Eagle

That's fine for under a desk ... except that the first night after you install it the cleaning person is going to tell everyone else on the team that you have a gun safe under your desk, and at least one of them is going to mention it to someone at home, and now your gun safe is a known target. Where ya gonna mount that in your MJ?

I've done it, too. Bought a 1949 Hudson off post when I was stationed in the Army and drove it home to Connecticut through a snow storm. Battery (6 volt!) wouldn't hold a charge, so any time I stopped I had to park on an incline so I could roll it and pop the clutch. Except that doesn't work so well in snow, as I found out. Then I stalled it in line for a toll booth on the New Jersey Turnpike. A sympathetic trucker took pity on a serviceman in need, got on his CB to have other truckers create an open "pocket" in front of me, and then he nudged me enough to pop the clutch and get it going. I've also bought vehicles that had been sitting for too long to be trusted, and brought them home on a transporter. I paid $500 for the red '88 MJ. By the time it was fixed enough to pass inspection for a new registration (back when Connecticut still required inspections for registration), i was into it for about $3,500. I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but I do want the OP to go into this (if he proceeds) with his eyes open. I think $1,000 is too much for that particular MJ but, if he has the money and wants that truck, that's fine. The truck will be going to a good home, and I'm all in favor of that. But we don't know how much money he has to throw at it. IMHO he has to figure on all (or at least most) of the things we've been suggesting if he wants to use it as a daily driver, and those things aren't cheap. He''s looking at $500 to $1,000 just in routine replacement of consumables, assuming there's nothing seriously wrong. If he has that kind of money and has the knowledge to do the work, that's great. Even so, I think planning to drive it home is a mistake. Rent or borrow a truck and car hauler, and bring it home on a trailer. Yeah, many of us have done such things. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't.

Agreed. But the MOST they should produce is a 1" lift in an 4.0L MJ. His MJ is 29 years old, so he may be starting from a settled ride height, too. They won't produce 2 inches in the best of circumstances. Add a pair of 1-inch (which I think are really 3/4-inch) lift spacers and he'll be in the ballpark. Of course, he could just use 2-inch spacers, but with the ZJ V8 coils he'll have a higher spring rate for a former ride, and should end up at about the same height.

What does the 19.5" dimension refer to, the free length of the springs, or the measurement from your axle centerline to the wheel flare with the springs installed? As I posted previously in this thread, ZJ V8 springs are the same springs used in the late-model Cherokee 4.0L with the Up Country suspension option, which rides 1" higher than the standard suspension. How do I know this? I own two 2000 XJs. The front springs in my '87 MJ are tired, so I wanted to buy new springs and I thought the Up Country springs would be a good choice. So I crawled under the first of the 2000 XJs when it was new, read the number off the tag on the spring, and called my dealership parts guru to order a pair. And his immediate response was, "Why are you ordering Grand Cherokee springs for a Comanche?" So ... ZJ V8 springs should lift a 4.0L Comanche 1 inch higher than stock. You don't need to change the shocks or the sway bar links to use those springs.

You fill it to the half-full mark when it's cold, then you start it up and "burp" it. Leave the cap loose, start it, and let it run until it gets hot enough to start boiling. As soon as you see bubbles ... shut it off. Remove the cap (carefully, using long pliers or something). Watch until the coolant starts to suck down, then add slowly, to keep the level at the half-full mark. Once it stops sucking, start it up and repeat until no more air bubbles come out. Usually a couple or three cycles will get it driveable. After that, just check it before every cold start for a couple of days until you don't need to add any more. Sounds like you pretty much got it figured out.

I would suspect that you are losing clutch fluid. Check the clutch master cylinder. If it's down, the problem could be the master cylinder, could be the slave cylinder, or it could be the connection between them.

