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Keep driving it !

wish

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Austin, MN
Sorry, this is mostly a venting post, but if you guys have a Jeep (or anything) that's fallen by the way-side for daily driving status ... keep driving it or at least moving it around regularly.

A couple weeks ago I finally got the 84 back into daily driver status I thought. A week after driving it daily to and from work (only a couple miles, max speed usually 50ish), the belt goes out while my wife's driving it to a dr's appointment. Turns out it's the power steering pump being out of line (see thread on said topic, not the first time this had happened).

Got that fixed up and today I took it up on the highway for the first time since getting the new tranny in and everything. It was warmish, but not anywhere near summer yet (60ish), so I was thinking it wouldn't risk overheating much. Guess what ... yup, got REALLY warm when I got off the interstate ... then I heard it ... the belt ... squeal-quiet-squeal-squeal-quiet. Obviously there was an unhappy bearing and it was trying to sieze up as the engine would stutter in time with the squeal starting. Of course it's also running really warm, so I'm thinking it's probably the waterpump, but I really need to cool this thing off. I keep going figuring it's not going to be any worse than when my wife threw the belt earlier in the week. A couple miles later I notice the volt meter is down around 8V.

Let it cool off while I do some shopping, fire it up and it's back up to 13V and quiet (and cooler). It sits in the driveway for a few hours, fire it up to put it in the garage ... chirping away and 8V again. Along with a returned transmission fluid spot! Arrrg! (pan gasket didn't seal up right from the rebuild shop it seems)

So why keep driving it ? Because things like this wouldn't all show up at the same time and you'll keep things lubed up and moving. We've had this back for 3 years now after it was gone for 3 years and it's only now getting to daily driver status again, so you can imagine the shape of the seals and such. The three years it was out of my wife's posession the guy just kept driving it without repairing anything. The front air-dam was bent clear under, the exhaust manifold was cracked, there had been a small engine fire that burned out a bunch of wiring, the vacuum lines were broken and disconnected randomly ... just general maintenance stuff.

Anyway just my venting, and I hope it helps someone who is trying to decide what to do with their non-daily driven vehicle.

Bill
 
I don't want to sound like an asshole, but what do you expect for a jeep that is more than 20 years old? Stuff like this happens, and it takes alot of work to make it driveable. Don't give up, working on the jeep is half of the fun of owning it.
 
junkxj said:
I don't want to sound like an asshole, but what do you expect for a jeep that is more than 20 years old?

There are so many comments to this. The bottom line is that the Jeep is not our oldest vehicle, and I'm quite aware of what is entailed in maintaining an "old" vehicle. That doesn't make it any less annoying or frustrating.

As it turned out, the alternator was not actually the culprit. Well it was, but actually it was the adjuster had slipped. There's a chirping showing up, but it seems more like the a/c at this point. Fortunately though, everything seems to be doing a lot better with the belt re-tightened and both bolts snugged down on it. Also discovered a fuel leak while I was in there and tightened up the clamp to keep that from becoming a problem.

Now to figure out how to fix the overheating if it is still doing it with the belt tightened up properly.

Bill
 
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