Eagle

I'll try to remember to check the heaps tomorrow. I think one of the MJs has base trim. For the moment, I'm going to guess "Probably not." The front stubby armrests are side-specific, and the part number is different from the XJ rear armrest.

Are you asking about the stubby, base model arm rests or the rear hockey stick armrests?

A "few hundred" to do a head? Is that if you carry it in, or does that include them taking it off and reinstalling it? What's included in their price? Is that a valve job, valve guides, and decking (truing) the head surface? "A few hundred" is a very imprecise number, and to me it sounds a bit on the high side.

It'll run for awhile with no alternator. The battery will wear down, though, and at that point it will stop. There's also the problem of overheating.

I had a '78 SJ Cherokee (the full-size Cherokee). I'm in the salt belt and it was losing the rust battle so I sold it, but I often regret having done so. I loved that truck. Mine had the AMC 360 engine, and I felt like it had enough torque to pull down a good sized house. I used mine mostly for plowing in the winter. Check the frame for rot. If the frame is solid, anything else can be fixed.

WHY do people try to be "helpful" when they have no idea what the [bleep] is going on? I have three parts XJs in the yard. Knowing that the hood release cables are frozen I carefully and intentionally left the hoods partially open, held down only by the safety catch in the center. Went out this afternoon to grab a part for a fellow Comanche Club member and found ALL THREE hoods have been fully and firmly closed. I'd sure it was done by the Mexican guy my wife brought in to cut the grass. He's a nice guy, but he doesn't understand American gearheads and why we have piles of car parts lying around where there could be grass. I can't even yell at him, because he doesn't speak English and my Spanish isn't up to the task. Damnit! Now what should have been a 5-minute job is going to take hours of futzing around. I am NOT a happy camper at the moment.

Ah. Are you absolutely certain that you ordered and received parts for your year MJ? There have been several permutations and combinations of hubs, disks and rotors. In general, they can't be mixed. They have different offsets, so mixing them results in no-roll wheels.

I believe what we have here is a failure to communicate.

It sounds like either you're not really getting 4th gear (overdrive), or your torque converter isn't locking up. For reference, the overdrive ratio is (IIRC) 0.72:1, so your direct (1:1) RPMs for any chosen speed would be the overdrive RPM divided by 0.72. The overdrive 1600 RPM (which is incorrect, on stock tires 55 MPH in OD should be 1733 RPM) would be 1600/0.72 = 2222. The torque converter not locking up would also raise the RPM, but there's no way to calculate that mathematically. Nope. Reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pHFuhGgj6dQDfzyfFJH5z7NCDLW2KX3ABQgAJr3lBvM/pub?hl=en&hl=en&output=html

The 4.3L is basically a SBC V-8 with two cylinders cut off. It's much wider than the 2.8/3.1/3.4 and barely fits the MJ engine compartment. Back in the early days of NAXJA one of the guys who lived near me had an XJ that he had put a 4.3L into. I asked him how much work it was to do it. His response was: "Let me put it this way -- I love working on cars, but NEVER AGAIN." Once you decide to go with a 4.3L you might as well go all the way and do a SBC.

SOA is what happens in the rear. How you get the lift in the rear has NOTHING to do with how you get the lift and correct the steering geometry in the front.

How are you going to put an AX-15 on a 2.8L engine? The bell housing is different, and the input shaft diameter is different so you'll need a different clutch.

Let's go back to basics: Fuel, Air, and Spark. 1. You brought up compression in response to my previous post. Have you checked the compression? If so, what is it? 2. You posted that you have fuel, but where do you have fuel, and how much? Has this engine run (for you) before? If you have fuel at the fuel rail, what's the pressure? Have you pulled an injector (or two or three) to be certain it's squirting? Have you tried starting it by dribbling a little gasoline directly down the throttle body? (NOT while cranking -- dribble first, move gasline container away, THEN crank) 3. Spark. You posted that you have spark. Where -- at the coil, or at the spark plugs? Have you removed a spark plug and grounded it to the block to verify that the plugs are firing? And then, of course, there's timing. Have you confirmed that the spark for the #1 cylinder occurs when the #1 cylinder is at top-dead-center (TDC) ... on its compression stroke?

