My $350 Cherokee

Just brought home a 1990 Cherokee





It's my first jeep so I'm pretty excited. Kind of nervous and excited at the same time.

She has 146,000 miles
Engine runs strong. No ticking or knocking what so ever.

As of right now, it won't shift out of first. I'm hoping it being low on transmission fluid has something to do with it. If not, I'm told it may be the shift solinoids. Any ideas on what the problem may be?

The radiator is shot. I knew it was leaking and it wound up pissing coolant all over when I stopped for gas. I'm not to worried about that fix though.

Between the car wanting to overheat and not shifting out of first gear, it made for an interesting drive home. The people behind us couldn't have been too happy. I drove my buddies xj and he drove mine. He wasn't too happy when he had to turn the heat on to cool the engine off.

Rust seems to be pretty minimal. The worst spot seems to be under the back seat and near the front of the leaf spring perch on the passenger side. It doesn't seem to be anything structural. I'll have to take out the carpet and remove the stupid diaper underneath. I'll probably grind away what i can and weld a patch over any of the major holes.

The top driver door hinge is starting to seperate a little but it shouldn't be an issue for a while.

Aside from the little odds and ends... thats about it.
I plan on doing a small lift and just having fun with it.
Mainly going to be using it for bad weather, camping, snowboarding, and occasional offroading.
Just hope the transmission isn't a big problem and rust doesn't come and surprise me.
All in all, I think I did pretty good for $350

Let me know what you think!

Nice find! Unplug the transmission computer, behind the passenger knee panel. Shift it manually and report back what gears it has.

This might be a stupid question.. but how do I shift it manually? I forget what the selections are on the shifter.

They're on the floor see numbers like 1, 2-3 shift it manually by putting it in 1st then sliding the shift into 2-3 and report what it does.




Cool find though man awsome!

Sweet. That one has unlimited possibilities written all over it. If it wasn`t so far away I`d offer your money back and $100 for your troubles.

It's at my buddies place so I cant do it right now... If it shifts, what would the problem be?

AWESOME price! if it shifts, the computer or solenoid/valve body are screwed up. If it doesn't, it's clutches/gears/fluid/other transmission voodoo. If you're not afraid of swapping a tranny you can usually pick one up for like $100-200 at a scrapyard (my local yard wants $120, or $220 if I have them pull it), AW4s are pretty tough to kill so if you find a fairly low mileage one just go for it.

I'd fix that door hinge BEFORE it breaks off all the way, someone here wrote an awesome thread on it. Searching for "door hinge plate" or something like that should find it, I forget who it was. Also, check your coil perch more carefully... mine nearly disintegrated when I pushed on it with a bottle jack while installing my lift, a whole lot of rust chunks fell off and it ended up about 1/8" thick. Since my welder is fairly weak I'm looking for a d30 for cheap in the scrapyards around here presently, going to just swap one in.

grill is on upside-down

ehall said:

grill is on upside-down

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What is up with that? My MJ grill was upside down when I bought it too.

As far as your transmission, start here. I replaced all 3 solenoids on my XJ. Easy as pie.

bigalpha said:

What is up with that? My MJ grill was upside down when I bought it too.

As far as your transmission, start here. I replaced all 3 solenoids on my XJ. Easy as pie.

Click to expand...

a lot of them came with the grill upside down to compensate for room taken up by the factory fog lights.

Chris, it's Tim. I saw your truck on FB. Nice find man. That looks exactly like mine except white. We need to get together at Jorges and have a Jeep orgy. Almost as good as my $600 find. =P

Congrads on the new jeep.

The shift selector is 1-2, 3, & OD. Unplugging the TCU under the passenger dash will let you shift manually but you will shift from 1st to third.

If you are going to replace the radiator anyway, it's a good time to convert to an open cooling system instead of the stock closed system (search for info). Good luck.

i have a 90 and well its in worse shape than yours but i love it. and it was free. was more of a plea to take it. try putting some of the of the shelf transmission slip stuff. if its a solenoid thats stuck it might free it. for a temporary (or permanint) fix

Nice find ! I picked up a stock 94 country model a couple of months back with a no start problem for $350 also.. Replaced the coil and it was good to go

The deals are out there. I found a 2001 model XJ yesterday needing rear glass, passenger fender and door for $500. Found a 95 V8 grand cherokee with leaking tranny for $450...

You could also check the TPS sensor, if it is out of adjustment it will not shift correctly.

I even went though a tranny swap because a transmission shop said it was bad to only later find out my TPS was shoot.

UPDATE:

Radiator was pulled, replaced with a 90dollar napa hookup. the lower trans cooler fitting started to leak at the flare. UGH.

It's definitely going to need a harmonic balancer, serp belt, alternator and the typical tune up. Plugs, wires, cap, rotor.

I swapped in my TCM, no dice. I disconnected the TCM all together and was able to shift manually. Hmmmmm.

It smells like dead hooker inside :gee:

TCM is bad, wiring is bad, or solenoids are bad.

bigalpha said:

TCM is bad, wiring is bad, or solenoids are bad.

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I tried a known good TCM (mine). I was able to shift into 3rd and overdrive just fine with no TCM connected... So i'd like to rule out 2 of the solenoids. I'm not sure what ratio overdrive and 3rd is, i noticed a drop of 200-300rpms when shifting into OD. So im not completely certain if the converter is locking up.

From my understanding the TPS is a load sensor that sends it's info to the TCM. The TCM then determines if it needs to downshift or upshift in order to keep the vehicle in the usable powerband.... erm, right?

TPS is a variable resistor or other rotational sensor attached to the throttle, the TCM determines if it should downshift or upshift based on how much gas you're giving it and what the engine RPMs are at. The ECM also uses the TPS reading to calculate various engine related stuff.

You can check the TPS with a simple multimeter. Specs have been posted often and can easily be searched. If it doesn't know the throttle is opened, it's not gonna want to shift.