I’m getting married in a few weeks, and though I realize the “drive off car” is really only a background character in the whole production, to me it’s a big deal. So I want it to be awesome. Unfortunately, it’s got some significant issues that I have to fix in about 13 days.
Ok, first we’ll start with the bad news: I haven’t fixed the gas-smell issue. When I let off the accelerator pedal and coast, the car smells like gasoline. There’s no obvious fuel leak, so this seems like either an emissions issue or perhaps a case of too-rich combustion.
I did notice that my front crankcase ventilation elbow was basically just sitting on my valve cover; its seal was way, way too thin to actually do its job. I’ve replaced the elbow, but I need to find a bit of 5/8 hose to bridge between it and the tube that goes to the airbox.
Do I think a bad CCV could cause a gas smell in the cabin when I let off the pedal? Well, when I let off the pedal, the intake manifold pressure drops, which would suck air… yeah, no. The answer is no. This is not the issue. I’ve got a new evap canister coming from eBay — maybe that’ll do it?
Anyway, I have 13 days to figure that out.
On the plus side, I improved the interior quite a bit. Check out how it looked before:
And here’s how it looks today. Notice how I found a “Jeep” emblem for the steering wheel, I replaced those horrid shift knobs, and I reupholstered the driver’s seat:
I also ditched the silver/chrome HVAC knobs for the factory-correct ones:
Anyway, clearly this Jeep needs a cleaning — badly. There’s dirt and dust everywhere, and the carpet may have a few drops of cat pee on it, so I’ll be steam-cleaning the floor. This is where I see the most opportunity, as the exterior of the Jeep looks good.
But it’s not perfect. I’m tempted to rattle-can the front bumper satin black:
Here’s where I stand:
View this post on Instagram
I’m focusing on figuring out the gas smell issue and having the interior professionally detailed, and from there, I might touch up a few exterior bits with black paint before washing the Jeep and removing the doors the day before the Big Day.
I’m all ears if you have any advice!
Late to the party here, but as an east coaster who moved to CA I was shocked at how quickly all the original rubber on my 1990 BMW degraded. Your Jeep, while really good for what it is, has very obviously been baked a lot. After 7 years of street parking my car, I had a similar problem start happening, which wound up being the original sender unit & fuel lines on top of my tank utterly collapsing into shreds. I’d check that. Dropping a tank sucks but raw gas anywhere sucks more.
I know you love the thought of making this another can I make this broken vehicle make it to X in time for Z, especially with old Jeeps, but trust us your wedding day and the ride to or from the venue needs to just work and be the unsung supporting character, not the main Villain. If your bride to be is okay with a white Jeep or similar convertible then borrow / rent a new one instead of rushing this through to try and be the hero with the YJ that more than likely will not be the reliable hero you hoped it would. You will have plenty of time to fix it after the wedding.
If everything going on for the wedding. . .I would just maybe pay someone to detail the jeep. Drop it off in the morning. . .go autopian on the computer for a day. . .pick it up nice and clean. (While I kinda like detailing and cleaning my car in some strange way. . .it can take me a day+ to do everything inside and out.)
Or. . .doesn’t Galpin have group/people specifically for detailing and cleaning cars? Maybe have them write and article with some good trips and tricks. . .”I cleaned David’s dirt ball Jeep and here is how I did it”.
I recall going to an “Indian-style” wedding, where the groom approaches on a white horse. Groom rode in a white convertible Mustang instead.
22 yrs of marriage has taught me that the italicized “me “in the opening sentence should most definitely be a “we” (err “us“?). Good luck with your choices.
You got this! Most of your audience here don’t really care about a wedding, they just show up, go through the motions and it’s for the bride. It’s the biggest day of your life, that hopefully only happens once, you want to include something, other than the bride that means a lot to you, in this case, the Jeep. Do it, it will be worth it.
You’ve got a huge LA fan base worth of free labor, take advantage of that if needed. Garage day at the back of Galpin if they allow it. If they don’t any parking lot in Van Nuys will do, a bunch of car nerds in the middle of the night in a dark Van Nuys parking lot is the least of their worries, been there done that with our weekly meets at Krispy Kreme 24yrs ago.
A few years or so back in my XJ, I would get gas smells going down steep hills offroad. Replacing the rollover valves in the gas tank seemed to help, I’m guessing they weren’t sealing properly and letting liquid into the vent lines when the vehicle was tipped forward significantly, but still not sure.
