rear
Replace everything front and rear brakes, double check metal brake lines
Indicator not working properly
Give the car a full service and tune up, flush and replace all liquids. (the Jeep has two differentials, an automatic box, a transfer box and hydraulic steering. And Cooling liquid. That is a lot of liquids!!
Various bits of rust needed to be worked on

The one, big headache was the AC. The owner had told me that the AC was not working. His mechanic had disabled it because they thought it was leaking coolant into the cabin. Which means a leaking AC evaporator. But he could not tell me how his mechanic had disable it. The problem with replacing an AC Evap on many cars, and certainly on my Cherokee; The dashboard needs to come out. It is a humungous job!! I used this argument to knock down the price, of course, but still.

All in all, I was and still am very pleased with my Jeep. I have worked my way through my list and I will present an update of these various jobs I did, including ripping out the dashboard to get at the AC Evap.

this Jeep is identical to the one we owned in Kansas City. That too, was a 1998 XJ Sport. Different colour and different wheels.

This is an image at the car dealer where I bought it from. This image was taken when we went to pick it up, you can see my Jaguar in the back as well.



Here another image of it; This is during a holiday in the Rocky Mountains. All three kids came along. All five of us and our suitcases piled into the Jeep and we drove some 3500 miles in 10 days. This image is taken at about 10-11.000 feet. Jeep did great!!



A lot of people will comment on the size. It is not really a huge car, but it does have road presence. Funnily enough, it is actually shorter and narrower than the Ford Focus!! Just taller.

These Jeeps were made with different engines, including an asthmatic diesel. The only version you want is the 6 inline cylinder 4.0 liter. It cranks out only 160 BHP or thereabouts!! It is a huge lump of an engine. It is almost unbelievable the Jeep engineers managed to get so little power out of it!

But this car is what a Jeep should be: Extremely reliable, very simple to work on, virtually indestructible.

You need to be in a relaxed state of mind when you drive this car. It is not particular fast. The steering is typical American. Many people will think the steering has a lot play, but that is not true. Its just how these things handle. But I absolutely love it. This is why I happily do away with my Ford and BMW. This Jeep puts a smile on my face every time I drive it. A trip to the super market or the garden centre is a true joy!

People tend to respond quite enthusiastically to a Jeep Cherokee. It is a rugged unusual design, it looks big, but without being overwhelming. I am getting a lot of thumbs up from a lot of people! Also, you might recall we live in a very rural part of the Netherlands. All narrow and small roads, twisting along rivers, on dikes etc. Dutch farmers on their tractors are a constant factor here. And Dutch farmers on the tractor claim road superiority over all other road users. i think they believe they have the moral high ground as they work 24/7 to feed the nation. So all those losers in their cars need to let then and their tractors go first! When you do, whether they have the right of way, or you just let them politely pass, a Dutch farmer will not acknowledge you. He will just tear pass you.

However, in my Jeep I get noticed and I even get the occasional hands up! the other day, I got waived over by a farmer on his tractor. His hitch got stuck and could me and my Jeep help him get his trailer back to the farm.

So my standing in the village has improved considerable. Remember, we live here in the bibble belt. On Sunday, twice the church car park fills with 150 cars of the congregation. Every single one of them black, of course.

Whereas they approve of me buying a cheap Jeep, the fact that is dark metallic blue is considered to be a bit frivilous. But then again, we are considered import here from the big city.

Spoiler alert; the list of things to do, grew considerably as I dug in. Well, more exploded!!

A week after I bought the car, the first parts started to arrive:



Many such piles would follow. Stay tuned!!

Jeroen

[s4ch]

Really happy that you are back to posting! Welcome back

The Jeep looks marvellous. Old school and simple. Looking forward to the updates!

[carthick1000]

Glad to have you back! Hope you had a fabulous stint at the local green party!

Seems with Alpine A110 and Cherokee/XJ we have some commonalities in taste. Congrats on your new hobby toy and success with the works on it. Keep us all updated.