Eagle

I've also read that a mix of ATF and acetone makes an excellent penetrating oil. I haven't tried it yet, but I have a half gallon of "Ed's Red," which is equal parts of ATF, acetone, and mineral spirits, that I may try. Ed's Red is used as a firearms CLP. I never thought of trying it as a penetrant until reading about the ATF/acetone mix.

No you don't need the shell -- you need the rear frame. Don't forget, MJs are unit body under the cab. If you're REALLY good with a welder, you could have Jim cut off a frame and ship that to you -- but that would mean destroying one of his complete trucks. The frame is basically sheet metal. It would be work, but if I were in your situation I would go shopping for some sheet metal and start re-building the frame. I wouldn't tube it -- I'm sort of a purist, so I would try to make it look as original as possible. Maybe see if Jim (or someone) can make you drawings or tracings of what a solid frame should look like so you have a decent pattern for making the repair sections.

I have the same question. If you're driving it around with no oxygen sensor, the ECU must be in open loop (warm-up) mode all the time ... which means your fuel mileage must be in the toilet. Or did you go retro and install a carburetor?

Do you still have the Renix wiring and ECU, or did you replace the electrics with the HO engine? Assuming you still have the Renix wiring, the Renix temperature sender has a single wire that's hot, and it grounds through the body of the sender. The operating voltage is thus a nominal 12 volts. I believe the new style operates on a 5 volt constant input from the PCM, and then grounds back through the PCM. You could try just connecting one wire to the Renix hot wire and grounding the other to any bolt on the engine, but I don't know if the voltage difference will affect the readings.

Holy crap! That's a bearing puller, not a press plate. At 25 tons, I'm amazed that you didn't destroy the bearing puller. You were lucky ...

Marvel Mystery Oil is a cleaner as well as a lubricant. The normal dose is one can added to the full crankcase. To really purge a dirty engine, you could do an oil change, put in five quarts of oil rather than six, and dump in two or three cans of Marvel. I wouldn't drive it hard like that, but since your plan won't be putting any load on the engine I don't see that as a problem. I would NOT change just the filter, and then add the Marvel to the old, dirty oil. Use new, clean oil -- even if you go to Wal-Mart and buy their house brand. It won't be in there for long, and you're not going to be stressing the engine.

Awhile ago I picked up an '88 MJ shortbed with 2WD, and the mighty 2.5L engine with 4-speed manual tranny. The body is in decent shape but the engine has 219,000 miles on it and the clutch is gone. My options: 1. I could just replace the clutch and see how long the old engine would keep going. 2. I have a 1986 XJ 2.5L 5-speed, 4WD. The engine in that is a rebuilt with only 30,000 miles on it. I could freshen that engine up and throw it into the MJ. 3. I also have a wrecked '87 XJ with a 4.0L 4WD automatic, with a bit more than 100,000 miles on it. I could freshen that engine and swap it into the MJ. I'm not planning to sell this MJ, I hope to keep it as a weekly (not daily) driver for normal household, weekend warrior type jobs. What would you do? Why?

That photo looks like the speedo head end of the cable with the cable broken off. Starting in either mid-87 or 88, Jeep changed from a speedo cable that screwed onto the head in conventional fashion to one that snapped on. That white part is the nylon snap fitting. Squeeze the outer ring at the end closest to the speedo head and it pops right off. A speedo cable for a 1988 thru 1990 Cherokee with 4WD should be what you're looking for.

I was thinking the same thing.

Thanks (NOT!) for reminding me about that. A good many years ago I was building a Javelin to race in the New England hillclimb circuit. Trying to be as safe and (pseudo)professional as I could, I installed a kill switch on the transmission tunnel, where it would be in easy reach of my hand. Got it all wired in, fired up the engine to test it, hit the kill switch -- and the only thing that happened was the headlights got brighter. After that, I had to sit down with the wiring diagrams and figure out where I needed to cut in my kill switch wiring to actually accomplish the purpose. Embarrassing, to say the least.

I wish I had thought of the 2.5L overflow bottle when I did my expansion tank upgrade. Live and learn.