Should have fixed the Mustang.
If you have not done so, check the fuel injectors. If they are leaking (not shutting off fully), the allow fuel into the cylinder at the wrong time and you end up with a rich burning car. I have had this happen on two different cars. You would think it would only smell in the exhaust, but both of these cars were sedans and I could smell fuel in the interior.
Not sure if this will help, but I was diagnosing an evap leak on the mechanically-similar TJ once-upon-a-time and there is a tiny rubber elbow that connects some hard fuel vapor (or return?) lines to the intake manifold. Otherwise, you ought to get a smoke machine and hook it to your EVAP system… It might save you hours (or days?) of diagnosing!
Gas smell would be a liquid leak or broken EVAP system. Hopefully the new canister does it. Good luck and don’t listen to any of the naysayers. You don’t want to have to tell your grandkids you chickened out and didn’t drive a Jeep on your wedding day
PS – My 92 F-250 came with that same gold ball for a shifter knob. Would get cold AF here in the Northeast so I replaced it with a plastic one with the proper shift pattern:
L 2
1 3 R
Can you quickly install a wideband and get some exhaust readings? That’ll tell you pretty quickly if it’s tune-up related.
How’s the catalytic doing? Actually, how’s the stock O2 sensor doing? I know a bad sensor wreaked havoc on my ’88 XJ.
“You won’t believe what happened next”
I’m getting a bit tired of these formulaic articles and headlines, with so little creativity they might as well be AI generated.
You are a wild and crazy guy, David (I don’t expect you to get the reference.. 😀 ) so I am kinda expecting more than the same old same old from you 🙂
Best wishes with the car, the big day, and everything (heart emoji)
I don’t get the reference, nor do I get the formulaic headline thing. I’m just tellin’ ya’ll what’s up. I got a wedding coming up, I’ve got a Jeep that needs work, and here’s an update.
Here’s the answer to one part at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC3kDnHS-k4
Alright thanks for the answer, just thought we’ve seen many similar “I’ve got XX days to do XX” articles lately. But if they work with most of your audience, my opinion doesn’t count much.. I usually love all your projects and the energy you have to do them.
what i do not understand is why do something that is “the “drive off car”” and “is really only a background character in the whole production”? this is a stress generator situation that only adds to an already stressful situation…
this is a personal stress management compensation activity, an activity that you do to relieve your feelings of stress by doing something that is stressful, but something that you feel you can manage. what you are failing to realize is that what that personal stress activity does to those around you.
my FIL has a stress generator problem too, in that he creates situations that only add to the stress of already stressful things. the problem with stress generators is that one has difficulty managing the stress alone, so they in fact become stress propagators, spreading the stress to everyone else around them, thus making the stressful situation worse, much worse than it needs to be.
you will probably suceed and get it in working order in time. but people that propagate stress in times of high stress, become the bigger problem than is really necessary. stress propagators are a huge PiA.
notice, that you are even stressing your readers out, because we can see that this is very much unnecessary. i cannot imagine what it is like for those people around you, people that you love.
let it go…
And yet, I’m not really stressed at all about it honestly.
but that is the thing, this is your stress management activity, you do it because it is something you feel you can control. it’s who you affect around you, it creates unnecessary stress for others while you do it to relieve yours. you are the eye of the storm… maybe your hair doesn’t get wet, but everyone else is drenched. 😉
“Everyone else” is you, dear readers. Sorry to stress you out!
Elise ain’t worried, honestly. The drive-away car isn’t that important to her. Plus I have a mint condition Galvanic Gold BMW i3S, should I need a backup.
Another one to join the chorus here on going with a safer (in the sense of pleasing the woman who has actually agreed to marry you) choice. Unless she specifically stated at some point that there was no vehicle she would rather drive away in than that specific Jeep, you should reconsider and rent/borrow/choose something nicer. This is NOT the time to take chances on what she’ll want. Start out clean – you’ll have uncountable chances to screw up such things once you’re fully married. (Ask me how I know.)
If she did state that, then forget fixing anything else, have someone detail it, and enjoy the drive-away. She probably expects the petrol aroma.
Just use the Aztek instead. It’s an easier cleanup, and you’ve already proven it’s worth as a makeshift bedroom.
*But seriously, don’t waste any of your valuable time on making that Jeep wedding ready. Based on your photos, that’s a six month project if it’s a day.
