Eagle

I think the 88s still used the old style header. The new style, on which the upper chrome trim strip is integral to the grille, started in 1989 or 1990, IIRC.

Nope -- not with the fuel pumps we had. A carburetor works by having the fuel pump push gasoline into a reservoir in the carburetor called a "float bowl." Inside that there's a float, not unlike the float in the gas tank for the gas gauge, but smaller. The float is connected to a small, polymer-tipped needle that points into the orifice of the fuel inlet. When there's enough gas in the bowl, the float presses the needle into the seat (the orifice) hard enough to shut off the flow of gas against 7 psi of pressure. As gas gets suck out and burned, the float drops, releasing the needle valve and allowing more gas to flow. That's not to say that a carb couldn't be rigged with some kind of fuel pressure regulator that would return anything over 7 psi to the tank. I don't know if such regulators exist, but it's entirely possible.

Humor me. I'm a certified Olde Pharte -- I grew up in the age of carburetors, and I know and understand carburetors. Sure, EFI has advantages, but the single injector on the Renix 2.5L throttle body injections systems is expensive. There are advantages (in my mind, at least) to eliminating the TBI and installing a carburetor. The "gotcha" is that the factory fuel pump puts out too much pressure for a carburetor. Carbs need about 7 psi. I have a brand new in-the-box Stewart-Warner fuel pump, left over from the days when mechanical fuel pumps for Hudsons became unobtanium so we had to convert them to electric. The question is how to make that work with a Comanche gas tank. Would it be possible to gut a factory fuel pump and then reinstall it to act as nothing more than a fuel pickup? Any other suggestions?

Also, what does "Running a wire to the battery it kills the engine." mean? Are you saying that you have to disconnect the alternator before you can start the engine?

The only odd size flare nuts are the two in the front distribution block.

I need driver's side for the '87 - '88 style. If they can do that I'm interested, but I don't have any idea what the fair price would be.

It sure did. I didn't want to come back to it.

I found a fifth, already off the vehicle. The snow is mostly gone here but we expect rain this week so it's going to be awhile until the ground becomes dry and hard enough to use a jack out there -- it's not on a driveway. Check in with me in a month -- I get pretty scattered, so I'll most likely forget.

Don't know if I have any loose, but I checked the '86 out back. It has four of the 8-spoke wheels, and the spare might be the same (I didn't open the hatch to check). Can't do it right now but one the snow melts and the ground firms up I can take them off and put on something else to hold the vehicle up. I'm near New Haven, and about 20 or 30 minutes up Route 8 from the Bridgeport-Port Jefferson ferry (if that's still running). If you can wait until Spring, I'm sure we can work something out if you're interested.

What part of New York? And how many of them do you need?

Not correct. They don't interchange -- the old style and the new style have a slightly different offset. People who tried to swap have found the brakes locked up when installed. I've posted this before, but I'll post it again. As before, this is material from the book I never finished writing. It is copyrighted, and by posting it here I am NOT releasing it into the public domain. Any Comanche Club member is given permission to copy it for your own use, but I am not granting anyone permission to distribute copies in any format or form.

Some models of Monroe shocks used to come with mounting bolts/studs that would be perfect to replace a busted factory mount. I don't know if Monroe sells them separately.

One of the rules of thumb "back in the day" was "Two-wheel in, four-wheel out." Meaning if you wanted to be sure you were going to get home, use 2-wheel drive and go as far as that would take you, so you would always have 4-wheel drive to extricate yourself.

