Eagle

I had a '99 WJ Laredo, with the 4.7L V8 and QuadraDrive. I picked it up in January of '99, and Chrysler bought it back from me in October to keep me from going lemon law with it. I replaced it with what is now my wife's 2000 XJ Classic, and I was MUCH happier. Where to start: Brakes -- the front rotors warped if you looked at them cross-eyed. I think I put about 10,000 miles on the vehicle while I had it. In that time, the dealer turned the front rotors once, replaced them once, turned the replacements once, and they needed to be replaced when I turned it in. Noise, Vibration & Harshness -- It rode and handled very nicely. However, at cruising speed there was a loud droning sound that could be heard and felt, that the shop could not trace or eliminate. Transfer case -- I don't remember the specifics, but despite the fact that the QuadraDrive worked well in snow, it didn't like pavement much at all. Lots of noise and ratcheting. Again, the shop couldn't find what was wrong so, needless to say, it didn't get fixed. Transmission -- Two words: "It sucked." Electrics -- Sporadic problems with the cruise control, and the alarm had an annoying tendency to go off for no reason. One of the days I had it at the shop the WJ was parked right outside the shop door, and I was chatting with the service writer, service manager, and shop foreman when it went off. They all looked at me and accused me of pressing the panic button on the remote. I simply pointed out that the shop foreman was holding the key ... (That never got fixed, either.) The fuel mileage was about the same as an XJ with the 4.0L. Except that it went WAY DOWN if I cruised faster than 60 (which isn't much of a problem in Connecticut, because we have only a couple of highways with 65 MPH speed limits. In western states with higher limits, it would be a concern. Engine power was all at the top end. Subjective, seat of pants dyno indicated that an XJ was a better tow vehicle. At one point when the WJ was in the shop I had a ZJ with the 5.2L as a loaner -- it had LOTS more low end pull. The 4.7L doesn't start to make useful power until it hits 3500 RPM ... and I never drive anywhere near 3500 RPM. It's not a Jeep engine, it's a passenger car engine. At the end, that thing just died in the middle of a state highway. Dead as a doornail. I had it towed to the dealership, and it just happened that the replacement XJ was rolling off the transporter as we arrived, so I waited while they did a quick clean-up and paperwork, and drive the XJ home. The shop did find out what was wrong with the engine -- bad cam sensor. The good news was they found the problem. The bad news was there were no parts in the system to fix it. Good thing my new XJ arrived when it did. If all that's not enough to scare you off, a friend of mine didn't listen to me and bought a 2003 WJ Overland. His engine blew up. The XJ is a far better vehicle than the WJ.

If you can weld (or know someone who can) IMHO it's far easier to just move the spring perches on the XJ axle to the MJ locations.

The 242 didn't come in until the 1987 model year. Selec=Trac for the 1986 was the 228.

The B-W T10 was also used in the AMC Javelins and AMXs behind the 390 and 401 engines, and several friends of mine had drag race AMXs with 390s that were built far beyond the factory "go package" rating. The transmissions held up fine. I think those engines would have eaten an AX-15 alive in a few seconds. The AX-15 is considered a "medium-duty" transmission. (The BA 10/5 is considered "light-duty.")

The general rule for house wiring is 15 amps for 14-gauge wire, 20 amps for 12-gauge wire, 30 amps for 10-gauge wire, and 40 amps for 8-gauge wire. Ampacity is ampacity, so I have always believed that this also applies to DC wiring. %0 amps sounds like a heavy fuse for anything. If you had enough "stuff" on that circuit to be drawing 48 amps, even if the fuse didn't blow I'd be concerned that other things might be happening. Can you reduce the fuse to 40 or 30 amps? In general, fuses are to protect against both short circuits and overloads. A short circuit will blow any fuse (but you want the fuse to blow before it overheats the wires and melts the insulation). An overload, on the other hand, just heats everything up until the rating of the fuse is exceeded. It's usually not a good idea to run a fuse larger than what's needed for the total load on the circuit (plus maybe 10 percent as a safety factor).

Massive overkill. What's the width? My guess is that they'll be much too wide for an MJ.