You don't have a choke -- they don't exist with electronic fuel injection. So we've eliminated one possibility, and now you know what mechanic NOT to go back to. It might be dirty injectors, or it might be the CPS showing the first signs of old age. Also possibly even the oxygen sensor. If it's old it may not be responding fast enough to changes in the exhaust flow. Typically, though, with the O2 sensor failing you get backfires when you let off the throttle. How old is the CPS?

Possibly a bent valve, or a collapsed lifter?

Those springs look as good as new. Last year I took leaves and parts from four different springs, all of which had broken leaves, and mixed and matched to put together two complete springs. I'm in the rust belt, so I had a lot more work than you're facing. Center pins could not be salvaged. One I had to cut off. The other I was able to get the nut off after using a nut buster on the nut, but the shank was bent. I used socket-head cap screws from Lowe's, but (as others have pointed out) the heads are too large and need to be ground down slightly. In the process, I discovered that there are two different types to those rebound clips (the straps riveted to the third leaf). There are short ones, that leave the cross pin sleeve basically in contact with the main leaf, and there are "tall" ones that leave enough gap for an additional leaf. I have no idea why the difference. It might be for different rate springs, or it might be a difference in the year of manufacture. The leaves I was working with had so much rust flaking that I had to work on them with a ball pein hammer and a cold chisel to knock the flakes off. Then I swabbed them with rust killer. Once that dried, I gave them three coats of black Rustoleum, and put them back together. The unloaded arch seems to be the same for both springs but, because of the mix-n-match origin, I don't know if they are the same spring rate. I hope so -- although I also hope I never have to use them.

Interesting. I went through two with my wife's XJ, as well. But I bought the first from the dealer, and it lasted exactly one year. I bought the second from Auto Zone because it has a lifetime warranty. So far, so good. If the code you're getting is injector specific, it seems like you've replaced everything except that part that's probably causing the problem. Why not try another injector?

Same thing happened with my wife's 2000 XJ a few years ago. What code did you get -- by number? Injectors don't "fire," they inject, so I'm not sure from your description if you got an injector code or an ignition code. In my case, the code was for ignition. After replacing all the spark plugs (since the vehicle had 90,000+ miles on the original plugs at the time, the cure finally turned out to be a new coil rail.

You're off to a good start. Good find on the pads -- I wish I had known about them when I was refurbishing a set of springs. The rebound clamps are riveted to the third leaf, not the main leaf. To replace, I used 1/4" bolts and the smallest steel tubing I could find that would fit over the bolts -- don't remember if it was 3/8" or 7/16", but my best guess is 3/8".

Honestly, I thought "MTF" must be some new brand of lubricant that I hadn't heard of.

my best guess is Manual Transmission Fluid. or My T.A.R.D.I.S. Flooded... The pool in the library might have been a bad idea after all... Probably a good guess. 71 years on the planet, and this is the first time I've ever encountered gear oil being called "fluid." WE'RE HERE TO COMMUNICATE! WHY CAN'T WE JUST USE WORDS?

MTF? Mambo Tango Foxtrot? WTF does MTF mean?

That's not unexpected. The question is, under what conditions does it start clattering and the light flickering? How many miles on the engine, what type and weight of oil are you running, and what brand of oil filter are you using?

No, the bottom left is not an idiot light. It's a blank space. That's where the fuel gauge goes for the clusters that have a tachometer.

Unless the existing engine is blown, rather than just worn out, I would rebuild it, doing as much of the work myself as possible. [Hint: It ain't rocket science. Even I can put an engine together and have it run.]

Yes, it's a budget way to do a slip yoke eliminator. Rather than buy a complete rear housing and output shaft, the stock (late model) tailshaft is cut off ("hacked") and then tapped to accept a bolt that holds the yoke in place. This also requires a custom driveshaft with a slip joint in the center. You will need to find out if your output shaft has already been cut off, or if it's still full-length. If it has been cut off, you can't run a slip yoke on it because there probably isn't going to be enough travel.

What idiot light?