joining the ZJ club and questions

[emac]

hi all, I've had an XJ limited for 20 years and so can comfortably say know i know 90's jeeps. ( the XJ is a 1994 with 4370000km)

so i got lucky and came across a 1999 ZJ grand cherokee limited, 375000 km on it and unregistered, just expired, excellent body work stock as a rock good tyres and stunningly good grey/black leather interior, only the outer edge of drivers seat showing any wear.

so question time.

do the ZJ,s of this age have the head cracking issues of the later XJ,s?

the owner thought it had a stuffed transfer case but said it would still drive but was noisy, so driving the couple of KMs home i felt the noise was more from the front and was worse under acceleration and when turning and the load being on the front RH wheel.

so i got under it and the front rh brake calliper seems to be loose when compared to the lhs, and then i saw that the diff end of the front drive shaft that the boot was split and there seemed to be excessive side to side play.

anyone want to comment if in there opinion that would be the problem.

for me the noise sounds for all the world like a front wheel drive car with shot CVs, this car though has had two new drive shafts fitted.

first job is to get a battery though as this one is dead.

ill be changing all fluids, but will first want to address the noise.

as this is an constant all wheel drive i don't have the option i guess to pull the front shaft.

oh are they serviceable, can i buy a front CV joint.

thanks for reading and any input greatly appreciated

and yes i could search but I'm betting someone has all the info i need at there fingertips, and the sooner its fixed the soon I'm driving it


macca

[emac]

all good guys sorted it my self, at least XJ guys stick together

thanks

[bodgie]

Originally Posted by emac

all good guys sorted it my self, at least XJ guys stick together

thanks

Thats a little harsh, there aren't that many people here these days, and we don't always look for threads so it may take some time to see a response.

What was the problem out of curiosity?

[It'sBigAl]

Unfortunately on these shores the ZJ is the forgotten middle child between the XJ and the WJ. Not many people run them so the knowledge base is pretty small and parts supply is just as bad. Not the best but if you can get past it, it's good.

[Straubz]

if only they bought the 5.2 hemi down to aus, probably would have made them more popular.

[emac]

"Thats a little harsh, there aren't that many people here these days, and we don't always look for threads so it may take some time to see a response.

What was the problem out of curiosity?"

some halfwit in replacing the front disc pads, cross threaded the calliper lower mounting bolt, and then to make it worse....... wait for it......

tried to GLUE it back in, no I'm not kidding.

so i simply had to clean out the thread on the mount and the bolts, find a replacement bolt and put it all together

the PO was lead to believe he had a damaged transfer case,

so now I'm just running through it and doing 20 years of missed TLC.

i wouldn't bother except its a stock very straight car with good paint , white so no clear coat peel, and whats more surprising an exceptionally good leather interior.

only problem now is i have three cars and wife thinks that might be to much

i will never part with my XJ, so now i have to decide weather to keep the ZJ and sell my daily driver, a 2013 ford kuga trend.

my heart wants to keep the jeep, my head says the other.

at the moment the heart is winning.