Practically Classics Forum

alabbasi wrote:

arceye wrote:I actually quite like that, and if not actually "classic"

They've been around since 1984 which make them close to 30 years old. I see man younger cars being discussed on this forum as classics, I see no reason why this wouldn't.

I was refering to the OP's original post in which he states

"Before anyone says "too young to be a classic" just remember that these went on sale in 1984 so have been around as long as the mk2 Golf."

To which I was kind of giving my approval of vehicle of choice by the full statement of

"I actually quite like that, and if not actually "classic" the model has been about awhile. Reading the last PC magazine, I did a double take over the Renault Espace, but that too has been around a while, so if the Renaults good enough for them.........."

Hopefully context is everything.

As someone who, besides his Riley openly posts about his 1990 Merc & BMW I think I was showing my agreement as to the choice being fit for this site.


No arguing what is a classic here.

Just thought I'd clarify that, if I got the wrong of the stick then forgive me.

I suppose quite a few diesel engines could fit. Strangely enough, the 2.5 TD engine in the Jeep, was also used by Rover, in their 800. Probably the most annoying thing on mine, was having 3/4's of a tank of fuel and watching it go to zero and the fuel light come on, everytime I went around a corner. It made me stare at the gauge even more ( Which wasn't a good thing )

Here goes with the big arches:

This is what the original flares look like:


This is the kit of wider flares. Single-piece front flares, two-piece rears (part for the door part for the wing) and two funny looking bits that have yet to be identified! :


I used fibreglass matting and resin to beef up the areas where the bolts go through (sorry no "after" pic just yet):


There were no instructions or bolts but it's not rocket science. Whip off the original flares, offer up the new ones and get an idea where the slightly mis-shapen fibreglas needs to be trimmed. Then get brave with the angle grinder and attack the wing!


This is what came off:


After drilling a load of holes in the flares and the wing (all rust treated and painted), I used some small bore irrigation tube (split down the middle) to edge the lip that presses up against the wing. Then I bolted it into place with some nice M8 hex headed bolts. The area under the front end of the flare has been left untrimmed for now - once I've get everything in place I'll trim/fold/paint it to tidy it up.


Then it's time to tackle the other side. Here you can see the mounting holes. No going back now! You can also see here the lift springs and uprated shocks that I had fitted some time back (about 1.75" of lift). Needless to say, this side took a lot less time than the first!


You'll probably have noticed that the new flares cover the area of the side repeaters. i have fitted some LED indicator repeaters to the mirrors (you can see them in the last three shots) and will see if there is somewhere convenient to refit the side repeaters - probably above the crease line.

Now the rears are going to be a bit more tricky because there are some double skinned, areas that I really don't want to trim because it would weaken the shell (where the inner arches meet the rear wings) so I will have to fold, weld and paint those bits and spend more time trimming the flares.

I'm reasonably pleased with them although the rear end of the front left flare is a rather poor fit at the bottom of the wing and could do with building up - but that's a job for another time. Rears first!

Also, the wheels look a little lost now (as expected) so I may swap them for the ones on my red Grand Cherokee which have a wider offset or fit spacers. Hopefully I'll get one or both rear arches done this weekend.

Driver's side arch on:


The plastic "beading":


Never mind the quality, feel the width :


A gap that even a Range Rover would be ashamed of!


Rear arch:


All 4 arches on:


Relocated side repeater and Cherokee badge



I'm reasonably pleased with the results but it's not a job I fancy repeating any time soon. I'll be charitable and say that "the fit could have been better" - in fact, I think that the arch flares were made by someone who had once seen a Cherokee from a distance but never actually got close enough to measure up . A LOT of fettling was required - perhaps made worse by the fact that I did not want to trim the rear wings/inner wheelarches because of the risk of weakening the structure, so I just folded the lip of the wheelarch up into the inner arch (forgot to take photos, though).

Now for some spacers for the wheels so that they can fill those arches.

Thankfully the new radiator was a whole different kettle of fish. Beautifully made and it slotted straight in with no troubles. I flushed the cooling system, changed a few hoses and fitted a new expansion tank and everything was fine - for one whole day until the water pump munched its seals! So it all had to come out again for a new water pump to go in. on the plus side, I also took the opportunity to fit a heavy duty viscous clutch to the fan so it should help cooling, too. So far so good.............

These Jeeps are not very good all round when it comes to cooling - and the engine ECU is prone to overheating and causing loss of power, uncommanded shutdowns and poor starting. Jeep didn't make life any easier by placing it right next to the radiator. Here is the offending article

and this is where it lives:


I remembered that my Chrysler used to feed the intake air through the EC U to keep it cool and thought I would see if I could borrow a bit from that idea. So I cut a hole in the filter box to draw air from the area around the ECU....

....and put a shroud (old food container!) around the ECU to connect it to the filter box....

.... then opened up the bottom of the "shroud" and ECU case to draw air past the computer on its way to the filter box....

....and put it all back together using a tube to connect the filter box and shroud.



I've only been out once since but despite outside air temperatures of 45C+ the Jeep stayed running (when required) and only once did it take me a couple of attempts to restart after a shutdown (better than normal). I might look at ducting air to the shroud from a cooler part of the car (perhaps the heater intake area) to see if that helps more. When the weather cools a bit and working on the car is easier, I may try relocating the ECU to the interior of the car - after all, it works for people like Honda.

Another thing that annoyed me is the lack of cup holders - it has NONE which is unforgivable in a Yank car and a serious omission for this part of the world. Just by chance, I found an aftermarket one at http://www.rockauto.com for $6.16 (how do they get those prices?) so bought one.

