WARNING:
Car guy post ahead!

Shortly after @alovelymess and I arrived in Idaho, we began the search for a vehicle. We looked at a few but decided to pass on them for having too many problems. Finally, one morning I was browsing Craigslist and found this ad for a 94 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I emailed the guy and he called back later on and said we could come look at it. It only had 145,000 miles on it, which is great for a 94. This same guy bought it new in 94! After thinking about it, we picked it up for $700. It had some paint issues, along with a few other problems which is why it was so cheap.

After getting it home and inspecting further, I found the valve cover gaskets were leaking and causing it to smoke and smell like burning oil. It wasn't pleasant. In addition I found that our upper radiator hose was collapsed, so I grabbed a new one of those as well. I went online and ordered new parts, then installed them the next day.

Now, when we bought it the rear hatch would not open because the latch was so rusted, the handle couldn't move it. After multiple attempts at trying to "peacefully" open it, I went for the crowbar and angle grinder. After some extra motivation I finally got it open. Sadly, the old one was not repairable because it was so rusted. Which meant we have to ride around with a beautiful bright orange ratchet strap on the back!

Luckily, today I found a junkyard that had plenty of Grand Cherokee's. I found one and will be installing it tomorrow! Bye bye strap!

The power windows weren't working, and after looking at it I found the wires inside the door had broken. There's not enough room for the reach my hands in to repair it, so I just removed the whole door and repaired the wires by soldering them. They work great now!

My parents were here a week or so ago, so we showed them around a lot. After driving them an hour back to the airport, I noticed smoke coming from under the hood. I brushed it off and went on inside with them to catch their flight. When we came back out, I realized a nice puddle of fresh oil under it. After grabbing some more at Walmart and babying it back home, I found the common failure point of Jeeps. Oil Pressure Sensor. Over time, these go bad and begin puking oil out the back of the engine. I was able to replace it and so far so good! Although, now a coolant leak has appeared I need to find. I'm guessing a freeze plug on the back of the block, but i'll save that for a future post. Here's a picture of us driving by Fernan Lake in northern Idaho. Enjoy!

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