A little update
Smurfette
Jeeper
Hey everyone! Just thought I would post a little update from my intro thread. If you didnt read that its here: http://www.jeep-cj.com/forums/f60/new-sunshine-state-5841/
Well, got her all cleaned up about a week ago. My fiance and I stripped the interior and we cleaned out all the dirt and other random that it had accumulated from sitting. We got it all reassembled and went on our maiden voyage, and what a scary one it was. The steering in this bad boy was aaaalllll over the place. Our maiden voyage took us to Discount Auto Parts to get a new windshield wiper and some new seat covers. As luck would have it, the battery died while we were there. They came out and tested it, and sure enough it was bad. Got a new one and we were on our way.
On the way back to the house we stopped by my dads to rub it in a little, he showed us how to tighten up the gear box for the steering which helped a tiny bit. When we finally got back to the house that night Corey (my fiance) did some researching on this site and found the incredibly helpful "Troubleshooting and Correcting Your Steering" thread. After reading through that and spending about 10 minutes under the jeep he came to the conclusion that all of the tie rod ends were bad and that the caster might be off due to the jeep having a shackle lift.
So that brings us to today. Three out of the four tie rod ends have been replaced, waitin on one that'll be here in the mail tomorrow. Friday he's gonna pick up an angle finder to investigate the caster. The jeep also had a pretty decent oil leak from under the valve cover, so a new gasket was put in and has remained dry for the 5 days its been in so far. And the starter was dragging really bad, so we got a new one and installed that as well.
We took it out for some long over-due trail riding on Sunday after church. Here's some pics, we forgot to get some of it all cleaned up, so you get crappy cell phone off roading pics. But its a Jeep. That's what you want, right?
Well, got her all cleaned up about a week ago. My fiance and I stripped the interior and we cleaned out all the dirt and other random that it had accumulated from sitting. We got it all reassembled and went on our maiden voyage, and what a scary one it was. The steering in this bad boy was aaaalllll over the place. Our maiden voyage took us to Discount Auto Parts to get a new windshield wiper and some new seat covers. As luck would have it, the battery died while we were there. They came out and tested it, and sure enough it was bad. Got a new one and we were on our way.
On the way back to the house we stopped by my dads to rub it in a little, he showed us how to tighten up the gear box for the steering which helped a tiny bit. When we finally got back to the house that night Corey (my fiance) did some researching on this site and found the incredibly helpful "Troubleshooting and Correcting Your Steering" thread. After reading through that and spending about 10 minutes under the jeep he came to the conclusion that all of the tie rod ends were bad and that the caster might be off due to the jeep having a shackle lift.
So that brings us to today. Three out of the four tie rod ends have been replaced, waitin on one that'll be here in the mail tomorrow. Friday he's gonna pick up an angle finder to investigate the caster. The jeep also had a pretty decent oil leak from under the valve cover, so a new gasket was put in and has remained dry for the 5 days its been in so far. And the starter was dragging really bad, so we got a new one and installed that as well.
We took it out for some long over-due trail riding on Sunday after church. Here's some pics, we forgot to get some of it all cleaned up, so you get crappy cell phone off roading pics. But its a Jeep. That's what you want, right?