1982 Cherokee Laredo Build aka "Crusty"

[Carol1982]

This is the story of a build, that really wasn't supposed to be a build. I hope my pics help other folks on the forums, as it seems many of us are doing the same things! or maybe it will just give someone a good laugh...

Hence, the story of "Crusty" and WHY I even bought Crusty begins...
(remind me why I bought Crusty???!!! )

It all started with this sign 4x4 ONLY



The 4x4 sign is posted on the trail (road?) to my new cabin in the mountains of West Texas (yes, Texas has mountains) The road is pretty brutal and I had never driven off road much, mainly going up a mountain. This was a whole new experience for me, but I also like an adventure.

[Carol1982]

Then it RAINED, THE MOUNTAIN TURNED TO MUD. "Big Jeep" (her name) wasn't very happy about getting her new Michelin street tires and body cavities all covered in mud. She is supposed to be a classy street Jeep, even tho she didn't let us fall off a cliff as we slid down the mountain thru the mud. Good Jeep



We kept passing this 1970 something Wagoneer that was abandoned on the side of my street, trail thing. I tracked down the owner and it was for sale, but I think the mice bought it already. I kept thinking, maybe I could find an old Jeep and put mud tires on it, to use for mountain climbing and I wouldn't be destroying my beautiful Grand Cherokee...I was looking for a CRUSTY Jeep!



Figures, on my way home from West Texas, a Crusty Jeep appeared....and it was for sale....and I can be irrational, impulsive at times....






It even had a cool plaque on the dash from when it was built new! Wow!



Engine did run, after taking quite a while to start it...



I was HOPING, that it just needed a good tune-up, and I would be good to go, just buy some Mud tires for it and climb my mountain....(insert, need head examined)
Should have known I would not be one of those lucky people, that get a diamond for the price of a piece of gravel. BUT she did have a lot of good qualities! I called my old friend who is a mechanic for a living and asked if he could help me if I bought the 82 Jeep. I was much more familiar with early 1970 cars, this thing was out of my league....He said Yes...(little did he know that for the next year, he would have a bonding experience with Crusty)

Here is my 99' Cherokee talking to Crusty
"WOW, you found my long lost Grandma!"



I also somehow forgot that I can't own anything too Crusty, as I am a slight perfectionist...but in hindsight....a little cleaning and paint....sure!

Crusty drives home...she seemed to do OK....for that ONE day (one hour?)

[URL=http://s1056.photobucket.com/user/Crusty1982/media/a%20drive%20home_zps1zimwele.jpg.html][/URL

Giving her a really good bath....I was pretty happy with the over-all shape of the interior and having no rust holes, just a few door dings and original paint. (one quarter panel was repainted and paint was cracked)She had not had a bath in years....thick scum and mold and paint faded bad in a few spots.



But after her bath, she started to misbehave. I couldn't get her started to move to the next staging area, so I could start vacuuming and buffing. Little Jeep had to tug her around the driveway....(don't do this alone, Crusty started to roll and I had to hold her back before she ran into the front of my little jeep)



Started rubbing....and rubbing...RUBBING!
on the right a slight shine is starting to appear....kinda looks like tanned leather...interesting look...



Then I got out the heavy duty buffer to see what that might do, other than herniate the disk in my neck....youchy wish I didn't do all that...I forgot I am getting old!



Not too bad really, compared to before, I just need a new body now, ouchy...





I took black paint and a tiny brush and re-painted the JEEP logo and all the little lines in the grill that were faded away...I like doing that kinda stuff for some odd reason... SHE IS SHINEY (or at least shinier)
I wanted her to look as good as possible before my mechanic friend came to see what I had bought. Darn Jeep still wouldn't start, no matter what I did, so she just stayed at my back door a few days till help arrived.



A major tune-up came shortly, but during that phase of trying to get her to run better, I started doing other stuff to at least help her cosmetics.

Re-do the interior reflectors


Found silver paint that looked OK and masked them off, then slowing started to paint the black accents around them.



Took door panels off and cut all new water shields, sprayed anti-rust stuff down in the doors and took the little rubber broken door drains off.



I read on the forums to put some plastic in, so if water comes down, it will hit the plastic shield and go back into the door to drain, so on the big holes, I pushed the bottom of plastic back in.



