New Interior- Part II

Finally, I have shots of the updated, and cleaner interior. So, here's what's been replaced inside the truck: Carpet, seats, door panels (with wood trim!), centre console, steering column cover, and several light bulbs in the console. I had this silly idea of updating the dash and door panels to the '98 style, but decided against since I wouldn't have a clue how to do it and it was something I could not ask my friends to do. But what has been replaced has in my opinion increased the value of the truck by ten times. It doesn't feel dirty when you get inside, you don't have the urge to sanitize yourself after you exit the vehicle, it doesn't stink anymore, the door panels don't come away from the door when you pull it closed, and cops probably won't question if the truck is stolen anymore. I really like the '98 seats. The seperate adjustable headrests really give the interior an updated look.
I still can't believe how clean the new carpet looks. The old carpet was a loose-knit fibre that almost looked like shag carpet. The old carpet was supposed to be gray, but looked brown because it was caked with dried mud, crud and whatever other crap that was growing in it.
The '98 donor truck was missing the head-rests for the rear seats, so I nicked a pair out of another Cherokee. Unfortunately, it was a leather interior so I have a pair of leather head-rests for the rear seats....looks kinda weird, but they work.
Recall a similar view from my older posts? This carpet is so awesome, I can hardly believe it. I love this new carpet so much that sometimes I like to sit in the car with bare feet just to feel the incredibly awesome new carpet. Other goodies I found at the wreckers include a tire cover for the spare and a tonneau cover.
My fancy new centre console. I noticed the cupholders were bigger than the previous model, for those extra large Big-Gulps. The armrest is in great shape, and more importantly - clean. The inside of this console was lined with felt and cup-holders could be pulled out for the rear passengers.
My friends helped me do most of the work swapping out the carpet and seats. They even managed to maintain the power seats (which were not in the '98 donor truck). They pulled the seat base and mounting rails from my own truck, and mounted the newer seats on them. The front and back seats were a real pain in the @$$ because some of the bolts sheared so they had to drill out the sheared bolts and they finally managed to make it work.
Shiny new lenses. Note that there are no more gaping holes, and the coloration in the clear plastic is, well....clear. The headlamp lenses are still yellowed though and I probably won't bother with those unless I manage to find a nice pair for cheap.

My new carpet is practically mint, and so are the new floor mats. But this winter, I want to protect my floor mats, which are supposed to protect the carpet. I got myself some all-weather floormats from Walmart.
Gold Emblem
Silver Emblem.....WTF.
Some sweet overspray.
Well, after my buddy Jay replaced the front driver's side coil, the truck is no longer lop-sided. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it is definitely straighter, and taller. Jay put in the Rubicon Express budget boost which lifted the truck by about 2 inches.

The truck now has a nice new clean interior that doesn't make you want to vomit when you get in it. It feels new inside, but the outside still looks relatively crappy. I guess I should wash it sometime....maybe next year.

New Interior

As I posted before, the carpet that came with my Cherokee was nasty. It was moldy, and smelled like stale, wet gym clothes, with a hint of dead animal and chemical cleaner. The seats weren't much better. After my friends got the heater working, I had it on full crank with the windows down, hoping to dry off whatever mold was growing in the carpet and seats.....it didn't work. I love the seat pattern and the one-piece bucket seats.....yeah, I'm kidding, they're fugly.
They really had a 1970's feel to the design, even though the truck is a '93.


My pals Justin and Jay found seats and carpet out of a '98 that were practically mint, as well as new door panels (with wood trim!). I couldn't believe my luck. A few days ago, they spent an evening outside in -0 conditions ripping out my smelly interior then spent another night helping me put the new stuff in. I swear, it is like driving a brand-new truck. The exterior just doesn't match the interior anymore, everything is so new inside. One of these days, I'll get some decent shots of the interior installed.

Night shots

I was just out messing around with my camera and snapped off a couple of shots of the Jeep. It's hard to tell from these pics, but this Jeep was unusally low. Everytime I pulled up to another Cherokee, it felt like I was looking up at it.

New Heater Core!!!!

The previous owner was driving the truck all throughout summer and I guess there really wasn't much need for a heater up until then, but shortly after I got the truck, the weather got a little chilly and a working heater was going to be essential. My friend Justin and Jay had a look at the truck and noticed right away that the heater core had been bypassed. We plugged it back in and the next day, the passenger side carpet was soaked with coolant. Justin gave Lordco a call and I got myself a new heater core.The instructions we found online showed a simple diagram for us to remove three screws and the whole dashboard would come out. Not so easy, as you can tell on my buddy Jay's face. He was not amused. It was a nightmare to remove the dash, as well as the hoses in the engine bay (which I tore by accident whilst trying to remove them from the core). So, we got the dash out, and then came the casing that contained the core. We found no clear instructions on how to open this casing.

Well, it's been several weeks now and I have nice, hot air coming out of the vents and the carpets aren't soaked with coolant. I am a happy camper.