You're talking the price of a new loaf of bread compared to the price of a new loaf of bread. My first new car cost $2,500 out the door. A comparable new car today would cost around $30,000. That's what's irrelevant. What is relevant is that a 32-year old vehicle that's not running isn't a $1,000 vehicle unless it's something that has achieved collector status. As much as I like Comanches, they haven't gotten there yet. If they had, people wouldn't be buying old MJs, lifting them, and dropping small-block Chevy engines in them -- they'd be restoring them (which is what I wish they'd do with all MJs, but that's another story). If you go to an on-line inflation calculator, that $500 I paid fifteen years ago is worth $682 today. But ... the truck isn't. Fifteen years ago, a 1988 MJ was a fifteen year old vehicle. Today, a 1986 MJ is a 32-year old vehicle. How much would you pay for a loaf of 15- or 32-year old bread? There are some old cars you can buy, put $20,000 into restoring, and sell for $40,000 or $50,000 or more. If you put $20,000 into restoring an MJ, unless you got VERY lucky you could never sell it for that. What I did fifteen years ago is relevant, because it illustrates the problems that can be encountered. That 4-banger I bought for $500 fifteen years ago was about 125 miles from home. It made it 100 miles on the trip home when the clutch slave cylinder ruptured. I drove it the last 25 miles with no clutch. You can't count on doing that for 1,000 miles. If KatahGii does buy this MJ, he should figure on renting a U-Haul truck and a car trailer, and hauling it home that way. He should then figure on going through it, front to back, before considering it a daily driver. Radiator, water pump, thermostat, tires, brakes, probably all brake lines, fuel pump, new fuel injector, battery, u-joints, exhaust. It adds up quickly. Of course the seller's attitude affects what the seller is willing to take for the vehicle, but that doesn't affect what the vehicle is worth. You have to approach all such deals with your limit in mind. If the seller insists on a price that's double what the right price should be, you just have to be prepared to walk away from the deal. I'm not sure what his goal is, but at any price a 32-year old MJ that has been sitting for a number of years because the owner didn't feel like repairing known issues is not a daily driver. It's a project. He can't assume, or even hope, that he'll throw a battery and a radiator into it and have a reliable vehicle he can drive every day, anywhere, any time.

First thing I would do is to turn on the hazard flashers and walk around the truck, checking to be sure that all the bulbs on all four corners are working. Remember that the taillights have two bulbs in each, and they should both blink. If you find a bulb that's not working, there's your problem. If it isn't a burned out bulb, stop in at your favorite auto parts chain store and buy a new blinker module. The factory ones are load-sensitive -- if one bulb burns out, they're supposed to change the blink rate to warn you that a bulb is out. That doesn't work if you tow, though, because the added load of the trailer lights makes them blink too fast. So they make heavy-duty flashers that always blink at the same rate. Plug one of those in and see if it cures the problem. (Just be sure you plug the new one into the socket for the turns, not the hazard flasher.)

Again, see my signature. I agree with you that it would be a shame to see what appears to be a complete, original, and fairly solid truck just rot away from misuse. I'd love to see you get it and, preserve it, and restore it. That doesn't mean I want you to get robbed. If the owner is the original owner, the truck doesn't owe him anything. He didn't want to spend the money to fix the overheating problem or buy new tires, but someone has to fix those things to drive it. In terms of what it's worth, don't go by what people are asking for Comanches on Craig's list or Auto Broker. Look at average selling prices for other 32-year old mini-pickups with high mileage, and not in running condition. If the owner is a fair and honest person, he should recognize that if he gave it to you, you'd be doing him a favor by getting it out of his yard. IMHO, if the underside isn't completely rusted out that's a $500 truck, at best. In fact, about 15 years ago I bought an '88 4-cylinder Comanche and drove it home from Rhode Island to Connecticut. I paid ... $500 for it, that was fifteen years ago, and the one you're looking at is two years older. The one I bought was rough but solid, and it's a base model. The one you're looking at is a higher trim level, as shown by the 3-spoke steering wheel and the wheel trim rings. So let's say it could be worth $1,000 in good, running condition. Right now, it's not running. At a guess, just to put it on the road it needs a radiator, a water pump, and the brake drums and rotors are probably rusted so badly they're beyond hope. The rear drums might have enough material left to be turned but, at 175,000 miles, I doubt it. The front rotors aren't worth trying to turn, so they'll need to be replaced. So you're into it for a radiator, a water pump, a brake job, and who knows what else. The cost of those things has to be factored against what a fair price would be if it ran well and reliably. And that's just to get it running and driving so you can find out what else is wrong with it. I would love to see you buy it and bring it back from the dead, and we're here to help you, but go into it with your eyes (and your checkbook) open. It's 32 years old -- it's going to need a lot of TLC. Don't for a minute think you're just going to fill up the tank and have a daily driver. If the owner is married to the mother of a friend, I would be very disappointed if he holds out for $1,000 for that truck. That's just not a reasonable price.

