I Bought the CHEAPEST "Running" Jeep Wrangler on Marketplace... What's Wrong With It?!?

what is the obsession with Jeep Wranglers I really want to know the community is also kind of confusing because it's a little bit of a cult and just everyone's just really obsessed with them when they have it and to better understand that I needed to buy one I believe I bought the cheapest Jeep Wrangler on Facebook Marketplace that runs well supposedly ran this is a 2002 Jeep Wrangler sport with the 4.0 in it has an automatic transmission and it has 116 000 miles on it now I've been looking for a Jeep for a few months now and I can tell you they are way overpriced everyone thinks they have gold for some reason why are Jeep Wranglers so expensive I don't understand it luckily for me though I got what I think is the best deal on Facebook Marketplace I found this listing down in Fort Lauderdale he was asking 2 500 for it it supposedly ran and drive supposedly we're gonna get to that in a second and the main reason that is so cheap is because it has rust and he claims the rust was all in the frame the main things that Drew me to this is that it looked pretty nice in pictures besides the obvious rust on like the Rockers and such but the interior pictures on this make it look absolutely amazing plus the low miles also adds to that too not to mention that is also a 4.0 which is arguably the best motor in these jeeps and this model Jeep speaking of model Jeeps this is a Jeep TJ now tjs were models from 1997 to 2006. the reason I wanted to go with a TJ is because I think it's one of the better looking ones also it is more towards my price range that was mainly the reason I got very lucky with this Jeep TJ's on Facebook Marketplace if they are under three thousand dollars they will sell same day guarantee it no matter the condition honestly it could be a rusted out piece of junk and it will sell right away because people in Florida love Jeeps I messaged this guy right away luckily for me he was not answering messages on Facebook Messenger he actually want people to text him luckily I got his number I was one of the first people to get his number so I was texting him right away he did live around three hours away from me so I just wanted some pictures of the rust so I knew what to expect and he was super accommodating he got the pictures right away and as soon as I got him I was like yes I want it as long as it runs and drives I'm gonna take it no questions asked fast forward to the next day when I'm going to pick it up I get there and it does not run it is not starting it actually won't start at all it won't even crank over we knew the battery was full because his brother was charging it ever since I started heading there so three hours on a charge it should be starting the issue was you put the key in turned it over absolutely nothing nothing at all now keep in mind this thing has been sitting for a while he didn't give me an exact time frame how long it was sitting but it's been sitting for a long time so when to start it absolutely nothing we started diagnosing it there check the starter banged on the starter a little bit check some fuses absolutely nothing no clue what to do luckily I have a friend who owns a TJ and has a little bit of knowledge behind it he told me if it sits for too long the neutral sensor will go bad and it'll just think it's in drive so you have to mess with the shifting mess with the four-wheel drive and it'll be able to start I messed with it I put it in neutral and it was able to turn over at least so I threw it in neutral and I was able to turn it over and it would try to start it was so close to starting throw it back in Park still wouldn't start so we knew it was something to do with that sensor there so we got it turning over still won't start it starts for maybe a second or two and it immediately dies so it has to be something with the fuel it's sitting for a while can obviously guess it's just going to have a hard time starting I didn't bring very many tools so I couldn't really do a full diagnosis there so I just checked what I could try to get an idea of what may be wrong with this thing I believe it's something to do with the fuel because there's no pressure in that fuel rail line thing on top of the engine that makes me think it is something to do with the fuel pump and it's just been sitting for so long it went bad that's what I think happened let me open this thing right there careful careful okay you may also notice there is no belt on this thing that is because this alternator is completely locked up so along with a fuel pump we also need an alternator other than that it doesn't look too bad it's a little a little bit of surface for us in the areas but nothing we can't clean up so he's asking 2 500 for it I agreed to that and the terms that it ran and drove at least Rin drove up onto a trailer it in fact did not run and drive we could not get it running so I offered him eighteen hundred dollars to take it as is and I can fix it later he took that deal and I winched it up on my trailer and took off with it so eighteen hundred dollars for a 2002 Jeep Wrangler with a 4.0 in it that has 116 000 miles an automatic which is already hard enough to find I think this is a pretty good deal I think I pretty much stole this thing I could flip this thing right now and probably double my money I think let's get it running first and then I can I can pretty much guarantee I can flip it now that you have the story on how I acquired this Jeep let's talk about the goods and the a lot of bads about it let's start with the good first take a look at this interior it looks so good hopefully it shows up well on camera but this thing looks immaculate it looks so good let me take this top cover out so you can really see it have the radio face some other little stuff in there this is my battery jump box here is also the old belt off of it I already ordered a new one so I'm using that floor looks pretty good I can't really see any major like water damage or anything Rough Country seat covers on the seats I took it off on the other side to see what the bottom looked like the actual seats themselves look pretty good I don't know how to undo these yeah we'll take those off later and take a look at what it looks like underneath the back also looks good what really stands out is the top this top looks basically brand new on the inside looks brand new the outside is a little bit of bold that we need to clean up just from it sitting other than that this interior looks fantastic Dash looks so clean yeah interior really nice another good thing I guess is also lifted two and a half inches on a Rough Country lift kit I believe is the Springs the shocks there is also some stabilizer stuff on the bottom I believe that is also something to do with the lift kit the lift does look a little old it has a little bit of rust on it but for just like a toy or like a summer toy I think it's pretty good shape I think it will last for a lot longer we might end up leaving that on there or replacing it with something a little bit bigger a little bit beefier maybe not sure the plan yet that was pretty much all the good now