Eagle

There is no reason to put a Centerforce clutch in an XJ or MJ, and several NAXJA members who did so later posted that they regretted the decision. The Centerforce clutch is a performance clutch. It is designed to generate high clamping force AT HIGH ENGINE RPM while requiring moderate peddle pressure to engage in normal driving. Considering that a street MJ, especially on big tires, will rarely see higher than 2500 or maybe 3000 RPM, you won't even get into the RPM range where the Centerforce starts to increase the clamping pressure. So why waste the money. Go with the Luks. It was good enough for the factory. The clutch on my original '88 XJ pasted over 200,000 miles, and that included wheeling all over the northeast. When the internal slave/release bearing went bad, I replaced everything just because it was accessible. I asked my friend the retired Jeep service manager (and former stock car racer) what clutch I should use. His response was classic: "How many miles did the factory clutch last?" Good enough for me.

Except that the XJ wheels arches are shorter than MJ arches in both length and height. And the 2-door XJ are the same size as the 4-door -- they both take the same flares, which are smaller than MJ rear flares.

Of the readily available axles, 4.10 for sure. What I can tell you from my own experience is that 3.73 gears with 31x10.50 tires works out to exactly the same overall final drive ratio (RPMs-to-MPH) as stock tires with stock 3.54 gears. I ran my '88 MJ on 31s with 3.73s for several years. It was great on the road, and passable off-road but not really enough gear. I had actually bought the gears to run in my XJ with 30" tires and I think that would have been a good combination. But the MJ came along, it needed gears, and I had the 3.73s so I threw them in. 4.10s will be good for your purpose. They'll be perfect with 30" or 31" tires, and if you don't live on the Interstate at 80 MPH 4.10s are even good with stock tires.

If you have idiot lights, you almost certainly don't have a clock. The panel to the right of the steering wheel, where the clock normally goes, is perfect for mounting a single, round gauge.

Yep. It's a little (??) dangerous, but it is a way of forcing a bead to re-seat if you lose a bead when wheeling at low pressures. If you actually have a flat (a puncture -- a hole in your tire that loses air) this won't do anything for you.

The video sounded to me like a rod bearing. But ... I can't say that I've ever heard piston slap, so I don't think I could tell the difference.

Could be gearing. My brother had an early 90's Nissan 5-speed V6pickup that had (IIRC) 4.11 gears from the factory. He now has a somewhat newer Nissan 5-speed 4-banger and I think that has 4.56 gears. You could also have a clogged catalytic converter.

You use a rocker panel from a 4-door Cherokee and cut off the back end. Needs a bit of massaging behind the doors, at the cab corners, but from the B pillar forward they are the same.

You do realize that they put transmissions in vehicles so we can change gears, right? Sorry to be sarcastic, but there's a perception among (primarily) younger drivers that once you hit 5th gear you should never have to downshift unless you get to a stop sign or red light. Think about what an automatic would be doing on those same hills -- more than likely, downshifting, right? Then consider that an automatic has 3.55 axle gears and your 5-speed has 3.07 axle gears. Needing to downshift when going up "decent" hills is a normal part of driving and does not necessarily indicate a problem with the engine.

Also, if it's an auto, check the flex plate. They like to develop an annular crack, and the resulting clunk sounds a LOT like a rod bearing. The test is to start the engine in neutral and let it idle. Blip the throttle (gently, don't floor it) and let it drop back to idle again. If you hear the noise, that's step one. Put the tranny in drive with the brakes on. Give it just a tiny bit of gas, to put a small load on the torque converter. If the noise STOPS, there's a very good chance you need a flex plate.

Don't you mean storker Eagle? :D Fixed it. Danged Dell mushy keyboard. I probably had "Stryker" on the brain.

Nope. This is a VERY common procedure on Jeep 4.0L engines at around 200,000 miles. It always lasts until the owner either sells the vehicle or decides to build a stroker.

I vote "or." The simple option you omitted is to drop the pan and install new bearings. Getting the pan off the first time is a nuisance but, overall, this is an easy fix. Do the rods and mains, and the rear main seal all at the same time. That will resolve the knock and probably help with the oil leaks -- then you can buy that used 4.0L and build it up as your stroker. You should be able to do the bearings with the engine in place over a weekend.

I don't know who makes them, but I bought a set of XJ rockers from JC Whitney some time ago and never used them. I gave them to a friend for his Comanche and he found the same thing -- the new rockers were bent such that the sit too far out at the front. I'm fairly certain all the discount body parts places will be selling the same thing, made in China. To do it right, I guess we have to go Mopar (4-door Cherokee) or go custom.

If it made zero sense, they wouldn't have done it. My best guess is that it makes engagement of the clutch bearing surface more progressive rather than contact/no contact. The goal, I suppose, would be to make engagement smoother. Given that few people actually know how to drive a clutch today (at least, how to drive one well and correctly), this makes sense to me.