Then I covered the whole thing with my pre-cut piece. Probably over-kill, but it kept me out of trouble.



I was very happy all my door panels are in good shape. I also took the peeling piece of vinyl that was on the top of all the doors off and cleaned that area good to get old adhesive off...looks better.

[Carol1982]

The front doors look good with my repainted plastic reflector, but the only thing I'm not happy with is the reproduction pull-strap from TGW, it doesn't really match correctly and the chrome insert has spots in it, I didn't put the screw cover pieces on yet, incase I find better pull straps. Once they are on, they probably will break coming off.



Then I found a steering wheel cover that actually matches nutmeg! I got the steering wheel all cleaned up and also took one of those small silver paint pens you can buy at Home Depot, and touched up all the faded and worn off interior striping.



You can see around the clock and ashtray and the AC controls that that silver pen helped a lot. All of my vents were very, very loose also, the PO had put tape on them to hold them, but I cut a small piece of felt and put it with a thin razor blade on either side of each vent and it worked to snug them up. Kind of a girl rigging, I guess.



I had a piece of extra outdoor material and I sewed a new jack bag. Don't laugh!



New speakers to replace all the blown ones, too bad I don't have the original radio...oh well....she is not a show jeep!



Interesting how Jeeps changed over 30 years



Back to the darn ENGINE....argh!!!!!
She has a problem, she is loosing power, getting worse and worse, and no matter what we do, she is dying.....sniff....sniff

Out she goes.....don't have a choice
Pulled it out with my tractor, that was fun, I cleared the front grill by and inch...PHEW!



Crusty's crusty engine goes home with my mechanic friend for a re-build...We talked about just buying another rebuilt, but I like to keep things original. geez



Humm, looks like part of the problem is found



During the spring, I thought I would start bugging the local junkyard to let me IN!
At first, they claimed they didn't have any 1980 FSJ's, until I spotted one through their fence.
The guys didn't think I was serious, or something?? but I finally succeeded in convincing them to let me in...I guess normal women don't want to go in a junkyard. I always thought it was cool, like a treasure hunt...
Got the grand tour and there were quite a few in there! WOW!

Things I found were the rear spoiler
Dash part with fog light switch, which prompted me to find the fog lights!

Then I was hunting around for good original floor mats, the guy there collected a pile of nasty ones and gave them to me...I actually made a set out of them, but the backs are so slippery, they don't stay on my shag carpet well (geez after all that work!)









Nasty floormats, but they are original!



I was able to get them to this point, but I'm not gonna use them after all that work!

[Carol1982]

Then on to my job of cleaning and cleaning...
This poor Jeep didn't seem to be abused, but it has been very neglected over the years, which is just as bad.



Can't put a nice clean engine into a dirty engine compartment! Finally the engine goes back in, we had a lot of fun getting everything situated, but it finally went in.



Not too shabby compared to the day I bought it...I also found a new product in the cleaning isle of Home Depot called "Lestoil" that I think I used gallons of...I like it!





After a bit of spitting and farting and mechanic friend yelling at her, she finally started and moved after quite a few months of sitting while the engine was being done.

[Carol1982]

Onward thru the fog....this Jeep was supposed to be easy, but it has been anything but that!

I had taken Crusty up the road to the gas station, tried to fill up the tank, gas started pouring out from under her. I'm slightly freaking out....I left a trail of gas all the way back home. Thank God it is only 1 mile.

Time to take the darn gas tank out to see what the problem is NOW!



Hummm, the crack is found...bummer!
a bolt from the front seat was too long and somehow finally cracked the tank.



This whole episode promotes more things to be cleaned and painted!



Cleaning and painting driveshafts is the pits! Glad I have a lot of tress to hang auto parts from.



I'm so proud of my gas tank coffin skid plate thingy! I'm the queen of spray paint. Hammered silver looked nice.



My life for the next week was crawling under here with Brillo pads and cleaning and touching up anything I could get my hands on. It was a messy job, but someone had to do it, before the gas tank and everything else went back in.
It started out as a very daunting task, but I am so happy with the results.



Hope I'm not polluting the world too badly with Crusty slime.