First shots.....filthy thing

Well, what can I say about this beast? It's certainly not refined like my previous vehicles, but it gets the job done. I needed a winter car, because the snow and salt was killing my little first gen Civic, and my friend Justin was getting tired of fixing it every year. My buddy Jay picked up a Grand Cherokee a few years ago, and had me sold on the idea of getting one for myself. Being broke as I was, and unemployed for some time, I was in no position to get anything really expensive. Jay looked all over the place and finally found one on Craigslist for dirt cheap. I guess I shouldn't complain too much since I didn't pay very much money for it and without my buddy's help, I'd probably be still without a decent winter car...but I think I have to gripe a little. So, here's the Jeep, and we went to check this thing out in the evening, and I was pretty much sold as soon as I saw it.....what can I say, it was cheap.Sure, there were a few bits here and there that weren't great, but that was okay. For example, some of the light lenses were messed up:.....and some more lenses......

The engine sounded great because it was apparently rebuilt recently, but I found later it had a few quirks. The heater core was bypassed because it was leaking. My friend Justin ordered a new heater core for me, and my buddy Jay helped me install it.....what a pain in the ass. I'll post more info on this later. Oh, what else, the battery was completely pooched. It smelled like really bad farts, boiled eggs and sulfur. Then it died and so I got a new one.

This Cherokee looked a little....off.....when I got it, and I couldn't quite place it. It looked almost lowered because everytime I pulled up to another Cherokee, I always seemed to be looking up at the other vehicle. Maybe because my tires were small, or maybe because the top coil on the driver's side front spring was cracked off. We nick-named her loppy because she was a bit lop-sided. Jay helped me fix that later.

Note the beautiful "West Coast Pinstriping". There was a missing part of the side moulding, and the other side is missing the entire bottom section. Well, I'm not too concerned about the finish on this car, after all, it is a winter beater. Like Jay, I take pride in the filthy appearance of this car. I haven't washed it since I got it, not even once. For those of you who know me, you can attest to how anal I am when it comes to my vehicles. They're usually washed and waxed before the ink on the insurance papers are dry.....not this one.

Moving on to the interior, note the steering wheel appears straight, but when I drive, it's almost at a 45 degree angle.....not a big concern, sort it out later. The leather wrap on the wheel has either been torn off or worn out really bad. Fixed that with a nice generic Crappy-Tire vinyl wrap. The seats were really worn out, and the bolsters and supports were all collapsed. Two of the door panels were cracked so when you pull the handle to close the door, half the panel would come away from the door. Also, I'm not sure if it was the seats or the carpet which was the source of the weird smell......

I was stopped by police one night and they suggested the truck may be stolen. After calling it in and looking at my insurance papers, I finally convinced them that I did indeed own it. My friend Justin helped me get a new cover for the steering column.

Lovely carpet? Not so much. The truck was handed over relatively clean in appearance. The previous owner seemed to have put the effort into possibly washing the truck, vacuuming it, and cleaning the interior with something, but it had some funky odor to it. It smelled of strong chemicals and something rotting. He told me that his dad had taken it hunting a few times, and perhaps a dead animal spent some time bleeding in the back (we found a few .22 cal bullets along with some spare change, drill bits, sockets, and sunflower seeds underneath some of the seat cushions). The carpet was pretty minging. I took the floot mats out one day and tried to smack some of the crap out, and it filled my entire yard with clouds of dust (This really pissed off the neighbors) so the next time I hosed them down with soap and water....my driveway was soon covered in mud.

You know, even though I said I didn't care about the truck's exterior, I do care about the interior. The first thing I did was vacuum the seats, carpet and floor mats, sani-wipe all the interior panels, and Febreze the hell out of the seats and carpet. The car still stank of rot and chemical cleaner though, just a bit fresher. The tail light lenses were all intact, but the bulbs were mostly burnt out and the wiring was all kinds of *ucked up. Justin sorted that out the night I brought it back and now there's no problems.

Wow, that was a lot of griping, but all in all, I'm quite happy with the vehicle. And considering the price, I really don't have a right to complain, especially since Jay went to so much trouble finding it for me. I'll post more updates as we go a long.

Winter Beater

I've had all sorts of cars. My first car was a 1992 Honda Prelude. Though it wasn't all that fast, I loved it. I probably would have kept it forever because it was refined, reliable, it was comfortable, it looked awesome, and it was fun to drive. But the opportunity to own an NSX came my way and I was unable to resist. I crashed one, got another, then decided I needed a winter beater.

I picked up a 1978 Honda Civic to beat around in, but somehow, I couldn't leave it just stock, so my friend Justin started to tinker with it and about $12,000 and 2 years later, my winter beater was no longer driveable in the winter. It didn't stop me from driving it in the snow, however, several paint jobs later, I've decided to get another beater - my 1993 Grand Cherokee.....and here is the story.....