Eagle

Your shackles (the Y-shaped middle part) look better than 98 percent of the XJ and MJ shackles I've seen. What you have hardly even qualifies as surface rust. Take 'em off, buff them on a wire brush wheel, and paint 'em up with a couple or three coats of semi-gloss Rusteleum black and they'll be better than new. The lower bolts through the spring eyes are 14mm, flange head bolts. You won't find those at Lowe's or Home Depot. Considering the lack of rust on your truck, I would have zero hesitation to reuse them. Wire brush them to remove any surface rust, and coat the shanks with anti-seize when reinstalling. Use blue Loctite (not anti-seize) on the thread area. In your first link -- that photo does NOT look like the XJ shackle on Crown's web site. And -- the same shackle doesn't fit XJs and MJs. And Crown doesn't list one for the MJ. So ... Second link is a lift shackle, and it doesn't look like a Crown part, either.

If you have the glass, you are thre--quarters of the way. The whole window is glued into the body like a windshield. The outer "gasket" is trim. The slider assembly has a top rail and a bottom rail, with the ends open such that, on the ends, the glass is glued directly to the body. I don't think there's enough vertical clearance to pop a new slider glass into the tracks in the vehicle, so I believe you will have to remove the entire window assembly, spread the top and bottom tracks to insert the new glass, and then reinstall the window and the trim gasket.

Brute force. There was a special tool for that job. I needed it a few years ago so I went to the dealership and hit up my friend, the shop foreman. He sadly informed me that they had cleaned out and reorganized the tool room a couple of years previous to make room for tools to service the newer vehicles, and that was one of the tools that didn't make the cut. He said they probably had it for twenty years and he never saw it used.

I don't think it can be replaced -- because it doesn't exist. Tye MJ rear sliders aren't flat, the glass is curved, and nobody makes replacement glass for them. I know -- I have a friend who runs a glass company, and we've searched.

I was going to suggest Crown, but they only have them for the Cherokee.

4-1/2" difference between the front and the rear, or the front sits 4-1/2" lower than what the factory spec is? The nominal factory ride height for a 2WD is 6-3/4" front and 8.2" rear -- that's a difference of an inch and a half. If your front has sagged 3 inches, the LAST thing you need is a SOA lift in the rear. That's going to lift the rear a minimum of 5-1/2" to 6". What you need is a pair of new front coils. Junkyard coils from a V8 ZJ Grand Cherokee (1993 thry 1998) will bring you back to stock heit plus a little more, and still ride well.

You can run 31s with NO lift. For a vehicle that will be mostly a daily driver, don't lift it at all. I bought my '88 MJ with a 4" lift on it, and putting it back to stock height was one of the best decisions of my life.

Rotors are rotors. As long as they run true, any is as good as another for stopping. Cheap rotors warp if you just look at them. What you need to look at is pads. I don't know if semi-metallic or ceramic pads are better, but either will be an improvement over OEM replacement grade pads. One thing about semi-metallics: If they operate like full-metallic pads for race applications, they work better when hot -- which might not be ideal for a street vehicle. So the ceramic pads might be the way to go. Also, are your rear brakes working? Do you still have the rear height-sensing proportioning valve? If so, it it correctly adjusted? If not, you may only have brakes on the front wheels. Getting the rear brakes back in the equation makes a big difference.

No dealer keeps Performance Catalog parts in stock, but they can order them and have them in 2 to 3 days. They are cheaper from a jeep dealer than just about anywhere else, and they're very heavy duty and high quality. (They should be -- they are intended for use on high horsepower drag race cars.)

I think you are describing a thin metal disk? If so, it's just a dust cover to keep large debris out of the axle tube, it's not a seal. But I'm confused by your use of the term "spindle," since only the early 2WD XJs and MJs have a spindle -- and it doesn't enter the axle housing. Are you referring to the front axle shafts, inboard of the U-joints and stub axles? Look at this: http://www.quadratec.com/jeep-replacement-parts/cherokee-xj/xj-dana-30-front.php Are you asking about the disk at the left end of part number 23? (Actually, I guess the disk is part number 23.)

http://www.mopar.com/assets/pdf/performance/catalog/Steering_Suspension_&_Brakes.pdf Scroll down to page 10 (page #134 on the page image). Go back and tell your dealer's parts monkey to get his head out of his posterior.