Yeah, I see that you’ve already done the strenuous hard work of replacing a couple knobs with factory original style knobs, but that’s a sunk cost at this point.
**A press fleet loaner or a rental is the real answer.
Nothing says go, go, go more than their Aztek, which is more than eager to rev on and surge into the honeymoon
All that is required for a successful wedding is a license signed by an officiant and recorded. No where does the word “Jeep” appear.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=FAM&division=3.&title=&part=1.&chapter=&article=
Even less than that. All you need are two people who are committed to the idea. Everything else is superfluous.
So, I was in a similar situation as you when I got married. The solution I came up with was to use my nice car (or in your case, get a rental or ask Galpin if you can borrow a demo vehicle) and then we took the Jeep on the honeymoon. Getting the expensive wedding dress dirty while she tried to climb over the rock sliders was simply not going to be tolerated, but she was absolutely game during the honeymoon since we were just bouncing from state park to state park off-roading and hiking in jeans and hoodies.
This is the answer
That way you get to make wedding related memories in your Jeep w/o having to worry about it breaking down on the big day
Get it professionally detailed. It’s your wedding, you’ve got better things to think about, and it will make a HUGE difference when she is in that nice outfit. You’ll do it this one time in your life, relax, the cost will be worth it. drive on.
I question the choice of vehicle because you eat/sleep/live Jeeps since time immemorial; what makes this special enough to commemorate the happiest day of your lives? I agree with the masses, get something that’s actually special and unique for your special and unique event.
I’m starting to think this whole thing is a scam. and that either they’ve already been married for months and this is an invention to drive clicks or there was never a real fiancée and we’ll have a brace of pictures showing a woman wearing a wedding dress with a smiley superimposed over her face shaking her head, crying little dashes onto the floor, and running away from the altar back to Canada, the homeland of fictional girlfriends (although not for the usual reason in this case, if David’s wardrobe is to be believed), all to inspire sympathy clicks and advice-laden comments and a paid membership drive to fund David’s relocation to India to expand l’empire Autopien into the world’s most populous country (one hopes a bit less parasitically than the last ones who did that) and to turn his life around 18° (not a typo) by hoarding multiple examples of rare and decrepit (or at least decrepit) Mahindras.
If he can bring back a HM Mark 4 Amby, that would be terrific. I can smell this interior
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRSGrMMAoAlfDXmAUH1B–rFGAFx811HxY_4Q&s
I’m actually going to be in India soon. Will try and see if my great-uncle’s chopped and stretched Hudson is running again.
Why does it seem like a scam?
Perhaps it’s just that you haven’t divulged every detail of your relationship, but if even half of what you’ve posted is true, any prospective spouse, regardless of gender or age or absence or presence of better opportunities or a history of felony convictions, would have stabbed you at least once by now.
Also: there was more garbage in the “After” photos of the Jeep’s interior than in the “Befores.” Okay, you’re getting detailers, but you’re making it even worse for them? That’s like being rude to the server at a restaurant, and prospective spouses have been stabbed for less
I’ll keep you posted. The YJ will sparkle!
Why is everyone hatin’ on the YJ? Thing is CLEAN! (I mean, on the outside). A little detailing, a little emissions diagnosing, a little wrench-spinning, and bob’s my uncle!
Of course, dear. (I’m guessing you’ve heard that phrase rather frequently since you moved west.)
Despite going Hollywood, it seems your definition of CLEAN! (w.r.t. a wedding vehicle) is a few clicks below the Autopian’s commentariat.
get back Loretta…
If whats-her-name is onboard with this you have my FULL support. You are not going to find another woman that accepts her true competition is an old Jeep with issues.
This only applies if you get it detailed. Don’t get her dirty on her special day.
I say right there in the article I’m getting it professionally detailed!
Oops! Carry On!
Bruh. Your YJ somehow looks worse inside than the CAT telehandler I’ve been running for a week at our muddy building site.
Dude is waiting months to care of a gas smell issue (instead of paying a pro, cause let’s face it, he is not one), end now that he is finally gonna work on it, display an engine bay that looks like 15years of sand storm…. Man man man
David, if your SO is fine with it, just go ahead. My wife and I drove off in an Opel Corsa. Admittedly, she was already pregnant with the twins. But hey, still married, so there.
Rent a Jaguar Mark VII in black and get Adrian in an appropriately gothy top hat and tails with doc martins of course to chauffeur it.
Mark IV for the win, also I think Adrian is his nemesis