You know all those people who tell you as you age that getting old beats the alternative? THEY LIE! Thursday morning, I awoke to excruciating pain in my left hand. The hand was useless -- it hurt to move it in any direction, it hurt to move the fingers at all, and I couldn't even close the fingers to touch my palm (let alone actually make a fist). I hoped it would go away, but it didn't. Friday it was even worse, so I called the VA hospital and got an urgent care appointment even though the clinics were mostly closed in preparation for another COVID-19 vaccination over the weekend. The doc in primary care agreed with me that the symptoms seemed like a spontaneous fracture, but by then it was 4:00 p.m. and she was concerned that if she sent me for x-rays they wouldn't get looked at until Monday or Tuesday. So she personally walked me down to the emergency room, which has its own x-ray lab and where they can look at the x-rays on the spot, and turned me over to the ER docs. So they took x-rays. The good news was that there wasn't a break. The bad news was that my hand still hurt. So the ER doc had blood drawn. She had a suspicion. The blood test results came back normal, but she stuck by her suspicion. She thought I had gout in my hand. (Who knew you can get gout in a hand? I've only heard of gout in the feet.) I was under the impression that gout is chronic, and I told her I thought I'd rather have a break, because that can heal and I'd be done with it. She said she could have me feeling better in a couple of days if it was gout. She prescribed a nine-day course of Prednisone, tapering down from 3 pills a day for three days, to two pills a day for three days, and ending with one pill per day for three days. So Friday I took the first three as soon as I got home (per the doctor's instructions). The hand was a little better Saturday morning, when I took the next dose of three pills. By Saturday afternoon, I was able to use the left hand to work my headlight switch and the turn signal lever, and to help steer the XJ. The hand is still tender and sore, but not nearly as bad as it was Thursday and Friday. As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say on SNL (back when it was funny and worth watching), "If it's not one thing ... it's another."

It doesn't matter. They leaked from the start, and there is no factory cure. When I bought my original '88 Cherokee new in 1988, the operable vent windows were an extra cost option on the Pioneer. I ordered them. They leaked from Day One. I complained to the dealer, and the dealer turned it over to the factory rep (who, by that time, was from Chrysler). He had good news for me -- there was an official fix. Great! What's the fix? Replace the operable vents with fixed vents. So I'm like ... how is that a "fix"? And then I asked if they were going to refund me the extra I had paid to get operable vents. Oh, no! No refund. So I told him to pound sand. I drove it home, opened the vents, slathered the gaskets up with clear silicone grease (grease, not adhesive), closed and latched the vents ... and that was the end of the problem. But ... if I ever opened one of them, I had to repeat the application of the silicone grease.

Not my first choice, but I'll give you MJs with automatics. There's just something completely wrong about the notion of a Scrambler or an LJ with an automatic transmission.

I agree with this list. Pretty much spot on.

Yeah. Our tear gas exposure was a field tent, and it was one man at a time. The tent was filled with tear gas, Each man had to enter the tent, remove his gas mask, and then recite his name, rank, and service number ("Sir!"). If you didn't get it right, or if they thought you had held your breath to avoid the gas -- you had to try again. And, yes -- my service number began with RA, because I enlisted rather than being drafted.

Those are 6-spoke, not 8. I'll look around and see if I have any 8-spoke rims.

If you want quality, skip right over the parts house remanufactured boxes and go to Borgeson Steering. But -- be sure your checkbook is primed. http://www.borgeson.com/xcart/product.php?productid=1792&cat=0&featured=Y

Name, rank, and service number. I enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1966, and that was drilled into us. The U.S. military converted from actual service numbers to using social security numbers somewhere around 1968 (when I got out, orders were still showing both the old service number and the SSAN). It's been 53 years, but I still remember my service number.

Belated happy birthday, Mate. I turned 77 on the 27th. Go Pisces!

Which, of course, is exactly what you DON'T want to have happen. They use proportioning valves on rear brakes to try to ensure that the rears DON'T lock up first.

That's a non-issue. Just remove the electronic speedo sender from the '95 transfer case. You'll remove the sender from your transfer case before youu pull the tranny and transfer case. Install the 5-speed, then put the speedo cable right into the same place on the "new" transfer case. Just be sure to make note of the orientation of the sender in your truck before you remove it, and be sure to install it with the same orientation.

I have the hulk of a 2.8L XJ out back. It probably still has the kick-down cable, but until the snow melts I won't be able to get at it.