Eagle

Does the blower really slow down, or does the air start coming out of the defrost outlets on top of the dashboard when you're going uphill?

If the clutch won't engage, the engine runs, you can shift into any gear, and the truck won't move. That doesn't sound like what you were describing. Can you give more details of the failure? You were on a freeway. Were you driving, or stopped somewhere? Did the clutch just suddenly stop transferring power to the transmission?

Please clarify -- The clutch would engage ... or the clutch wouldn't DISengage?

Don't think so. I've never seen anything like those wheels in any Jeep showroom, and they don't look like any of the wheels in yiur parts link.

You probably also have more bad gas in the tank. Remember, water is denser than gasoline -- it settles to the bottom of the tank, which happens to be where the pickup is located. In addition to checking (or, better yet, just replacing) the sock, you may need to siphon all the fuel out of the tank to be sure there's no more water in the bottom.

If you didn't install an adjustable track bar with the lift, that's your next purchase. A 4-1/2" lift will drag the front axle off center toward the driver's side by almost an inch. Some people try to "fix" that by drilling a new hole in the bracket at the axle end. IMHO that's a Bubba fix -- the correct way to do it is an adjustable track bar. Once the axle is properly centered, THEN you can use the drag link to center the steering wheel. [EDIT}I see from your parts list that you did use a Rusty's adjustable track bar. Be sure you have it adjusted correctly.

"Back in the day," in the late 1960s/early 1970s when AMC was just starting out with front disk brakes, some of their models (don't remember which) shipped with flat steel spaces for the front. They weren't quite an eighth of an inch, IIRC, but they must have been 3/32" or so. I don't think they even used longer studs. Jeep wheels are "hub centric" -- the wheels are supposed to engage that raised section around the center of the hub. That raised lip is probably (at a guess -- it's raining and I'm not going outside to measure) 3/16" high. I would think if a spacer half that thickness would work for you, it should be plenty safe. And a lot of aftermarket wheel rims aren't hub centric anyway. Heck, in my Javelin/AMX days I used to run these on the front for caliper clearance with aftermarket rims. They totally did away with the hub centric feature, and I autocrossed and did time trials at Lime Rock Raceway with them. http://www.jegs.com/p/Mr-Gasket/Mr-Gasket-Wheel-Spacers/748902/10002/-1

Looks like Hornbrod's suggestion in the other thread is a good one. If you really want to stay with the factory center caps, you could run quarter-inch wheel spacers on the front.

That worked. Thanks.

Sign in to yahoo.com if you have an account. Or don't if you don't. That explains it. No, I don't have a Yahoo account -- or Google, or Facebook, or Twitter, or anything else that I don't need.

Signed in ... to what? I clicked his link. It took me directly to a spreadsheet -- there was no sign-in screen.

Or just hotwire the fuel pump and see if it runs.

"File - Make a Copy" is not available.

An '89 used throttle body injection, which isn't all that different from a carburetor (to the engine). To verify that fuel is the problem, just dribble some gasoline into the throttle body and see if it starts. It won't run, of course, but it should fire and start.

If the overheating is only at idle or low speeds, and the temperature drops back to normal once the truck is moving along at 25 MPH or faster, the viscous fan clutch is the likely suspect.

I don't know how the overdrive solenoid would be linked to the torque converter. OD is a fourth gear in the transmission, it's not the torque converter lock-up (which also operates in third gear).

Before you even mess with the resistor pack -- try the blower with the switch in the high speed position. That bypasses the resistor pack. If it runs on high but not on the other speeds, then check the resistor pack. If it doesn't run on high speed, probably the brushes are worn out in the blower motor and you need a new motor.

And if the result is to get the tip of the CPS closer to the teeth on the flywheel, it will generate a stronger signal. The problem is when it results in an interference fit -- as it seems to have done here.

... There's something wrong as far as the CPS contacting the flywheel. There's a ton of clearance. Incorrect mounting bolts? Notice where he said he drilled out the top hole. I'm going to guess that he read some "expert" on the Internet advising to do this to get a stronger signal. God save us from the Internet experts ...

My '88 4.0L does the same thing. I believe it's a bad CPS that gets heat-soaked -- the problem started after I replaced the CPS. Unfortunately, I've had too many medical issues and I can't crawl underneath to try a new CPS.

If you didn't gap the rings according to factory specs, how did you decide to gap them? And why would you use anything different from what the factory specifies?

I'm inclined to think the engineers who designed the engine and wrote the official factory book probably know more about their engine than other sources, but I'm a bit old-fashioned that way. What year (in case it makes a difference)?

No, they didn't. You are thinking of the Quadradrive option, not Quadratrak. And the traction device in the front wasn't exactly a locker or a limited slip, at least as we know it. The Traclok limited slip used in the factory XJ and MJ rear axles is a clutch-type limited slip that is always engaged UNLESS the torque differential between the left and right drive wheels exceeds a threshold, at which point the clutches start slipping to allow the wheels to rotate at different speeds. This would result in very dangerous handling on snow or ice if used in the front axle. The Quadradrive traction device works exactly the opposite. It is a clutch-type device, but the default is that the clutches are NOT engaged, so steering is not affected. If one wheel starts spinning much faster than the other wheel on the same axle, then a gerotor pump in the differential uses hydraulic pressure to activate the clutches and engage the traction device. I had a '99 WJ with Quadradrive. When it worked, it worked very well and it was totally transparent to the driver. No strange handling characteristics at all. The only problem was that (like several other features of the WJ) it only worked when it felt like it. I didn't keep that Jeep very long -- I went back to an XJ for reliability. Technically I guess the Quadradrive axles could be described as limited slip, but the mode of operation was unlike any other traction device on the market. Don't confuse it with a Traclok type, which could be dangerous in a front axle.

This article by an early NAXJA member is about dropping the skid for a lift, but it's a useful reference for installing one. Just omit the tube spacers. http://www.olypen.com/craigh/skid.htm

The 8.25 swap is VERY easy, and much less expensive than an 8.8 swap. If you just need to put it in and drive, all you need to do is move the spring perches. The axle is already the correct width, so you don't need any spacers, or wheels with different backspacing. The pinion yoke is the same as for an MJ, so you don't need an adapter flange. You should be able to cut off the original spring perches and weld them back on in the correct place for the MJ installation. You can obviously use the original MJ shock mounts, since they aren't part of the axle. You can either leave the XJ shock mounts on the axle tubes, or cut them off -- your option. While you can do a disc brake conversion, it's not necessary if you just need an axle to drive on. The rear brakes in an MJ when not running loaded do even less work than the rear brakes in an XJ, so IMHO there's not much to be gained by doing the disc brake conversion. The 8.25 pinion is about 1-inch longer than the D35, so unless you're doing a lift at the same time you will also need to shorten the drive shaft by an inch. (You would also have to do this with the 8.8.)