Worth It?

Hey yall,
I am the consumate lurker, though I dont know if this is the best place to stick this. Ive had a '93 I6 4wd manual 2-door that JUST crossed the 270,000 mark for almost 5 years now, and I constantly look here for answers. Now, I'm faced with a dilemma; the old beast is hurting for a new set of springs/shocks/tires. Figuring rough costs, I can do all three while upgrading to a RE3.5" for round figure $1600 +- $100.
Then I get to looking around and find this:

1999 Jeep Cherokee Limited 4door, 4X4, 4.0 L, Auto., 106,000 miles, PW, PD, 4” lift with 31X10.5R15 BFG Allterrains on American Racing Bajas, Flowmaster exhaust, K&N intake, Poweraid throttle body spacer, Tow package, Front tow hooks, Transfer case skids, Roof rack with Hella 500 Driving lights, full size spare, CB radio with Firestick antenna, New front and rear brakes, New A/C compressor with all new lines, New Alternator, Oil changed every 3,000 miles, Engine needs work. $2,495 or best offer

Now, the thing is, I can definitely see myself as a multi XJ owning kinda guy. I called the seller to find out more about the vehicle. It was owned in the northeast but the guy moved down here to TEXAS in the last 3mo and drove it the whole way no problems. Straight body, a little surface rust from that winter salt. No oil leaks, 4wd works good. All around sounds like a good buy, until you find out about the engine.

Now about the engine. Here in the last week or three, the seller has said it has an overheating problem. It has had very little coolant loss, yet when he took it into a Goodyear Shop (great mechs, I know:roflmao, he was told it could be a cheap fix to something more major in the realm of two grand. This leads me to believe that either a) the mechs didnt really look into the problem, or b) they didnt really know what was going on. In my mind if it was something more serious like a cracked block or head, it would most likely only seriously overheat with a major drop of coolant. If the coolant goes into the oil, it appears milky; it the coolant is dropped into a cylinder, there'd be a big fog cloud when it was cranked; if it was being dropped straight out, you'd most likely see the lake beneath it. To me, the problem seems to be found within the coolant system itself (cap, hoses, thermostat, radiator, water pump).

My question is does this sound like a more easy fix? Am I hoping in vain for something that is better than it really is? If it turns out a bust of a vehicle, between grabbing the lift kit, tires, roof rack, exhaust, etc. is it feasible to recoup my loss?

Sorry for the dreaded wall of first post text. I truly appreciate any reply.

get it. I had 2 jeeps and loved it. unfortunately i was so smart and offroaded the one i DD'ed and rolled it lol

I would buy it. Best case is needs new cooling system parts which is most likely, medium case it needs a head gasket, worse case it has a cracked/warped head or a bunch of coolant in the oil and needs a motor.

All pretty easy fixes since you already have a DD to get you around while its down. The best deals come from people that know nothing about cars and dont want to pay $1200+ for a shop to fix something that will cost you $200-400

id go for it also and offer holding out the cash in hand $2100-2200

I would offer 2K if everything else like the body, floor pans etc are in order. I recently picked up a sweet 99 limited for $4,100, so i think its worth it, even if you end up getting into the motor.

As they said, check to see if the head is cracked (coolant in the oil..will appear milky). In that case I'd pass unless you lowball the shiz out of him. Otherwise even if all the cooling components need to be replaced, it's not that expense and can be done in an afternoon.

If you go for it, and can't track down the cooling problem right away, start with the basic and build up. Something like this kind of order: thermostat, coolant flush, radiator, lines, water pump. This past summer we had to track down a cooling problem in my dad's 98 XJ. Turned out the previous owners never changed the coolant and the corosion ate the impeller blades of the water pump down to nothing..

99's are nice, especially if they are the earlier version with the older type head (later ones are prone to cracking, I hear). If at all possible, see if you can beg or borrow a radiator pressure tester, because this will tell you pretty quickly if something is cracked or leaking internally. If it doesn't look as if anything is cracked, you may be looking at relatively cheap fixes, from a new radiator cap to a new radiator or several things at once, but all within reason if you can get it at a good price.

Your surmises about cooling system symptoms sound pretty good, but don't forget that, for example, a blown head gasket or cracked head will not smoke every time you start up, depending on where the engine comes to rest, and a cracked head that doesn't communicate with an oil passage will not cloud up the oil. If the crack is enough to depressurize the system when running, it might cause overheating just from that, just as a bad radiator cap does.

I do have one reservation here: that Jeep looks as if someone put a lot of time and money into it, and although many people just send things like this out to someone and shell out money, it's pretty common for something like this to have been built up by a mechanically handy owner. And that brings one to the question: why does he not know what's wrong with the engine? It's really easy to say "I don't know, but someone told me it might or might not be serious" when he really might have a pretty good idea of just what is cracked! Now of course he could just not be an engine guy, and really be the sort of person who takes it to Goodyear for everything, but I would look at this very carefully, and if you can't narrow it down before purchase, then make your offer based on a worst-case assumption.

Sound advice. Gonna go look at it tomorrow, sleep on it, and go back on Thursday if I think it's a good thing. That also gives me time to go talk to a Jeep mechanic I know and tell ask him what he thinks from what I find.
If nothing else, I might shoot him a lowball to maybe get a parts wagon that I might be able to turn around and sell as is after I'm done with my picking.