1992 Jeep Wrangler

A few years ago I was surfing craigslist, like I do very very often, just checking out some things here and there, you know, seeing whats on the market. I still had the BMW at that point and I don't think I wanted to get rid of it yet, I just wanted to see what kind of Jeeps were for sale. And I came across this little gem. It was a 1992 Wrangler with a 4.0L, 5 speed, 4 inch suspension lift, nearly brand new 33inch ProComp mud-terrain tires, nearly new aluminum rims, hard top, full steel doors, all for only $2800! I told Britney that I had to have it and I could turn a profit on it in no time. It was a steal! Its hard to find a lifted Jeep with a 6 cylinder, hard top, and steel doors for that kind of money. So Britney loaned me the money (she had some inheritance money from a great aunt) and I promised I could pay her back in full. It was an investment!

It did end up having a little bit of rust on the frame, actually I think it was a hole, right where the rear shackle was. So my dad fixed that in no time. Really, I think the only other problem with the Jeep were cosmetic issues: tore up drivers seat, "custom" spray can paint job, dings and dents everywhere, missing parts, no rear brakes(no biggie), that sort of stuff. I did end up doing some things to it while I had it though. I found a guy that was parting out his Jeep and I ended up buying a spare tire and mount, roll bar padding, and a couple others things that I can't remember.

Man was that a great little Jeep though. Brit loved it too, probably even more that I did. We were planning on selling it right away for a profit but ended up keeping it for like 6 or 8 months, it was just too fun to get rid of! We took it offroading a couple of times, loved going cruising out in the country with the top off, and I loved just puttin' around town in it. I drove it so much that I just parked the bimmer for weeks at a time.

Heres a funny story: I had just posted the Jeep up for sale, and maybe two days after I am driving through Lafayette, going to the mall or something, and its raining pretty good out. Im daydreaming, like I usually do, and everyone in front of me stops pretty hard, but not hard enough that would normally cause and accident. Well, unless you are in a lifted Jeep with mud tires and no rear brakes. Needless to say, I locked up the front brakes, slid a good distance, and smashed into the car in front of me. No one was hurt, but the car was smashed up pretty good. Heres what happened to the Jeep: one fog light fell off. That's it. No other damage. Maybe some scratches in the bumper, but its hard telling because they blended in with the other scratches. The car I hit ended up getting over $5000 in damage, which ultimately totaled the car. So I JB welded the foglight back together, and sold it a few weeks later. I ended up selling it for $4300, a good little $1600 profit. I ended up buying my DSLR with the money I made from it. We still reminisce about the white Jeep from time to time. I should have never sold it. Towards the end though, it was developing some transmission problem. The clutch would make a weird sound when disengaged. And the track bar broke off in the rear. That's not essential though.


This is from a few days after I bought it.

Here is when Brit and I got stuck at the Badlands. I drove up a hill and didn't see this massive drop on the other side….

 Here are the photos I used for trying to sell it.

 Oh I forgot that I also put new taillights on it, I always like these type of taillight so why not put them on the beater Jeep?

This is out at Brits moms property, we went down to the creek a lot in the Jeep

1997 BMW 328iS

Vehicle number two, the bimmer. I sold the Jeep during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. Since I wasn't allowed a car as a freshman, it didn't bother me that I couldn't drive long distances in the Jeep, but since I would now have to drive to school and back often, around 100 miles one way, I needed something a little more reliable. So I bought a BMW.

I found it in the Auto-RV, it was a salvage car and only cost $3700…..for a BMW! That wasn't that bad a price for a 9 year old car! So I bought it, had to replace the hood, front fender, grill, radiator support, headlights, front corner lights, fog lights, and a bunch of other small things, and it was good to go! I ended up selling my Jeep for around $7300, so I made out pretty good on it!

Man I loved that car. It was sooo fast! And surprisingly economic, it usually got between 25-30mpg, depending on how I drove it. But it did have its fair share of problems over the years, everything from replacing the same rear wheel bearing twice, to the water pump exploding and shredding the fan and belt, leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere during the middle of a very cold night. Actually, it has left me stranded more times than all of the other vehicles combined that I have owned……but I still loved it! I remember shortly after I got it fixed, I drove down King road out in the country and thought "lets see what shes made of"…..before I knew it, I was doing 130mph. I know that these cars have a limiter of 155mph, I bet it would have done every bit of that, but I got too scared and had to slow down. It was night afterall…..

