Eagle

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.

Does anyone know what a 242 transfer case weighs? I need to pull one and I have to decide if I think I can bench press it or if I should track down the friend I lent my tranny jack to -- three years ago.

The late model XJ boxes are also much better for road feel than the early ones.

I can't even begin to put a fair price on it. I wouldn't buy it for any price, so I'm not the right person to ask. My view is -- it's too far gone to be returned to original configuration, so it has zero value and zero appeal (to me).

Did you read the previous posts? The ZJ box is exactly the same box as the XJ/MJ box. The only difference is the ratio.

Very interesting. And encouraging. Thanks.

That truck is too nice to build. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Having had a lifted MJ and wheeled it, hating the lift every time I got into the truck, and then wheeled it some more after returning it to stock height, I can attest that it wheeled just as well on 31-inch tires at stock height as it did with a 4-inch lift. As for value, perhaps I'm in a minority but, having gone down the lifted truck road once, I have vowed never to do it again. If I were to look for an MJ to buy, I wouldn't even look at one that's lifted or modified. I might look at one that only has a late-model front clip on it, but a lift, off-road bumpers, non-Jeep axles, and of that stuff takes it right off the table. For me it's not even whether the mods add or reduce the value. To me, a modified MJ has zero value. Period. If you want to build an off-road truck, find a beater and modify that.

I know exactly what you mean. Because my school switched me from Spanish (7th and 8th grades) to French (high school, three years), once I got back to trying again to re-learn Spanish after 40 years they kind of ran together. The little Spanish I learned was probably sort of "Sprench." And I, too, made lots of embarrassing mistakes. Like when my wife and I went to Quebec. In Quebec, if any of you aren't aware, they speak predominately French. I know I made a lot of mistakes on that trip but the one I instantly remember was when we went into a restaurant and asked for a seat by the "ventana." "Ventana" is Spanish for window. The French word is "fenetre." Oh, well. The laugh of the day during that trip was when we were in a small street that's pedestrians only, chock full of tourist shops. We were in one and I was attempting to translate between my wife and a saleswoman. When the woman heard me talking to my wife in Spanish, she just took over. Turns out she was from some South American country and Spanish was her native language. My work was done -- the ladies didn't need me any more.

So you have the Phase III version. I know mine isn't that one. Irrespective of what caused the changes, how much change did you get? Does it still feel like the typical, anemic Jeep 2.5L, or does it now approach something you could possibly call "performance"?

I have the 2000 and 2002 editions of the (printed) Mopar Performance Catalog. Both have a separate section for the Jeep engines, and they list three performance cam grinds for both engines. The cam specs for each stage are the same, whether it's for the 2.5L or the 4.0L. I have either a Phase I or Phase II cam kit for the 2.5L. The question is -- what kind of changes in performance would the cam give? Also, the kit includes the cam and lifters, but no springs. It's a significant increase in lift -- from .255/.259 lift to either .430 or .440. Don't know if the stock springs will handle that without binding.