I have had the sneaky suspicion that my heater core on my Jeep has been leaking for a little while now and have been waiting for a good time to replace it. With a camping trip coming up, I finally decided to tackle it. I had read online that it would take roughly 5-10 hours to complete so on Saturday evening, I began the process of completely taking the dash apart.

It took me Saturday night, most of the day Sunday, and the past several evenings after work to get the job done. And boy was it a big job! I would say I have ~15hrs into it but that also includes flushing out the entire coolant system.

I’m super glad to have finally have heat that does not result in all the windshield fogging up.

Oh… and it rain all weekend while I was working outside.

On a side note, I went ahead and decided to replace the thermostat because I wanted to remove the housing to properly flush out the engine. These Jeep’s take a 180 degree thermostat but it is not uncommon for people to unintentionally, or without knowing better, replace them with a 195 degree and that was the case with my Jeep. Not to mention, some how a o-ring was suck in the thermostat.

With a freshly flushed coolant system and a new thermostat, the Jeep is staying nice and cool.

I have been wanting to sell my truck and purchase a Jeep for a while. The lack of four wheel drive has been driving me crazy every time it snows. Not that I have anywhere I need to be; I just want to get out and drive in the snow. My brother purchased a Cherokee XJ last week and it was the motivation I needed to finally decide to make the switch.

I found a 2000 Jeep Cherokee on Facebook marketplace on Saturday that looked like it was in good condition but was overheating. I thought it was something I could fix myself so my dad, a friend, and I made the hour and a half drive to go look at it.

When I got there, I quickly realized the Jeep needed way more work than I was willing to put into it. There were several issues in addition to the overheating issue.

On the way home, I thought I might as well look to see if there was any other Jeeps listed in the area. I found one that was listed back at home, but after contacting the guy, I learned that it was at his girlfriend’s house, which was on the way home. We went to look at it, knowing that it was overpriced.

When we got there, the starter had gone bad on it and so I was not able to hear it run. After looking at it carefully, my dad and I were able to negotiate them down from $5,500 to $3,500! I tried not to show my excitement and eagerly paid her. That night, at 9pm, I started working on replacing the battery and starter. I got it fixed in just over an hour.

Over the past few days, I have been doing some light off roading and having a blast! Here are a few photos.