They can't be the same. The '84 - '90 2.5L engines used a variant of the Renix system -- the injection was throttle body but the ignition uses the same CPS as the Renix 4.0L. And the '91 and newer 2.5L engines use the Chrysler multi-port system and take the same CPS as the '91 and newer 4.0Ls. The arrangement of the trigger teeth on the flywheel is completely different.

The 2.5L flywheel can be resurfaced. As to the advice not to resurface a 4.0L flywheel being BS, aside from the fact that every single person I know of who has done it has experienced problems there's the basic fact that the FSM tells us specifically not to do it. You can do as you wish, but when other people ask for advice I am not going to advise them to do something the factory plainly says not to do, AND which I know has caused problems for other people.

The '86 and '87 should be the same flywheel. They do list it for the '87: 1987 JEEP COMANCHE 2.5L 150cid L4 OHV : Transmission-Manual : Flywheel Wiki Price ACDELCO Part # 388088 More Information About this Part {#19181996} [Flag indicates this part fits vehicles sold in the US Market. It does not indicate where the part was made -- manufacturers produce parts in multiple factories worldwide.] FLYWHEEL,ENG ; SOLID FLYWHEEL Part Image * Stocked in outlying warehouse--shipping delayed up to 5 business days The part number for the flywheel ring gear is the same for 1986 and 1987, so it's probably a good guess that the flywheel is also the same.

In fact, on my way home from work just yesterday (Monday), I almost got taken out by some "cool dood" in a lowered ricer with extra wide tires. He was making a right turn out of a side street to my left, which SHOULD have put him into the oncoming lane and been no problem. Except that he decided to "drift" his right turn, and he overdid it more than a little. He lost control, his car slid broadside into my lane, and if the right-hand lane on my side hadn't been empty and left me somewhere to go, it would have been ... ugly. I'm sure he just wanted to have fun, and I'm sure he was also confident in his ability to control his car. Right up to the point where he totally lost it.

If all else fails, call Todd, the parts manager at Bradshaw Jeep in Connecticut. 860-274-8834, ext 3 for Parts. If Todd can't get it for you, it doesn't exist.

Good point MountainMan. Here's a link: http://gojeep.willyshotrod.com/HowtoAlignment.htm I'd take Marcus' word on any Jeep topic any day. Its in the very last paragraph on the page. He says there's a 10 mm difference in spacing due to the road crown to allow the Jeep to steer straight. If you take a left hand drive Jeep to a right hand drive country, you'd be constantly correcting to the opposite side to keep it straight down the road. 10 mm is quite a bit. The problem is that Marcus provides no documentation to support his claim that the wheelbase is different side-to-side. I haven't looked it up for the MJ yet, but I have a FSM for the 2000 XJ sitting next to my desk and I just checked the frame and alignment specs and sections for that vehicle. EVERYTHING is symmetrical on both sides. If the wheelbase is intended to be shorter on one side, it could be done only by making the axle mount points on the axles themselves asymmetrical, or simply by using different thicknesses of shims in the LCA frame pockets -- and I've never heard anyone suggest that this is the case. In fact, one of the checks body shops perform when making structural repairs is to verify that the wheelbase is the same, on both sides AND on both diagonals. If it's not symmetrical, not only will the steering pull to one side, the chassis will be slightly skewed to the direction of travel as it goes down the road.

Not "every" kid who owns a Japanese car drifts, and drifting on the street is definitely NOT cool. It's dangerous and stupid. People have been badly injured and killed by idiot kids drifting their cars in places where it shouldn't be done, by people who didn't have the skills to drive from home to the nearest Quickie Mart. If you choose to engage in such activity, make damned sure you do it where the only person you can possibly kill is yourself. Then consider that it sounds like you'll be driving this vehicle on the street. The fact that you would intentionally go out looking to buy tires with POOR traction tells me that you should not have a driver's license. Sorry if you don't consider that to be "respectful," but remember that respect is earned, not granted. A motor vehicle is a rolling deadly weapon. When you intentionally set out to make it LESS safe ... I don't even know how to comment on that.

I edited my original post. After grinding the extensions off, you're right, they look like they'll bolt right in. What did you grind? To install MJ bucket seats into an MJ no grinding of anything is required.

I just bought a new one for my 88 4.0 from mopar and it's marked 1.1 ohms. part number 33000682. Looks like the closest Auto Zone offers is a 0.8 ohm.They have higher resistances, but those would drop the voltage to the fuel pump too much. http://www.autozone.com/autozone/access ... ing=search

Sort of looks like the mechanic lied to you, doesn't it? My guess is he didn't have shims that fit MJs, didn't know where to get them or didn't want to be bothered, so it was easier to tell you it couldn't be done. Nice.