It depends on what engine. The '86 MJ used only an AX-5 or (rarely) a T-5, with a small GM V-6 bellhousing bolt pattern. The 4.0L engines got either a Peugeot BA 10/5 or an AX-15 with a larger bell housing. If the Wrangler tranny is from a 4-cylinder it should work, but a 6-cylinder tranny won't fit your engine.

How long was the vehicle sitting? Have the front calipers been serviced? I recently had a front caliper sieze on my wife's 2000 XJ, which gets driven regularly. I drove it three miles to the post office and noticed that it seemed to be pulling to one side. Got there and I smelled the unmistakable smell of cooking brakes. I managed to make it home, but I would not have driven it any farther than three miles like that. Didn't release when it cooled down. I replaced both calipers. Another possibility is that your front flex hoses may have deteriorated internally and a flap of rubber is acting like a one-way check valve.

Seems to be. The way it's now plumbed, the bottle isn't under any pressure. Unless it leaks, there's no reason to replace the bottle or the cap.

Unlikely. My suggestion would be to try to get the portion of the rear wiring harness from an MJ that has the connector where the tailight harnes connects to the chassis harness. Use those plugs to make your own plug-in harness.

You have a mystery. An internal combustion engine only needs three things to run: fuel, air, and spark. You report that you have fuel and spark, and it's unlikely that changing the transmission could affect the air intake system, so ... what are we missing? Are you certain that the flywheel you bought is for the year of your truck? The "tone ring" (for lack of a better term) is different for the Renix system than for the Chrysler HO system. Likewise the CPS is different. You have to have the correct flywheel, and then the CPS has to match the flywheel. However, if you didn't have all that correct, it's unlikely you would have spark -- or injection, since both are controlled by the CPS. Did you do ANYTHING else while you were working on it? Did you by any chance have the distributor out? Where are you checking for spark, and where are you checking for fuel delivery?

Ah. I couldn't see that from the photos. Now that you tell us that, I can sort of make it out. Yes, if the filler neck overflow tube goes into the bottom of the tank, then it is acting as an overflow bottle.

Confirmed: 1988 2.5L 2WD. All stock, 200,000+ miles on the clock. It's currently wearing an aluminum utility topper on the bed, and the bed has about 300 pounds of parts in it. Hub to flare: 20" right side, 19-1/2" left side. Call it 19-3/4 for a well-used 2WD, or round it to 20 then add a half inch for the weight of the topper and parts. 20-1/2. 4WD MJs ride 1" (nominally) higher than 2WD, so for a 4WD it looks like the stock measurement should be 21-1/2" (plus-or-minus 1/2").

I think the previous owner lied to you. In the OLD old days, when we had carburetors and low-pressure mechanical fuel pumps that sucked fuel to the pump, you could do as he claimed (although putting a can of gas in the passenger seat area seems incredibly stupid to me). But both the '88 4.0L multiport injection and the '88 2.5L throttle body injection have the fuel pump in the tank, and the fuel system is pressurized all the way from the tank to the injectors. What would have delivered fuel from this alleged gas can to the injectors? And how would that fuel have been pressurized to around 40 psi?

But you still have the bottom hose leading into the tank, so what you have is a bastardized system that can't possibly hold pressure. Either put the closed system back to the original configuration so it has a chance of possibly working, or convert to an "open" system. In an open system, the overflow tank is fed by a tube that comes off the radiator filler neck, with the orifice above the gasket that seals the cap to the neck.

IMHO the radiator is the place to start. My '88 XJ is currently on its third radiator. They don't last forever. I don't see a vent. It looks to me like it's plumbed the way it came from the factory, which means it's still functioning as a pressure bottle.

http://hpibajass.com/spark-plug-color/ http://www.superstreetonline.com/how-to/additional-tech/130-0703-reading-spark-plugs/

How do you know it's running lean?