It mounts on the front of the centre armrest, over the handbrake lever, where it slightly restricts handbrake movement. My handbrake is in need of adjustment so will need to be adjusted before I fit the cupholder but otherwise it should do the job. I don't imagine that it's deep enough to keep a can in place off-road but will do the job on-road OK.

Another job done on the Jeep - wheel spacers. After fitting the flared arches with the aim of giving more clearance for suspension travel, the bodywork is a bit wider and the wheels looked a touch lost. So, Ebay.com came to the rescue with a set of 1.25" aluminium wheel spacers at an attractive price (certainly better value than wider wheels and new tyres!)
Before and after pictures (taken in the dark because that's when the temperature drops to sensible levels - i.e. below 40C):




In daylight:


I also fitted the cupholder after adjusting the handbrake so that the lever doesn't foul on it:


Now for a few more mods to the cooling system......coming soon.

The radiator fan shroud disintegrated a few weeks ago on an offroad trip. The problem is that with no shroud there is a lower volume of air drawn through the radiator. My local parts shop had one on stock, so that's now back to standard spec.


The electric cooling fan is used to supplement the mechanical fan when the engine warms up and when the aircon is on. The original type of fan used up to 1997 had six, straight blades and was very noisy - mine especially so as the bearings in the motor were wearing out.

The 1998-onwards fan has 10 curved blades and is supposed to move more air whilst being cooler. My local parts shop had them in stock at an attractive price so the old fan has been replaced by this:

It's certainly quieter and smoother (less vibration) and does seem to move lots of air - I've no idea if it's more effective but it's worth a try. I was going to fit one to replace the mechanical fan because that is supposed to be the best setup but unfortunately my uprated radiator is thicker than the original and there is not enough space between the rad and the belt pulley on the engine. Bum (although I may be able to create more space using the drive pulleys from a Grand Cherokee).

Lastly for now, the chrome plated moldings around the headlights were cracked and broken so I bought some cheap, black ones and sprayed the grille black to match. I've never liked the chrome look so I'm much happier with this, especially now that it matches the flared arches.

Next stage in the attempt to keep it cool:

On the last three or four trips out the XJ has cutout due to an overheated Powertrain Control Module (the engine management computer). Once it had cooled down it started and ran alright - but spending 15-20 minutes in the hot sun, melting icecubes on a scorching PCM is not really what it's all about.

One problem that causes this can be faulty electrical capacitors in the PCM (3 capacitors in total). One solutions is to spend about $500 buying and shipping in a new PCM but a search on the internet threw up guidance about replacing these capacitors at a total cost of under $10 including shipping. So guess which option I went for! Last night I replaced the capacitors with new, upgraded ones, a job which took about 2 hours whilst working at a "relaxed" pace. The Jeep runs OK and after I thrashed it up the local mountain, Jebel Hafeet, to get it nice and hot it still started on the first turn of the key. However, I need a proper desert run to see if I can break it again

It's a really easy fix to do: remove PCM from Jeep, open it up, scrape waterproof sealant away from around the capacitors, desolder the old ones, solder in the new ones (make sure they're round the right way), seal wih silicon sealant and refit PCM. These photos come from jeepforum .com http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/cras ... cu-492597/

Sep 29:
Well, I did this capacitor and all seems well so far. I have tried to overheat the ECU on the trip on thursday afternoon and it didn't shut down on me - plus when I shut the engine off it restarted perfectly, which it didn't do before. Fingers crossed. Apparently the faulty capacitors also cause a loss of power and whilst the Jeep seemes to pull better from lower revs, my guess is that I am just experiencing a placebo effect.

I have done a couple of other jobs - no pictures yet.

One was to (finally) fit the polyurethane spring bushes to the rear leaf springs. This involves drilling ou the old rubber bushes as well as removing the metal sleeves in which they sit. Lots of drilling, lots of noise, lots of chiseling out the sleeves but job now done. It was just as well really because the old rubber bushes were crumbling away and this was giving the rear end a wayward feel. It feels more taut now, but also more bouncy.

I had to have the steering box rebuilt last week because it had a lot of play in it and was leaking quite badly - as was the pump, it transpired. I had the job done by Mehran's garage and asked them to investigate a back end noise which turned out to be a knackered rear wheel bearing, so I had that replaced at the same time. These are some of the few jobs that I don't feel comfortable doing so I am happy to farm them out.

Something that I DID do for myself was fix the faulty electrically powered seat base on the front passenger seat. Actually, I didn't fix it, I just replaced it with a manual one - I bought a pair of wrong coloured seats from a scrapyard (beige instead of my grey) and swapped the base over. Whilst at it, I took a look at the driver's seat and was glad I did because I found no fewer than 4 significant cracks in the frame, a common problem on Jeeps of this era. A few minutes with my "stick" welder and all is well.

I still have the beige front seats and because they are a kind of heavy duty cotton weave material (which looks a bit like tweed) I am considering fitting them to my Grand Cherokee in place of the nylon covered ones in there at the moment. They'll need a damned good cleanup, though!

Oct 4th:
I spoke too soon. I got part way through the Brunch trip today and ran into the stalling/refusing to start problem. I'm now faced with 4 options:

a) sell it
b) replace the Powertrain Control Module with a new one at $300+
c) relocate the PCM to the inside of the car to (hopefully) keep it cooler
d) a combination of b & c

Right now, I just want to set fire to it.................