let's talk about all the bad which is pretty obvious if you can see just a little bit of rust on it this is just the obvious for us this can be easily replaced just with these bolts and then the nuts are on the inside I think it can remove this pretty easy and there's so many aftermarket parts for these Jeeps that this can't be too expensive or hard to find at all what is the most concerning is what's underneath the Jeep oh yeah beautiful luckily this is just the body rusting it is not the frame itself there is some frame spots that are a little concerning these older Jeeps have a really bad problem with rusting out the frame especially in this back section right around here and right here these usually rust out first it's you can feel it's a little some spots are a little bit softer than others we'll have to take a better look at that I know this passenger side definitely has a hole back here yeah right by the exhaust you can see the exhaust is even rested there's a pretty big hole that I can fit my whole hand up in here yeah that is a little a little concerning luckily this is such a common issue that they already make replacement pieces that will splice in right here and just cover over it makes it I wouldn't say easy but it is not super difficult to replace you don't have to even remove the body to fix that unluckily enough I don't know how common this rust is on the body itself that seems like more of an issue that you might have to remove the body to fix I think it sucks too because this actual tub is in pretty good shape it's just that area that is really bad so I'm hoping we can fix that and not have to replace the tub because everything else on this is pretty nice the front end looks pretty good itself the frame I don't see anything major sticking out that has any concern you see the Rough Country lift kit and stabilizer and everything like that a little bit of surface rest I think it still should work perfectly fine the body itself is in pretty good shape the only major rust I can see are these Corners which is also a common problem and this isn't actually that bad I can fix that no problem the other side is also similar but it's not as bad but it still has some Rust here in these Corners tires obviously need replaced they're a little dry rotted not the most perfect things ever but I'm going to replace the wheels and tires if I'd end up rebuilding this thing so we'll we'll worry about that if it comes to it all the rest of the damage are just cosmetic these tail lights could obviously be refreshed same with the headlights Plastics are all worn out from the Sun the engine just needs cleaned up it's seen better days but it's also 21 years old so this all makes sense to me all this could be fixed and made to look pretty again a little bit of a long intro but I wanted to give the full rundown of this Jeep so you guys can understand what's going on what needs replaced and how good of a deal it was because I still think it's a good deal the rust is a little concerning for some people but me I've worked on a lot of older cars so rust doesn't scare me my own daily driver is pretty Rusty look at this thing I mean it's meant to look like that but still I know how to deal with rust I'm not gonna lie this is my first Jeep my knowledge of them is very limited I don't know a whole lot I'm gonna learn so much from rebuilding this thing and working on it maybe so much that I'm going to end up hating them but we we will see with time we can go ahead and unhook this thing from trailer back it off push it off really I already have all the parts ordered I ordered an alternator fuel pump and a belt all that costs right around 200 so we are in this thing for right at 2000 with all the parts ordered hopefully that's all we need to fix it once those come in I'm gonna take off the old ones replace them and this thing's gonna start up right away I just have a feeling this thing's going to be perfectly running no problems at all we'll see all right I'm gonna back this trailer up and push this thing off get to work I'm excited for this build hope you guys are too [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] all right [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] I got that alternator switched out that alternator was in really rough shape it was actually even cracked along the side I'm guessing from heating up so fast got that switched out while I was in there I decided to do the tension pulley because it looked a little old and rough pulled it off and it was actually broken where it attaches to the alternator Mount so to get that fixed I had to drill out the stuff piece that was in that mount got that taken care of also figured while I was in there might as well replace the spark plugs too get that taken care of got all that done moving to the back had to drop the whole fuel tank to get to the fuel pump a lot of newer cars have the little access panel in the back unfortunately these older ones do not so I had to drop the whole tank down still had a lot of gas in it the gas looked okay not the greatest so I decided to put some fuel stabilizer in it not sure if that's going to help any but a little peace of mind as you may have noticed there was a nest up there of some kind either squirrels or rats or something there was a lot of chewed up nuts and everything like that so cleaned all that out checked the wires I didn't see anything that stuck out the only thing that was concerning was the old plug let me see if I can find it right here it looks like one of the previous owner broke the plug that attached to the body I can't really find that anywhere so I had to replace it with just something I found laying around I'll end up replacing that if I find this OEM piece put it all back together the normal way it looks like someone already spliced into it once before so need to get that taken care of this could have been a problem honestly in itself because the old fuel pump had a zip tie holding it together so that could have been the whole problem all along but I put a new plug in there that's waterproof so that should last us a while until we had to drop that tank again to fix some of the other rust down there so we'll probably have to drop the tank again pretty soon and I'll replace that plug for the most part everything was pretty easy to get to the alternator was very easy to replace if I was just going to do that that would take 20 minutes tops so far I'm really liking this thing I'm liking working on it nothing has been a headache I might be speaking a little too soon but we'll see so enough waiting around let's see if it starts first I need to Prime the fuel pump let's do that the prime the fuel pump I'm just going to turn it on and off for a few times just get it moving [Music] I hear it turning on at least all right let's see if it starts still not starting in park throw it in neutral [Music]

Channel: Ultimate Rebuilds

Views: 241,145

Keywords: jeep, tj, heep, keep, rangler, wrangler, 4.0, rebuild, not starting, goonzquad, bisforbuild, restore, sitting, samcrac, rich rebuilds, jk, jl, lj, jeepin

Id: ntpbyqCKJ_8

Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Fri May 26 2023