You have to understand the difference between "shimmy" and "death wobble." Death wobble is when BOTH front tires start shaking so violently that you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that you are going to die ... right NOW! If your life is not flashing before your eyes in full, glorious, Technicolor -- you don't have death wobble. If you can keep driving ... you don't have death wobble. With true death wobble, the ONLY way to stop the insane shaking is to stop -- almost to a full, dead stop. If you are driving and talking/thinking about it -- you don't have death wobble. Tire shimmy isn't unusual, and it's almost always caused by improperly balanced tires. When only one tire is involved, it's "just" shimmy, and you can live with it. I've seen cars on the Interstate with one front wheel bouncing around like Meadowlark lemon doing his trick dribbling routine, and the driver keeps on going at 65 MPH and appears to be completely oblivious to the tire. That would NOT happen with death wobble. Death wobble is a harmonic. One side starts wobbling. The wobble gets transmitted to the other side and, if everything is just right (or just wrong), the other side starts wobbling at the same frequency. Each side reinforces the other, so the amplitude of the wobble rapidly increases until it feels like the whole front is going to fall off the truck. But it's tough to pin down. My first experience with true death wobble was in a new 1999 Grand Cherokee. The vehicle at the time was about 6 months old, totally stock, had maybe 7,000 miles on it and it had never been farther off-road than my gravel driveway. I was on a 2-lane state road heading into a very long downgrade. I just touched the brakes -- not to stop, just to keep my speed at the speed limit -- and BAM! Death wobble! It had never happened before, and it never happened again. Remember -- it's a harmonic. The front tires, especially, travel different paths every time you go around a corner or a curve. Say two tires (on the front) each have a heavy spot that's not properly balanced. Say you start out with them both located at top dead center. As long as you only go straight, they'll stay that way, and both will want to go up or down at the same time. But what happens after some turns? Now one heavy spot is at the top when the other side is at the bottom. So now when one is trying to throw that tire UP, the other side is trying to throw the tire down. When one side is trying to throw the tire forward, the other side is trying to throw it rearward. Hit a bump just when that's happening, and that may be all that's needed to set it off. My second experience with true death wobble was in the '88 MJ. It only happened if I went into a gentle RIGHT turn (curve) at 50 MPH. Left turns/curves were no problem. Right curves were a BIG problem. I swapped a different set of tires onto it, and had no more problems. Harmonic ... harmonic ... harmonic.

There are u-joints, and then there are u-joints. The larger u-joints in the late-model axles are the u-joints in the axle shafts, between the inner and outer (stub) axles. The drive shaft u-joints are all the same, so unless you are replacing the u-joints in the axle shafts themselves, the newer axle should bolt right up to your existing drive shaft.

Try a 20-amp fuse for starters.

Nope. Just the opposite. Plug the bottom front, use the "nose."

But the question was whether ALL 2.5L 5-speeds came with 4.10 gears, and the answer is no. Chrysler standardized on 4.10s for the 2.5L somewhere in the 1990s, but AMC era 2.5L 5-speeds might have 3.73s or 4.56s.

Yep. 4.0L, no C101 -- it's a late '89 or a '90.

You are leaving the front bleeder open while doing the rear, correct? Is the brake warning light on the dashboard lit when you open the front bleeder and step on the brakes?

IMHO it's not worth buying them on-line. The shipping will eat up any saving. Go to your local AutoZone or Advance or Shucks or NAPA and just buy 'em there.

No, this is not a common issue. In fact, after owning and playing with XJs and MJs since I bought an XJ new in 1988, I have never encountered one with a jumper to the auxiliary fan. I know that some owners install a toggle switch in the cabin so they can turn on the fan manually when wheeling, but that's generally a matter or preference rather than necessity. The fan is controlled by a relay that should be located on the inner fender, next to the air intake box. More than likely the relay is messed up and the previous owner was too lazy or too stupid to fix it properly.

What wattage are the fog lights, and how many of them will there be? The CB isn't a heavy draw, but lights can be. And the draw on a power outlet will depend on what you plug into it. Since you don't know what the total draw is going to be, IMHO you need the heaviest wire you can get. I'd run no smaller than 10-gauge -- maybe even 8-gauge. And why would you run the fog lights off a tap inside the cab? You're increasing the length of the wire run, which increases the voltage drop in the wiring. You'll still need a relay somewhere between the lights and the switch. It's much better to locate the relay under the hood, keep the heavy-duty wire runs as short as possible, and then run only the relay "trigger" wires to a switch inside the cabin.

There's your problem. In this procedure, opening the front bleeder is to simulate a front brake FAILURE. That means you have to allow fluid out and air in. You have to bleed the fronts again anyway in this procedure, so temporarily replace one side speed bleeder in front with a conventional bleed screw, bleed the two rear circuits, then replace the front speed bleeder and finish up.

I'm pretty sure YJ shocks won't fit an MJ. Too round to make decent paper weights. Don't waste your money.

Won't help. The sockets are bad internally. Replace. Been there, done that. And don't even think about junkyard sockets. This is a known issue with XJs and MJs -- why replace one 25-year old part with another 25-year old part that has the same problem? There is a socket marked for some Ford vehicle that's usually available in the Dorman "HELP!" parts line at all the parts chains that fits the XJ/MJ light housings perfectly. Unfortunately, I don't remember the part number.

Replace both front turn signal sockets. Your sockets are bad, and the lights are grounding by backfeeding through the dashboard.

Just another voice to add to the chorus: YOU ARE DESTROYING YOUR TRANSFER CASE. It isn't intended to be in 4WD on dry pavement.

Because heat increases the resistance in wires and connections.

Photo of front bleed screw?

There should be a bleed hole. Is it possible that someone installed speed bleeders in your calipers, and the plungers are frozen?

Impossible. With 3.55 gears, 31" tires at 75 MPH run 2250 RPM, nowhere near 3200. However, whether you like it or not, at 75 MPH 3200 RPM is about where you should be. The basic engine design goes back to AMC in the days before we had overdrive transmissions. Factory gearing typically was 24 MPH per 1000 RPM ... which meant that 2500 RPM was exactly 60 MPH, and 3000 RPM was 72 MPH. My brother had a Gremlin set up like that. Even with autocrossing it to two state championships it still went well over 300,000 miles. 3.55 gears with 33" tires is a lousy setup even without towing. For towing, it's completely unacceptable.