So there’s another Jeep in my life. It was just picked up about an hour from my parents house yesterday.
I blame most of this on @Irun I saw his Jeep for sale and it kept nagging at me. “Ya know that would be great for my parents” I kept thinking. We have been looking for another vehicle to keep at their second house near us in Utah. They want something they can drive around when they fly in, and something they can hit some trails with us and explore with. Also the wife and I have been wanting another Jeep so we can have two vehicles to go out with when nobody else wants to. We tried to find a way to buy @Irun jeep but the shipping was just way too expensive for that to make since.
So I did the dangerous thing and text @Alex01 and me and him started searching for a Jeep, he found what seemed to be a nice 2006 LJR Automatic in Black near my parents house in California.
It was the ladies first car she has had it for 17 years. It has never been in 4WD or in the snow. What is crazy is the factory soft top is still in the back and has been back there the WHOLE TIME! She has never even removed the hard top and been stacking her groceries around the soft top all these years. Garage kept about 16 years of life and never been on a dirt road.
She had it listed for $22,500 + $1000 for the soft top. They were able to get it with the soft top for $20,000.
It’s an automatic with 142,000 miles and has a hard 1-2 shift before it’s warmed up and a few cosmetic problems. Little
Rust on one of the door handles, cracked fog lights and footman loop, dad said couple of cracks in the door panels as well from sun damage.
Overall we are happy with the price we got it for in the current market. The lady has done some regular maintenance like oil changes etc. But we are a bit concerned about everything else. She kept it very clean, and always got oil changes done etc “and whatever else” the dealer told her but didn’t know much about it. So it could have been really well maintained or maybe the diff and transfer case fluid is all original. We don’t really know, very sweet lady but not very mechanically inclined. I will say it’s probably better than the other kind of owner that thinks they are an expert. She said she had the transmission service about 10k miles ago and the guy stripped one of the skid plate bolts. I am sure he was an impact gun monkey.
My dad drove it home 80mph on the freeway said it drove great, straight no shimmy etc.
It pretty much feels like an old barn find you hear about with all the pros and cons of that.
Photos below, still has all the factory manuals etc. my mom is not the best photographer around so many are a little crooked lol.
So what’s the plan?
Currently it sits at my parents house in Ca. From there it is going to go to @Alex01 house. Where I will be shipping the parts to. Once there is a huge pile in his garage I am gonna fly in and we will get the lift etc installed and a bunch of maintenance done then I will drive it home from there.
Build Plan:
A few things are important on this it will have a few compromises vs mine but still needs to be very capable. It needs to be quite a bit lower my parents are older and have a hard time getting in mine, and I want it to enjoyable for them to run around in. The other is I want to keep NVH down for them.
Tentative plan as of now is 33x10.50’s build. My dad loves skinny tires “he don’t want none of those big wide ones the kids all have”.
Seems we have two ways we could go about that while keeping it lower.
Option 1: 1” body life and 2” springs
Option 2: skip the body lift and go with a 3” spring.
Currently planning option 2 using the Savvy 3” springs. Mostly because it seems like 2” lift route is much more challenging in regards to shock selection. We will get the belly and tank up as high as we can without the body lift while keeping a stock transmission mount to keep NVH lower.
That’s about the extent of “the plan”
For now. Other than treating it as if no maintenance has been done and replacing and/or checking everything we can think of.
Just don’t tell my Jeep I am thinking of another.
I blame most of this on @Irun I saw his Jeep for sale and it kept nagging at me. “Ya know that would be great for my parents” I kept thinking. We have been looking for another vehicle to keep at their second house near us in Utah. They want something they can drive around when they fly in, and something they can hit some trails with us and explore with. Also the wife and I have been wanting another Jeep so we can have two vehicles to go out with when nobody else wants to. We tried to find a way to buy @Irun jeep but the shipping was just way too expensive for that to make since.
So I did the dangerous thing and text @Alex01 and me and him started searching for a Jeep, he found what seemed to be a nice 2006 LJR Automatic in Black near my parents house in California.
It was the ladies first car she has had it for 17 years. It has never been in 4WD or in the snow. What is crazy is the factory soft top is still in the back and has been back there the WHOLE TIME! She has never even removed the hard top and been stacking her groceries around the soft top all these years. Garage kept about 16 years of life and never been on a dirt road.
She had it listed for $22,500 + $1000 for the soft top. They were able to get it with the soft top for $20,000.
It’s an automatic with 142,000 miles and has a hard 1-2 shift before it’s warmed up and a few cosmetic problems. Little
Rust on one of the door handles, cracked fog lights and footman loop, dad said couple of cracks in the door panels as well from sun damage.
Overall we are happy with the price we got it for in the current market. The lady has done some regular maintenance like oil changes etc. But we are a bit concerned about everything else. She kept it very clean, and always got oil changes done etc “and whatever else” the dealer told her but didn’t know much about it. So it could have been really well maintained or maybe the diff and transfer case fluid is all original. We don’t really know, very sweet lady but not very mechanically inclined. I will say it’s probably better than the other kind of owner that thinks they are an expert. She said she had the transmission service about 10k miles ago and the guy stripped one of the skid plate bolts. I am sure he was an impact gun monkey.
My dad drove it home 80mph on the freeway said it drove great, straight no shimmy etc.
It pretty much feels like an old barn find you hear about with all the pros and cons of that.
Photos below, still has all the factory manuals etc. my mom is not the best photographer around so many are a little crooked lol.
So what’s the plan?
Currently it sits at my parents house in Ca. From there it is going to go to @Alex01 house. Where I will be shipping the parts to. Once there is a huge pile in his garage I am gonna fly in and we will get the lift etc installed and a bunch of maintenance done then I will drive it home from there.
Build Plan:
A few things are important on this it will have a few compromises vs mine but still needs to be very capable. It needs to be quite a bit lower my parents are older and have a hard time getting in mine, and I want it to enjoyable for them to run around in. The other is I want to keep NVH down for them.
Tentative plan as of now is 33x10.50’s build. My dad loves skinny tires “he don’t want none of those big wide ones the kids all have”.
Seems we have two ways we could go about that while keeping it lower.
Option 1: 1” body life and 2” springs
Option 2: skip the body lift and go with a 3” spring.
Currently planning option 2 using the Savvy 3” springs. Mostly because it seems like 2” lift route is much more challenging in regards to shock selection. We will get the belly and tank up as high as we can without the body lift while keeping a stock transmission mount to keep NVH lower.
That’s about the extent of “the plan”
For now. Other than treating it as if no maintenance has been done and replacing and/or checking everything we can think of.
Just don’t tell my Jeep I am thinking of another.
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