Eagle

There was someone in NAXJA-NAC several years ago who was running those and he liked them very much. But I don't recall if they generated any lift. Mostly, they are designed to increase capacity without making the ride stiffer.

Put cam assembly lube (essentially high moly-content grease) on the pushrods and the mating surfaces of the rockers and go ahead and use them. Also put assembly lube on the pivot balls for the rocker arms. Why did you send the rockers and pushrods to the shop if they weren't going to assemble the engine? And what the heck kind of shop would take a set or carefully marked and sorted rockers and push rods and REMOVE THE MARKINGS and then toss everything in a bag?

Marginal clutch operation gets worse as the fluid gets hot. You don't have a transmission problem, you have a clutch problem. You posted that everything was new, but I didn't see any mention of "flywheel." New, used, or original? If used or original, did you by any chance have it resurfaced? Wait -- "We didn't put the bell housing shield back on ..."? What shield? The steel spacer plate that's supposed to go forward of the flywheel, between the bell housing and the block? Why didn't you put that back on? Why would you suspect that omitting a part the factory obviously thought was necessary, and which affects the physical relationship between the clutch and the slave cylinder might not cause a problem?

This sums it up. I was at the dealership yesterday (at the parts department, naturally). The parts manager had just stepped out of one of the new Cherokees, so I asked him how he liked it. He just rolled his eyes. (Like most at this dealership, he's a long-time Jeep guy.) He said it drives nicely, to has WAY too many gadgets. Apparently there's some kind of driver alert sensor that shakes the steering wheel if it senses wandering out of your lane. The auto transmission is a 9-speed wunderbox. It has 4-wheel disc brakes, and to compress the rear calipers the technician has to use the dealer's scan tool and do it through the ABS computer. No more shade tree brake jobs. IFS/IRS aside, there's just not a lot there for a Jeeper to love.

Absolutely. To reiterate what Biotex wrote in post #2:

2000 Cherokee. The rubber in the rear wiper blade was falling off, so I bought a replacement blade. In odrer to get the existing (OEM) blade off, I had to move the plastic washer nozzle, which clips onto the wiper arm right next to the point where the blade pivots. Naturally, 13-year old plastic on a cold day broke. Great -- I now have a functional wiper and no washer. I need a new nozzle assembly, but it doesn't exist. Dealer says the only way they can get the washer nozzle is as a part of a new wiper arm ... to the tune of $50. Would those of you who frequent u-pull junkyards (we don't have them here in Connecticut any more -- they outlawed them a good 20 years ago) be so kind as to look for Cherokees (late model -- the early ones used a metal clip that won't replace what I broke) with the washer nozzle/clip assembly intact and grab one (or two or three, if you find them) for me? I'll cheerfully pay the cost plus postage. Thanks.

Yes ... and he said his front parking lights work. So that fuse can't be bad.

Or it's not oriented correctly.

Left side of the transmission, in the taillshaft housing. You can't really miss it -- the speedo cable is about a quarter to 5/16-inch in diameter, and that runs right into it. The "quill" (which is the adapter that holds the plastic speedo gear) is about an inch and a half in diameter and is held in the tranny by a forked retainer with a single anchor bolt. The forks of the retainer engage specified points on the quill, depending on the number of teeth on the plastic gear.

If he worked on the transmission, he must have disconnected the speedo drive cable. The adapter to which the cable attaches at the tranny and which holds the speedo drive gear is eccentric -- it has to be properly oriented according to the number of teeth on the gear. My guess is that your mechanic just stuck it back in without orienting it correctly, and the plastic gear is either not contacting the drive gear inside the tranny, or was not correctly adjusted and has now been stripped.

Brake lights are different from parking/tail lights. But the tail lights should be on the same fuse as the front parking lights, so if the fronts work, the fuse is good. Link from an old thread to a 1988 FSM for the MJ electrics. Wiring for the tail lights shouldn't have changed much, if at all. http://www.bteventures.com//mj1988electricalmanual.pdf I suspect the sockets.

If you have brake lights, it can't be a ground problem, so you have to look at the wiring on the input side. Unfortunately, you have an electrical problem, so you're going to have to learn to deal with electrical wiring. Isn't there a fuse for the taillights on the early MJs? (I should know this, but I seem to forget more than I remember these days.)

I'm more inclined to go with the CPS as the prime suspect. Another thing -- a 20+ year old fuel system may not hold pressure overnight. Do you turn the key to RUN and then wait until the fuel pump stops before trying to start the engine? If not, you're cranking the engine before you have adequate pressure in the fuel rail.

