Of course this kind of stuff never happens when it is moderately cool out, but rather when the temps are constantly over 100 degrees. Squeaks, our 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee WJ, decided to only blow air out the defrost vents earlier this week. Controls would not do anything. While the AC was still blowing, when it is 105 out, not having that airflow across your body makes it seem a lot hotter in the vehicle. There are a couple of …

Read more »

Squeak’s Cousin?

Val and I took the week off to head out to Cheyenne, WY to help my parents with their retirement home. Since we are out here, my brother in law brought it up to my attention that their jeep needed a sway bar bushing in the rear. He said it “kept popping off, and he just kept putting it back on.” Odd, I thought, but I took a look. Well……there are a lot of things my sister and brother in …

Read more »

Damn Jeeps, lol. My last bit of winter maintenance was to flush the cooling system and get fresh fluid installed. I was still debating whether I should go in and replace the 140k mile waterpump, but hadn’t made up my mind. When we got back from South Dakota, I noticed a drip under the jeep. Crap. Decided to do the entire cooling system with the exception of the radiator as that has to come out the front of the car. …

Read more »

After I finished up a Boxster on Saturday, I figured it was such a nice day that I would knock out some more maintenance on Squeaks to get it ready for the winter months. It was time for new spark plugs (every 30k in a jeep), brake flush, tire rotation, etc. I still need to flush the coolant badly, and get the front diff serviced (didn’t have enough fluid to do yesterday) which I should be able to do later …

Read more »

Thursday evening I was able to knock out the exhaust on Squeaks.  The muffler had rusted through, so I decided to upgrade the entire system 🙂 Old rusty exhaust.  When I tried to remove the few exhaust clamps that there were, they just fell apart into pieces.  While in solid shape, Squeaks is a daily driver that has seen duty on MN, KS, and SD winter roads, so stands to reason that the exhaust components are at the end of …

Read more »

Squeaks is done

New exhaust manifold showed up and I was able to get everything installed and got it back on the road.  No more leaks 🙂

Yup, the big Ogre.  About as dirty as one too, but after all it is a Jeep 🙂  Had an issue with the front left caliper locking up.  Decided it was best to put in new brake lines and new calipers.  The brake lines cost more than the calipers, as did the core charge on the calipers, lol.  Got to love cherokee parts.  Ended up getting everything installed, flushed and bled the brakes, but are still getting an initial lockup …

Read more »

Tried to accomplish a simple task of changing a brake light bulb the other day, and happened to roll the window down on the driver’s side……and then found out it didn’t want to go back up!  Drats.  After some diagnosis work with the volt meter, I confirmed it was indeed the window regulator.  Ran to oreilly’s and picked up a new regulator and got it changed out.  Got to love Jeeps, meant to be fixed in the field.  Even the …

Read more »

I had been doing some maintenance on Val’s 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee the other day when I noticed a leaking rear axle seal on the passenger side.  I had actually smelled gear lube after arriving in SD for thanksgiving, so I pretty much knew what I would find when I looked under the rear of the truck.  Jeeps are pretty notorious for this issue, and I had replaced the driver’s side a couple of years ago.  The process is fairly …

Read more »