Around the holidays I purchased this stock 2003 Sahara. Although it doesn’t look like mutch, the guts of this was nearly perfect.
90K miles , no rust inside or out.
Has either a a RMS or valve leak. (Going to replace both anyways)
Internals have never been touched. Shocks, springs, sway links, all OE and 20 years old. Tires 11 years old. DIY paint job gone back too. So off to work I went.
First weekend with it: GUT the interior, what a mess.
Did I mention no rust ?!
No idea on the PO history with these seats. But these are getting reupholstered. No turning back.
Once sanitized and throughly cleaned inside , took it from SoCal to SF Bay Area (might as well be a mechanical longevity check)
It made it. But I found this had next to no absorption in shocks/springs. And bottomed out easily on bumps.
So I changed out the springs, for Moog stock height (3227 in rear) and shocks for ranchos (since this forum highly recommends them) even changed out the steering stabilizer.
New tires as well. I looked at this and decided, screw it, time for paint rehab .
But I wasn’t going to start that until after the holidays.