Month: August 2004

I made some progress today on my “other” Jeep project. The Comanche pickup I bought last November was not intended to be a long term vehicle. I bought it to provide something for Kristina to drive while she saved her money to buy her own vehicle and because living on an acreage it’s just plain handy to have a truck. I figured to sell it once we moved to Colorado. Here’s what it looked like –

Getting it cleaned up has been a major project. It sat under a tree for a couple of years before I rescued it and the crud seemed to have gotten in everywhere. But it is coming clean with some heavy duty cleaner and elbow grease. I have the interior all done except for the upholstery and carpet.

The exterior is quite another story. I’ve been working on the easy parts like grinding off some surface rust and touching up the paint. The body is typical of a Jeep that lived it’s whole life in Iowa. Quite a bit of rust. A lot of it I will be able to take care of but those nasty spots over the rear wheels wells… I’m not sure how to tackle.

The front was was looking pretty rough as the trim pieces has rusted badly and the bumper was munched up. So, encouraged by my success on the Cherokee, I pulled the front off, cleaned up and repainted the rusty trim, the grill, and headlight surrounds. Then I made another trip to the junkyard and grabbed another front bumper. Then I put it all back together. It looks 100% better. I also cleaned up the engine compartment.

Tomorrow I’m going to take the paint code and go buy a pint of automotive paint. I think I can use my airbrush to repaint some of the larger areas where I ground off some the surface rust.

Kristina is now driving her very own Jeep Cherokee. This little quest started a rather long time ago and the quarry changed a number of times along the way but the safari is finally over and the game has been bagged.

We rescued a 1988 Jeep Cherokee from Walt’s Towing that was likely headed to the salvage yard . The Jeep had taken a light hit in the front which had munched up the front grill, headlight panel, bumper, and right fender. The motor seemed to run fine when we started it up although it does have nearly 200,000 miles on it. The interior was in pretty sad shape and the paint job was also pretty rough. We tried to take it for a test drive but could only get a few blocks as the fender was rubbing against the wheel and the radiator had a hole in it.

The Jeep did have some merit though. Sometimes you have to squint a little bit to see those diamonds in the rough. The body is rust free, it has excellent tires, the interior can always be cleaned up, the 4-wheel drive works, and, the price was right. So, we forked over some cash and had Walt use one of his handy tow trucks to bring it home.

Then the real work started… Continue reading

Arrgghhh! School starts tomorrow. In case you didn’t know I made the decision last fall to go after a Master of Engineering in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The program is part of the Civil Engineering College at the University of Colorado. I completed the first course last fall but decided not to enroll in the spring term since we needed to sell our house and proceed with the move to Colorado.

Now, however, it’s time to get back on track with the program. I have signed up for two course this term; GIS Spatial Database Development, and GIS Management/Policies. These are Internet based courses by the way. I intend to complete the entire program via the Internet.