Don't forget that the heater and A/C don't work. I suspect the climate control head or the wiring to it. The heater core could have been blocked off at some point during the series of "mechanics" who have worked on/destroyed this jeep too.
The oil pressure guague doesn't work, which is commonly an issue on these XJs when people carelessly replace the oil filter and knock the sending unit around.
It should have a new sending unit since the gas gauge doesn't work (the old sender wasn't going to work so I removed the float and float arm to ease assembly and disassembly
I still never put the hose clamps down on the sender hoping that we would find a sending unit.
There is a small leak at the fuel pressure regulator due to a faulty o-ring that none of the aftermarket parts stores seem to carry.
The wiring to the fuel pump needs to be zip-tied into place permenantly, not just taped in 3 places.
We need to stick some epoxy into the floor pan where we ran the wires through the floor. If for no other reason than to protect the insulation on the wires.
I'm very very concerned about the accuracy of the temperature gauge. I don't believe that cooling system. I certainly wouldn't trust the array of cheap heater hoses holding it all together.
My list of things to do:
1) Fix that O-ring on the fuel rail. It's a really small leak but it could prove dangerous all the same.
2) Bolt down the fuel rail and install all the box clips and wire clips for the injectors. While we're in the vicinity, the vaccum hose for the MAP sensor can be replaced so I can hang it back on the firewall where it belongs, instead of leaving it lay next to the valvecover on the intake manifold.
3) Change the engine crud - I mean oil!
4) While I"m changing the oil and filter, we'll look at the oil pressure sender and see if it appears to be at all battered out of place.
5) Tie up the fuel pump wiring with zip ties, and coil up whatever dangles we end up with. Probably look at the most feasible routing through the engine compartment at this point too.
6) Buy a cheap muffler or possibly just borrow a welder.
7) Figure out how to turn off the dash lights and get the turn signals working. Whether that means running more of our own "custom" wiring, or tearing into the spiderweb that's there, I don't know... I'm probably going to wait for nicer weather do do that job.
8) Wire in a switch to the cooling fan. This will be necesary during the summer I am sure.
9) Break off the battery terminal bolts that we presently can't tighten or loosen and put in good bolts. The terminals are otherwise OK, and I don't have the crimper tool to put new terminals on it anyway. We'll probably do this sooner on the list rather than later, although right now it's easy to connect and disconnect the battery - good because the battery drains itself with the instrument cluster lighting.
10) Look at that climate control system and figure out what the #)(@#)($ is wrong with it. I thought for some reason it was electronically controlled on the XJ, but if it's vaccum controlled, we could be in for some trouble given the even worse rat's nest that is the vaccum layout on this Jeep.
11) Iron out the driver's door - it feels like it's gonna fall off. I might even take it to my community college auto body class and pop the dent in the driver's fender.
This is a (more or less) sequential list of what I personally planned to put into this Heep. It's a lot more work than it sounds, working outside with almost no tools in a parking lot that is still mostly snow and ice. I'd say 2 or 3 reasonably well planned days and we'll have the majority of the kinks ironed out though.
Anybody have any interesting suggestions on what else to do? Maybe we can post some pictures of the odd cooling system setup and figure out how to determine the accuracy of the coolant temperature sensor, which I assume feeds the temperature gauge...
