Soon to be 1985 GW Owner

[Tobynine9]

Y'all don't have a New Members section so I'll just post this here. Please relocate it if I somehow managed to miss something.

It's my first Jeep... ever. I'm looking forward to it. I've been looking for a solid, reliable 4x4 for daily use to keep the miles off of my 01 SS Camaro for quite some time now.

I found a 1985 Grand Wagoneer on Craigslist here in Houston with a fresh transmission rebuild for $2,500 with 115k on the clock. The owner's fiance is making him sell it. I'm picking it up Saturday afternoon for $2,000.

The Good: It starts and runs good. 4x4 works. 4 low works. VERY little body rust. NO frame rust. New-ish Dominator tires. No glass cracks. Aftermarket Sony CD player with Sony speakers. The chrome seems to be all there and in OK shape. It's got a hitch.

The Bad:
-The passenger window is stuck up. The motor will churn but it won't move.
-The rear tailgate window sometimes comes down, sometimes doesn't.
-It's got a decent exhaust leak on the passenger side.
-It has current tags but the smog pump has the belt removed. Not sure how it passed emissions... Headers...?
-The front interior door panels are missing. I'm thinking of getting some sheet metal, trimming to fit and riveting my own. Anyone tried that?
-The fan shroud is torn up. Anyone swapped to an electric fan set up?
-The wood panelling is... CRAP.

First thing, a full tune up: plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, pickup, timing set, oil change, coolant flush, diff oil changes, air cleaner, etc. Shouldn't be too hard.

In general, I'm thinkin of a 4" lift from BJ's with the cheaper Rancho shocks. All the carpet and the rear seats are coming out. I want to coat the floor boards. Should I get that done or do it myself? Recommendations?

I need a quick lesson on using the 4x4 and transfer case. It's shift on they fly for 4 High, right? Do I need to go in and out of park to shift to 4 low? The tailgate has the SelecTrac emblem. What does that mean?

Thanks for all the help. I'm excited to get into it.

[grand_wag_85]

Welcome aboard! My first Jeep was an '85 Grand Wagoneer too.

The transfercase you have is the NP229, there'll be a vacuum switch on the dash for 2HI to 4HI and a lever on the floor that'll take it from 4HI to 4LO, NEVER put it in 4LO from 2HI

The cool thing about Selec-Trac is that you can shift on the fly, just don't give it gas or turn, and you can run in 4HI on dry pavement w/o any negative affects. 4LO is Part Time, you can ONLY use it on loose gravel& whatnot, but good for off-roading if that's your gig. 4LO is best 'entered' at a stop or slow crawl, up to 3MPH, in neutral.

Post up some pics when ya get the 'ol girl home.

[gmarblestone]

howdy from houston, Galleria area.

Lets see... i saw that craigslist is it the red one? I told that guy he made a mistake putting 2500 into a tranny rebuild.

Windows are pretty easy to fix. They are brush motors so if it makes sound there are two issues. One, the track is broken. new tracks can be bought at jeep dealer for like 20 bux. OR the motor brushes need to be cleaned... FREE!

4wd low you can do exactly as described above... but if you want to do it the VERY easy way... put car in drive... put in 4wd.... move about 10 feet. KEEP FOOT ON BRAKE... TURN OFF CAR AND PUT IN NEUTRAL... Put lever to low... it will happen REALLY easy.... start car and go on your way... with SUPER powers!

Hope it helps..

Grant

Y'all don't have a New Members section so I'll just post this here. Please relocate it if I somehow managed to miss something.

It's my first Jeep... ever. I'm looking forward to it. I've been looking for a solid, reliable 4x4 for daily use to keep the miles off of my 01 SS Camaro for quite some time now.

I found a 1985 Grand Wagoneer on Craigslist here in Houston with a fresh transmission rebuild for $2,500 with 115k on the clock. The owner's fiance is making him sell it. I'm picking it up Saturday afternoon for $2,000.

The Good: It starts and runs good. 4x4 works. 4 low works. VERY little body rust. NO frame rust. New-ish Dominator tires. No glass cracks. Aftermarket Sony CD player with Sony speakers. The chrome seems to be all there and in OK shape. It's got a hitch.