I think at your traffic light incident you yanked on the shifter when the clutch was engaged, and the result was that you pulled the shift levers inside the tranny out of their proper seats. I'm not sure that can be fixed without opening the tranny. Several people have told me it can be done, but I've never had any luck when I've tried it.

Ain't that the truth. Two years ago I bought a used 2001 XJ with the intention that it would be my daughter's when she got her license. The license hasn't happened, and she's away at school, so I've been driving it. The day I got it registered, I slapped the plates on it and drove it to my friend's house (about 3 miles) to show it to him. The brakes felt a bit funky, so we checked the master cylinder. Empty. Well, it was used, and it had 80 something thousand miles, so maybe the previous owner wasn't paying attention. We filled it up, I drove it home (3 miles), and when I got home the MC was empty again. Now ... this XJ was originally sold in PA, spent some time in NY and then some time in NH. It was last titled in Maine before I got it. All rust belt states. I wound up replacing every hard line in the brake system except the short one on the left rear ... all the others were ancient history. Last week I lost the brakes again. I'm sure I don't need to tell you which line let go. The MJ brake lines to the rear like to rust out where they pass between the frame and the gas tank. It's almost impossible to inspect visually. If you don't live in a rust-free area, IMHO it's always wise to just run a new line if you're eliminating the height-sensing valve. It's cheap insurance, because when (not if) it pops you'll be doing it anyway.

Not really. Look at specs for so-called "RV" cams. Typically, they are higher lift than factory cams but shorter duration and less overlap. Their purpose is to increase torque at the low end rather than horsepower at the top end. When I built the first engine for my Javelin race car "back in the day," the cam maker completely misunderstood the performance characteristic I had given him and he gave me ... an RV cam. Gobs and gobs of low end, but where the factory engine would rev to 5500 and stop there due to valve float, the "race" engine was all through at 4500 RPM. Literally ... in top gear that was as fast as it would go, because aerodynamic drag exceeded the available power. Needless to say, I swapped out that cam post-haste. See if you can dig up the specs for the factory Stage 2 cam kit. That would probably be a good target for you. If you might be interested in a factory Stage 3 kit, one of my friends from NAXJA had one. I don't think he has sold it, but he no longer has the 4-banger MJ so he would probably be willing to part with it. If you're interested, send me a PM.

That all depends on who you get the lift springs from, and whether or not they are built to the same capacity as factory standard springs. Remember, even a stock MJ has (had) a load rating of 1475 pounds. That's basically a 3/4-ton truck. The metric ton springs and D44 axle raised it to 2200 pounds. Towing should not even be an issue, because the limiting factor is going to be the tongue weight on the hitch (typically 300 pounds or 500 pounds). Beyond that, what counts is the ability of the drive train to pull the weight, and the ability of the brakes (and truck) to stop it.

In my opinion, yes. Dual springs are for race engines that run higher than 6,000 or 7,000 RPM. Same with stronger springs -- you need stronger springs to prevent valve float at high RPM. Valve float is caused by the momentum of the rapidly moving valve overriding the spring tension. Since the stock spriings are designed to operate within the stock RPM band, they're adequate. Keep in mind that a "big" cam isn't physically bigger. The cam lobes still have to fit through the holes in the block and the cam bearings. The lobes of a "big" cam aren't any farther away from the cam centerline than those of a stock cam. Instead, the base circle is ground smaller. Your "big" can isn't going to compress the valve springs any farther than the stock cam.

