Test Drive #1

After adding a gallon of gas to the jeep from a jerry can, I took it out on a test drive this afternoon. It's been pouring down rain here so I didn't go far - just about a 1/2 mile or so in my neighborhood. All the lights work (still not sure about the dash panel lights) and the wipers (with brand new wiper blades) work great. Aerosmith even came on the radio as I pulled out of the driveway but turning up the stock 2 speaker radio louder than normal conversation results in awful distortion.

Here's a few thoughts after driving it:

1. The steering is very power assisted and very numb. A sports car it ain't. I've driven moving vans with more road feel! But unlike moving vans, this truck does have a certain amount of charm - it's fun to tool around in.

2. Brakes work well with strong pedal feel but this is still a pretty heavy truck with discs up front and drums in the back, so we'll need to drive like grandmas or we'll get in trouble. Got a bit of noise from the drums on one stop, so we'll do a thorough brake checkover before the rally.

3. Still not sure about the 4wd lever - put it in 4wd HI and the 4WD light went out so I presume that's really 2wd. Putting it in what appears to be 2wd leaves the 4wd light on even after driving it a bit.

4. It rides rough. I helped my brother in law move a few weekends ago and he mentioned his high school buddy had a 79 wagoneer and it was ridiculously rough, even with new shocks. Ours is the same. Hopefully 3 more guys and some junk in the back will smooth things out.

5. We've eliminated the various leaks to just the tranny pan! It's about a 3 or 4 drip a second leak and seems to be coming right from one of the pan bolts. The jeep still leaves a pretty healthy trail of ATF behind it, so that's highest priority repair item right now. The pan is in awful shape, so I think a replacement pan and gasket are in order, rather than just trying to tighten up all the pan bolts.

5. It will stall if it's not warmed up. I was driving up a slight up hill and it died when I stepped on the gas. I chalk that up to lack of use and the fact it probably hasn't been over 15 mph in at least a year. Once it warmed up a bit, I had zero driveability problems.

Saw this stuff on TV - Temporary Car Spray Paint. We initially weren't going to paint the jeep because we want to resell it, but this temporary paint may change everything!