There is no front "proportioning valve" in the MJ. That distribution block beneath the master cylinder also acts as the proportioning valve in the XJ and ZJ, but not in the MJ. The XJ units have the "nose" occupied by a plug, behind which there's a heavy spring and a slider with an O-ring on it. None of that is present in the MJ. In the MJ, that unit is a distribution block, and also provides for a bypass to send full braking pressure to the rear wheels (by-passing the height sensing valve) in the event of a failure of the front brake circuit. The simple way to eliminate the rear height sensing valve is to disconnect the rear axle flex hose from it, run a new hard line from the "nose" of the front distribution block directly to the rear flex hose, and to plug the forward/lower output on the distribution block. That's it -- done. The cautionary note here is that the bypass will then result in the rear wheels always getting full braking pressure. To me, that's a good thing. However, you must always be aware that when the bed is unloaded, there will be a tendency for the rear wheels to lock up prematurely. If you're lot looking out for it, this will result in a spin-out. It's not an issue for me because I learned to drive before cars (and light trucks) had proportioning valves, so I'm accustomed to modulating braking with my right foot. For people who don't know anything other than proportioned braking and ABS, it takes some getting used to ... and some drivers can never adapt. For those cases, I recommend installing a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve in the rear circuit. BTW -- I do NOT recommend using an XJ or ZJ proportioning valve in an MJ. First, they tend to get gummed up, leaving you with NO rear brakes. Second, the way they operate is IMHO exactly the opposite of what they should do. What they do is delay the flow of brake fluid to the rear wjeels until the pressure is fairly high. This means that most of your daily driving will use only the front brakes. (This explains why the rear brakes on my wife's 2000 XJ still had over 60% of the lining left when I opened them up at 100,000 miles.) The rear wheels don't see any braking until you really stomp on the peddle -- which is a panic stop, which throws most of the weight onto the front wheels, which is exactly when you DON'T want to suddenly be dumping pressure to the rear wheels. Even with no proportioning valve, I've never spun out my MJ. I DID spin out the 2000 XJ -- on a highway at 65 MPH when some idiot came up an entrance ramp and cut me off. It was a miracle the XJ only spun out and didn't flip over. By contrast, my '88 XJ hasn't had any rear brakes for two or three years. One of these days I need to disassemble the proportioning valve and clean it out.

Pumping the gas peddle is NOT an appropriate way to start a vehicle with electronic fuel injection. That worked in the days of carburetors because it cycled the accelerator pump to get gas into the cylinders. That's not necessary when you have an electronic squirter pushing the fuel in there at 39 psi. All you're going is opening the throttle body plate and making the mix LESS rich, when you really need it as rich as possible to start. Keep your foot off the gas peddle when starting.

Pontiac did it, too, in the mid-60s. I think the car was called the Tempest.

I'm pretty certain someone (maybe Hornbrod?) posted a link to the entire electrical manual for the early MJs. The wiring diagrams you need will be in there.

Nope. Not as long as the seller is going to hold out for a ridiculous price. It won't be better than described if you go look at it ... the BEST you can hope for is that it won't be too much worse.

Yep. I've seen several examples of Clayton's long arm kit. Compared to what a pro does, the long arms in that setup look absolutely frightening. And XJ rear springs won't be of any use in an MJ.

I can't be serious? No, I think YOU can't be serious. All this can be fixed in one afternoon? Needs front drive shaft headlights rear pinion bearing rear taillight rear shocks front stablizer rocker panel patch driver side floor pan rear frame patch Welded rear 3.07 gears with huge tires. No way anybody is going to repair all that in one afternoon. And if the seller is willing to admit to all that being bad, you can bet there's a lot of other little (or not so little) things wrong that he's not admitting to. This is not a "truck" -- it's a basket case.

I was going to be generous and call it a $300 truck. In reality, it's a refugee from a scrap yard. The guy had to have been on some REALLY potent dope to post that at $1200 firm.

The steering box doesn't have any idea what speed the engine is rotating at -- the pump does. So, if you have power steering at higher RPM but not at idle or low RPM, I would suspect the pump before I'd suspect the box.

$99? :EEK: I'll make my own. It's easy enough to add a second relay to the basic configuration described by Hornbrod.

For starters (no pun intended), you didn't break your solenoid, because the solenoid is monted on the starter motor. You also didn't break your starter relay, because that's under the hood. So you either broke your starter switch (which is located at the bottom of the steering column), or you broke the ignition key cylinder (which is mounted near the top of the steering column, where you insert the key. Your kit includes two single-pole, single-throw toggle switches, one of which has a safety cover; a starter button (which is also basically a single-pole, momentary-contact switch); and two relays. You don't probably need the two relays, since you already have a starter relay and a fuel pump relay in the vehicle that you can tap into. Basically, you'll use one of the toggle switches to power the fuel pump (through its relay) and the other toggle switch to power the ignition. The push button will power the starter. This presents three questions: 1) One of your toggle switches has a safety cover, which is to prevent accidental operation. Is it more important for that to be connected to the fuel pump, or to the ignition? 2) How do you control power to the accessory circuits? 3) How do you shut everything off? So maybe you use the unprotected toggle switch to control the accessories, and the protected toggle switch to control both the ignition and the fuel pump. That would essentially mimic the factory setup. And you would be shutting things off by turning off the toggle switches. Turn off the switch controlling the ignition and fuel pump, and the engine stops. Turn off the other switch, and there's no power to the accessories.

That's what I was afraid of. Looks like I'm back in the wiring harness business.