Scary under there, but I also hated seeing so much dirt. (humm, she was supposed to be a muddy mountain climber) Oh well, at least this way the mud won't stick to the grease goo.



The front end. I also wanted to paint the leaf springs. Those can be seen when the car is on the ground. I used rustoleum BBQ paint and a brush, after it was cleaned up. We have reddish-brown colored dirt here, so what might look like rust, was dirt. The leaf springs did have some light rust tho.



Better...also replaced the front stabilizer bar...I see its missing in this pic.



Rear end area....what a job...I sure wanted to take the body off the frame after crawling around under there all week.

[Carol1982]

NEW/OLD GAS TANK ARRIVED and all the other new hoses and parts associated with the gas tank $

Thank you Zack from Z&M Jeeps



Also time for all new brakes too







CRUSTY PASSED HER INSPECTION....YIPPEE She does attract attention from some people, other people just probably think I'm very poor driving an old beastly creature



It wasn't long before MORE problems appeared...NOW WHAT!! ???



Transfer case has a crack...more rebuilding and $
The crack was on the very top, but she started dripping and making a few clunk noises, so that had to be addressed.



She is dead



Rebuild Np 219, luckily a guy in San Antonio works on these.
Also in pic, I had a crack in my viscous coupler that caused all the silicone to leak out, and the chain was loose etc etc etc Poor old Crusty



my little N219 tag...It took hours for both of us to get that heavy case in while lying on the garage floor, with a crappy jack...finally my foot shoved it in...Yippee for leg power!




While all that was going on, my new tires finally came, so I took all my old tires to the shop to be broken down so I can paint my rims.
My tractor comes in handy, as I don't have a pick-up truck to carry all these tires around and they are HEAVY! ha! Plus, living in very rural texas, I can get away with this kinda crazy stuff.



Painting the backs of rims black, like they were originally



Front of rims...the left one is painted, the right one isn't. Paint matched pretty good. I used that hammered silver again, but tried not to get too much of a textured look when I painted them. I'm happy! Good enough! Semi-prissy!



Pretty center caps. Luckily the Jeep part of lettering is indented, so the white stayed in the lines

[Carol1982]

I'm almost up to date on this build now. I bought Crusty Dec. 2014 and shortly it will be 1 year I've owned her and learned more than I ever wanted to know about 1980's FSJ, but all the folks on this forum have been a great help!

Thanks to everyone! Mainly my friend mechanic which all this fun would not have been possible, if he had given up, but he took a liking to Crusty and I think Crusty likes him more than me!

Here Crusty Jeep sits with all her new BFG Mud Terrain tires, if she ever actually makes it to the West Texas mountains is still in question, but we will just keep plugging along.

I'm thinking of getting her transmission rebuilt and actually beating her to the next break down I believe is coming.

Stay tuned....

[Strode]

Great start on your thread, Carol. You've made alot of progress.

[Carol1982]

Thanks Brad, I'm trying to insert my trip to the junkyard thread, then I'll call it a day. I would have taken better pics, if I knew someone was actually interested in how a girl does these FSJ things!

[Atla]

Fantastic, very good progress!

Makes me want to grab a scraper and crawl under my truck for a week.

[MadMax78]

Awesome work Carol!

You've done an great job. Makes me want to go to the garage and work on mine. You make my work look like child's play. I will be in the garage tomorrow working on the play in the steering. Thank you for the motivation.

[Carol1982]

Thanks so much! It's funny how looking at other peoples build thread really gets you motivated (or possibly frustrated when you look at Strode or Crist's build)
But no matter what, it seems to give that needed kick in the butt to keep going!
My arm is pretty worn out and I'm getting neck surgery next month, so I think my scubbing days are nearing an end. For the moment, at least! I learned not to take a buffer to a roof the hard way!

[ls3waggy]

Great build! I've never seen a 4 door Cherokee before, that must be a rare find!

[MadMax78]

Sorry your not doing well. Praying for a quick recovery. I love looking at the build threads. It does give me motivation to keep going on mine. The rear end needs rebuilding in mine so I only drive it around the neighborhood right now. Wish I knew how 2 rebuild it myself. Could save some money for sure.

[cma]

what a nice thread!!!!