Eagle

This is a joke, right? You want more power and performance and better throttle response out of a 200,000 mile engine ... AND you want better gas mileage? Not ... gonna ... happen. Just accept that your engine is tired, save whatever you might be tempted to spend today, and put it toward a rebuild. Personally, I'd go with a stock 4.0L with an RV cam rather than a stroker, but some people have made strokers work.

That's just the difference between a 2.8L and a 4.0L. The loss of power at altitude is a direct result of the loss of atmospheric pressure. Remember, no internal combustion engine can create compression pressure -- it just multiplies whatever is out there by the compression ratio. The closer the ambient gets to zero ... well, do the math. Zero times 100 is still zero. Want to know just how much difference altitude and atmospheric pressure make? In 1968, electric wipers were still an option on many cars. My 1968 Javelin had vacuum wipers. It also had the high-performance 343 c.i.d. V8, which in the day was a VERY fast engine (and mine ran better than most). I drove it across the country once, and one of my stops was Pike's Peak. It was very foggy and cool that day. The base elevation at Colorado Springs is around 7,000 feet and the summit is about 14,000. My wipers were very lazy at the base. By around 9,000 or 10,000 feet they just stopped working. Completely. Wouldn't even think about starting to give a twitch. Once I got off the mountain and back to around 6,000 feet they were fine, and they lasted as long as I had the car, which was another ten years or so. Don't ignore basic Physics.

I once had a 1947 Hudson pickup with a failed fuel pump ... and a carburetor. I was able to drive it several miles to get home by putting gasoline in a tin can with a barbed fitting in the bottom, and connecting that to the carb inlet with a length of rubber fuel line hose. Hung the can from a threaded rod under the hood and I was on the road. Try that with electronic, multiport fuel injection.

The Dakota 2.5L is the AMC/Jeep engine. Yes, the AX-15 tranny will fit, but it requires the correct bellhousing, which was used only by Dodge on the 2.5L Dakota.

Yep. I know a guy from the early days of NAXJA who knew his injectors were leaking. He drove his VERY customized rig to the dealership to buy new O-rings, paid his money, and walked out of the parts department to find his Jeep in flames. DO NOT DRIVE IT UNTIL IT'S FIXED.

You don't want to know. Trust me ... you really don't want to know.

For all the years that used two keys, the door key is the glove box key.

Aaaarrrggghhh! Missed that. My bad. WHY oh why do people do things like that?

Now don't go discouraging people by making it sound more difficult than it really is ...

They only work if you have all the sensors to feed them data.

Did they all have sentry key? I hadn't even considered that. I HATE keys with chips in them. Jeep's key is a relative bargain compared to many, but it's still $59 for the key. (When my brother worked in a BMW dealership he told me their "smart" keys cost over $200. YIKES!)

I've been running DOT 5 silicone for at least 20 years in my brakes, and in the clutch of my '88 XJ since I replaced the clutch in 2000. No problems at all, and IMHO it's the only way to go.

But he has the '96. Jim, if you want to play with a cam while you're swapping things around, I have a NIB factory Stage II cam kit. I was going to put it in my '88 MJ 2.5L, but now that I have a wife who doesn't drive standard and a daughter coming along who I'm sure also won't drive standard, I've decided to convert the MJ to a 4.0L automatic so we can all drive it (and I won't go broke buying clutches). Lemme know if'n yer interested.

It was my understanding that all TJ UNLIMITEDS came with the D44 rear axle.

I paid $500 for one several years ago and I considered myself lucky to get it.

The JK Unlimited is the one I hate. I'm only interested in the original, 2-door TJ Unlimited with the 4.0L engine. Only three years, eh? No wonder I don't see many of them around.

Okay, then that's what I have to be on the lookout for. I loved the original Wrangler Unlimited, and I can't stand the current, 4-door version.

What were the first and last years for the original, 2-door Wrangler Unlimited? Were the Unlimiteds still considered to be TJs, or did the Unlimited have its own code?

I would swap the wiring and update the '86 to '96 specs. First, the MPFI version gives you more horsepower and a bit more torque. Second, a '96 update gets you OBD-II, and since driving the 2000 XJs I'm coming to appreciate OBD-II quite a lot.

If the starter makes the engine turn over ("crank") when you turn the key, obviously the starter is NOT the problem. Beyond that, there are three things needed for an internal combustion engine to run: fuel, air, and gas. Air is a given, inless there's a mouse house between your throttle body and the intake ports. You say you have checked for gas, but do you know the injectors are squirting? have you tried the old tried-and-true method of simply pouring some gas directly through the throttle body and then trying to start it? If you have spark, it would pretty much HAVE to start if you do that.

Cut? Why cut them off? They just unscrew.

I don't see how the TPS could kill the tachometer, and I also don't see how changing the TPS could lower your RPMs. Especially with a manual transmission, your RPMs are directly related to gear ratio, tire size, and road speed. The TPS has NOTHING to do with it. It CANNOT affect your RPMs at any given road speed.

Not to mention getting the wrong idea about poor Uncle Jack!

Gravel shield. They all had that ... unless they had the factory skid plate.

Don't buy it. First, it is NOT good for a daily driver. Second, you can be almost guaranteed that whoever installed it butchered something, and you'll have to find it and fix it. If you're very lucky, it might be only one thing and not too expensive. More likely, it'll be a bottomless pit into which you throw money. If you want a daily driver, buy a daily driver. Find one that hasn't been modified.