Does it start and move? If so, there's at least a possibility that the clutch is good. I can't argue with that. (See my signature. )

I sooooooo love Classic Shell ... And I soooooo hate Office 2010, 2013, and 2016 with the &%#(*&^$% ribbon menu setup. The morons at Microsoft could at least have provided an option to use the classic menus for people who have been using Office for decades, instead of forcing everyone to learn a totally new (and totally non-intuitive, regardless of what they claim) interface.

Looks like a 4-cylinder, and it probably needs both a water pump and a radiator. That's a solid looking truck, but it's not worth $1,000 unless it's running right.

That's not bad. I would likely bolt it down somewhere. I just don't trust the cables. Don't know why... Your call. Bolting it down in a pickup truck makes it much less accessible. I don't know about where you live but around here smash-and-grab type thieves don't generally carry bolt cutters that will snip a hardened steel aircraft cable. Plus, if the case is under the driver's seat, they can't see it looking in the window, so hopefully they won't have any incentive to break in. If they do break in, even more than in a home burglary, their goal is to grab what they can as quickly as they can so they can scoot with the loot. They're unlikely to hang around analyzing the best way to defeat a storage box that's designed not to be broken into, and that may not have anything valuable in it anyway.

https://www.firstalert.com/product/portable-handgun-or-pistol-safe/ Includes a steel lanyard that you can wrap around a seat pedestal to prevent snatch-and-run. Insert pistol, slide box under seat. First Alert is not the only company that makes them.

If you use your truck off-road, mounting something near the diff housing as suggested by 1989 ... is a good way to retain some articulation. If you just drive your truck on the street, or light wheeling (fire roads, etc.), the company known for such devices is still around and you could start with them: http://tractionmaster.com/

Start by checking the bulbs and the sockets. The parking light sockets in the early XJs and MJs are often a problem. When you try to signal left, does it not light up at all, or does it light up and not blink?

Sounds good -- many thanks. Having to learn a new operating system at my tender age is a struggle. I'm still avoiding Windows 10 as much as possible because it's different enough from Windows 7 ... and I only moved up to Windows 7 after support for XP ended. Several years ago I bought an inexpensive Android tablet. I found it so baffling that I immediately gave it away. Now a friend who switched over the the dark side (Apple) has given me a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, and it's such a nice tablet that I'd like to be able to get some use out of it.

I don't trust the cloud. The cloud is also not suitable -- earlier this year I had two projects in corners of the state where there was no cell phone reception, so my Verizon portable WiFi hotspot was useless. And there was no WiFi, so no other way to access a cloud storage location. That's why I need the files on my device. I'm not trying to move an entire Windows desktop computer onto an Android tablet, I just want access to 14 (currently) or 21 (soon) PDF files. Think of what I want/need is to have it function like Nook or Kindle, and the books I want to read happen to be boring building codes.

Now we know why you get wheel hop.

I have the files on a USB stick with dual terminals, one end fits the standard USB port on my desktop, the other end fits the mini- (or micro?) USB on the tablet. That part has been figured out, but I was getting hung up on trying to navigate the Android file system. I didn't see any way to create new folders, or to nest sub-directories. Thanks to you gentlemen, I'm beginning to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it's not a train heading straight at me ... Assuming I can get the files copied onto the tablet, is there a way to put an icon on the screen for each file? Or at least for each folder -- I currently need to have access to two generations of building codes, and each consists of a package of seven codes (building, residential, plumbing, mechanical, existing buildings, electrical, and handicapped). As of the first of October the state will be adopting a newer generation, so then I'll need to have all three sets because the rule is that the code in effect when the permit was taken out remains the code in effect for the life of the structure. On my desktop computer and work notebook, I created a screen shortcut icon for each file. Android icons take up comparatively more space, although there are multiple screens available so it still might work. I could put each set on a separate screen. (I think -- will that work?)

How did you manage a 3-inch lift with OEM leaf springs? That may be part of your problem. As the little killer robot said in the movie Short Circuit, "Need more data."

Is that what "enabled" means? This thing isn't an oversized smart phone, it doesn't have any cellular telco connectivity capability. No SIM slot. It has WiFi and Bluetooth ... that's it. I don't want to be able to access the code files over the airwaves, I want to copy them onto the tablet's micro SD card so they're always there and always available.

If there's anybody out there from western South Dakota, would you please contact me via PM? Thank you.

I guess the proper name for it is TAB S2 8-inch.