The Bad:
-The passenger window is stuck up. The motor will churn but it won't move.
-The rear tailgate window sometimes comes down, sometimes doesn't.
-It's got a decent exhaust leak on the passenger side.
-It has current tags but the smog pump has the belt removed. Not sure how it passed emissions... Headers...?
-The front interior door panels are missing. I'm thinking of getting some sheet metal, trimming to fit and riveting my own. Anyone tried that?
-The fan shroud is torn up. Anyone swapped to an electric fan set up?
-The wood panelling is... CRAP.

First thing, a full tune up: plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, pickup, timing set, oil change, coolant flush, diff oil changes, air cleaner, etc. Shouldn't be too hard.

In general, I'm thinkin of a 4" lift from BJ's with the cheaper Rancho shocks. All the carpet and the rear seats are coming out. I want to coat the floor boards. Should I get that done or do it myself? Recommendations?

I need a quick lesson on using the 4x4 and transfer case. It's shift on they fly for 4 High, right? Do I need to go in and out of park to shift to 4 low? The tailgate has the SelecTrac emblem. What does that mean?

Thanks for all the help. I'm excited to get into it.

[DanHS]

Welcome! Sounds like a good find. The fan shroud usually cracks and falls apart on these. You can find replacements in the junkyard or from the various FSJ vendors. Switching to the electric fan from a Taurus with the 3.8l engine is a popular swap amongst the offroad crowd, I did it and it works very well, I'll eventually do a good write up on it, I have a post on it around here somewhere. I'd reccommend swapping to a higher output alternator with the Taurus fan though. Several people have made their own door panels from sheetmetal or plastic panel, anything is better than cardboard. I plan to do the lower portion of my door panels with diamond plate and paint it black.

Selectrac is what they called the New Proccess 2wd/fulltime/part time transfer cases (as opposed to Quadratrac with the Borg Warner fulltime/part time cases). On yours you can just switch between 2wd and 4wd while driving, and 4lo as in the above mentioned methods. On '83-84 Jeeps you have to stop before shifting into 4wd because of the disconnect front axle. I plan to swap in a later front axle on mine to eliminate that. Make sure you shift into 4lo every now and then and keep the linkage lubed because they tend to bind up otherwise.

When you do your tune up, get the larger cap and rotor from a later Ford with the adapter ring. See my sig for that 'tfi' upgrade and do a search on it.

[Jeep4myBoys]

Congrats - sounds like a good find and a good deal. As far as the rear window, make sure the tailgate is shut firmly. Sometimes on mine if the tailgate isn't shut firmly, the window won't budge, but pressure at the top corners of the tailgate will engage the motor.

And do a search for door panels, I forget who, but there was a great writeup on making your own.

[strat-O-master]

-The rear tailgate window sometimes comes down, sometimes doesn't.

I had the same problem with my 86. The first thing I did was clean the ground and all the connectors to the motor and put dielectric grease on them. I think you will find most problems like that can be fixed with a wire brush and contact cleaner. Good luck

[Tobynine9]

Thanks for all the input, y'all.

I hope I don't find any worms when I open the can.

[HeavyHauler]

Welcome aboard. Most of the bad is easily fixed. Are you going to keep the "wood"?

[Tobynine9]

I dunno how y'all feel about the wood... but, I'm not digging it. I'm not looking for a beauty queen. Ideally, I'd like to spend as little as possible on the Jeep as the whole point of buying it was to give me something to drive while I do larger projects on the SS. But, of course... I'll probably get hooked like I do with most projects and end up going overboard. Back to the wood, eventually I'll probably pull all the wood off, fill in the holes and do an inexpensive repaint.

[Tobynine9]

UPDATE:

I did the TFI coil with MSD cap-a-dapt rotor and cap and 9mm Ford wires. The vacuum system is now limited to the bare minimums. The diff oils are new and clean. New front brake calipers. Fresh engine oil. Most of the carpet is gone. I'll strip the rest and either line it myself or get that done (hopefully) sometime in the next week. Ordering BJ's 4" lift on Monday. Skyjacker is running a special on their Hydro shocks this month so I'll probably use those.

The steering is super sloppy. Anything I can do to tighten that up?

[Ristow]

hello!

'85 is a nice year,older dash style with all the creature comforts.

on the steering,check all the ball joints,and tie rod ends.

the steering box may need an adjustment,but i'm not gonna go into it because if you don't know what you're doing you shouldn't be messing with it.

reman steering boxes are not too terribly expensive,and there is also the S10 box upgrade to look into.

[grand_wag_85]

Don't forget the rag joints!