The factory clutch in my '88 XJ had 204,000 miles on it when it was replaced ... and the only reason I had to work on it was that the release bearing gave up. The clutch itself was still good and showed hardly any wear but, for all the work of replacing an internal slave, I threw in a new clutch set as a preemptive strike. There shouldn't be anything wrong with your clutch at 122k unless the previous owner abused it badly. (Which is certainly a possibility.)

I have no idea what this is talking about. Is "you Quote" an application, or an add-in for browsers?

Yes. I believe the factory cam kits for the 2.5L included new, dual springs. I would check for you, since I have one of those kits -- but I have no idea where to look for it. That said, I wouldn't look for a big increase in spring strength, just get dual springs to control coil harmonics. Standard single springs are good at least to 5,500 RPM -- I seriously doubt you'll be spending much time that high in the power band. If so -- you'd better plan on sending the whole engine out for a professional balance job.

Regarding recovery gear -- be sure you get a "recovery" strap, not a "tow" strap. They may look similar (except that tow straps usually have metal hooks on each end, recovery straps just have sewn loops), but they are NOT the same. Probably the most common strap found is a 2" rated for 20,000 pounds, but I've been seeing more and more people using 3" 30,000-pound straps. Remember that the front of the MJ is a unibody. You can't just buy a pair of hooks and bolt them to the "frame" -- they'll tear right out. Several companies offer near clones of the factory tow hook bracket kit. I like Custom 4x4.

I agree on always going with at least one other vehicle, and preferably one that's roughly equal to yours in capability. I still remember the day in my STOCK '88 XJ at paragon when NAXJA-NAC went on what was supposed to be a light trail cruise after a day of work cutting new trails. The [unprintable} female leading us took us through a trail called "The Rock Garden." Within about 50 yards I had dented my oil pan and damned near ripped out my transfer case. She had the chutzpah to say "What's your problem? Stock Liberties went through here at the Jeep Jamboree." Ain't no way any stock Liberties went through there. This [unprintable] was in a short wheelbase Wrangler with a 6-inch lift and 33-inch tires. She had no concept of what wheeling in a stock vehicle is. In retrospect, she shouldn't have been allowed to lead us, since I wasn't the only stock XJ there. Others saw me turn around and come back out, so they bailed and took an alternate route. For the record, that same XJ ran Old Florida Road in North Adams, MA (as far as the beaver pond -- had to turn back there, the enviro-weenies got upset if we disturbed the beavers, even though they built their pond right across the damned trail), and on the Ice Cream trail I was the only stock vehicle in a mixed group that included some built Wranglers from a local club we met in the Auto Zone parking lot. They couldn't believe that a stock Cherokee had just run the same trail they did. So don't discount the Jeep's abilities, but don't allow someone with a much more "built" vehicle to talk you into trying something too difficult. Unless he guarantees to fix whatever you break following his lead. Nobody has mentioned a CB radio. You can get a Cobra Classic at any truck stop for well under $100, and there's a Cobra (or Uniden?) compact that will do fine for trail rides that costs about $50. Just use a magnetic or gutter mount antenna. You're only talking to the Jeeps in your group, you're not trying to transmit from Los Angeles to Boston.

How are you pasting? If you actually got the URL of the photo copied, in the Comanche Club edit window just hit CTRL-V and the URL is pasted. If you don't get anything, then you didn't copy the URL out of Photobucket.

That doesn't look like a factory hitch to me. The mounting ears are too short. There should be four bolt holes on each side, not two. I bought a hitch from the dealer to install on my 2000 XJ, and it (the hitch) looks exactly the same as the one under an '86 XJ wreck in the yard. Does it have a Jeep part number stamped into it anywhere?

Bolted.

Those should be nutstrips that slide into the unibody frame strut. At least that's how the factory hitch was mounted on an XJ that I used to have. That's correct. Each frame rail has a metal strip inside with nuts welded onto it. The bolts go up through the hitch and into the nut strips. On my '88 there were also two (I think) torx bolts through the bumper. They went to a separate bracket that was easy to unbolt. Part #15 in the diagram is the mount for the rear exhaust hanger.