Oh and the sound that it made! Sounded like a Ferrari or something. I loved the sound of that engine, it sounded so clean and in tune. Most other engines sound clumsy and unbalanced. It was so torquey too. It had a lot of low rpm power, you could go from 60 to 80 in no time without even downshifting. What a great little car!

Specs: It had a 2.8L straight 6, around 190hp(new), automatic trans, leather, 6 disc cd player (that didn't work), AC (that wasn't very cold), I didn't do too many modifications, most of the money I spent on it went to repairs like drilled/slotted brakes, shocks, engine parts, suspension parts, ect. I did make an intake for it out of PVC pipe and an Autozone cone filter with a custom heat shield and air scoop coming from one of the brake ducts…..but other than that I didn't really do any modifications to the car. I bought a few different types of wheels for it over the years though…..I like wheels haha. And this was another car that I loved to keep clean! I was in the car wash what seemed like once a week, and waxed it regularly.

Anyway, I had it for a few years, from 2006 to 2010, I ended up trading it on another Jeep Wrangler, which turned out to be a huge mistake because the bimmer was right where I liked it, (almost) everything was fixed on it, and I really liked how it looked and drove. Oh well, you live and you learn.


Here it is shortly after I got it fixed and road ready!

 After the first set of wheels.

 This was a regular occurance…..underneath it fixing something. Actually I think I was putting the air scoop on that ran up to the air filter.

 Shortly before I sold it :(

Cars-1995 Jeep Wrangler

Ok, I gotta do this. I love cars. Every since I was a kid I have loved cars. I remember as a child, I don't know exactly how old I was, I wanna say 5, but I vividly remember one Sunday morning before church, my dad and I were watching some drag racing on TV and I was sitting there with a pencil and paper drawing the dragsters. That's one of my first memories of drawing btw. But anyways, that's how long I have loved cars. In this post I want to write about my cars, the ones that I have owned and loved over the years. I know that I'm young and I've only had a few, and no one really cares about my cars, but they were important to me, and this is my blog dangit, so I'm going to write about them!

My first vehicle, and probably my favorite to date, my 1995 Jeep Wrangler. What a beauty she was! I got her when I turned 16, and probably poured every penny I made into it! My dad was the rightful owner before me and he decided to let me have it because he wanted another, newer Jeep. What a blast we had with those things! We often frequented the sand dunes in Michigan, and I went to the Badlands offroad park a few times with mine. I remember one evening driving home from wrestling practice (I think), both me and my dad in our separate Jeeps, and the Yellow River was flooded over 3rd road. So of course we had to plow through it! Or rather, float across it, because thats actually what we did. I know that the water was up to the body on mine, and up to the doors on his! Thats a good 30 inches of water I'd say. And oh the memories: going muddin several times with my buddies who also had Jeeps, almost hitting a pole while I drifted around a corner on a dirt road, running over my dog with it, getting in trouble with the police for driving over huge stone piles on the side of the road….stuff like that.

Anyways, some specs on the Jeep: 4.0L high output inline 6 engine, 3 speed automatic transmission, K&N filter, Flowmaster 40 series muffler, no catalytic converter, (eventually) three inch body lift, four inch suspension lift, 33inch Super Swamper Thornbirds, Pioneer sound system with 6X9s in custom built boxes and an 8" sub behind the back seat, I think it had 187,000 miles when I sold it, but it ran like a champ! And it was very very clean…..unless it was muddy, which was often. I kept good care of it though, polishing the wheels at least twice a year and washing it probably once a week. What a great vehicle, I should have never gotten rid of it. I only did because I had started college and it wasn't very practical to drive on the highway, it only got about 10mpg. Plus it needed new tires and I couldn't afford them at the time. I'll post on the other ones later in time, its getting late. Enjoy the photos! I don't have many, I've lost most of them all over the years.

This is when Andrew and I drove up on top of each others Jeep after school one day, it was very impressive. I took these photos with the old camera we had to borrow for photography class.

 This is shortly before I sold it :(