96 Cherokee clutch pedal question

[jazzplayer]

I just test-drove a 96 Cherokee that I’m thinking of buying (133k miles). Everything seemed good except that the clutch pedal was quite hard to push down. The last manual transmission car I had was a 96 Dodge Neon. The Jeep’s pedal was significantly harder to push down than the Neon's. It wasn’t that bad for normal driving but it would be a pain (literally) in stop and go traffic.

Is this normal for Jeeps? Is the pedal tension something that can be changed? I plan on rebuilding the engine at some point, so I don’t mind doing some work on it.

Also, the clutch didn’t disengage until the pedal was about 2/3 of the way down. Is that normal?

I like everything else about this car. It would be great if I could fix the clutch pedal issue.

Thanks.