Eagle

Are you certain the plug you took out was the fill plug and not the drain plug?

No, you didn't have to do it. You wanted to do it just to torment me. Well, have I got news for YOU ... My little brother is the unchallenged horrible pun king of the known universe, so have at it, Mate. You can't touch me. ( :fool: Neener neener!)

Your friend is, I assume, a professional automotive engineer? Ask him why, if the oil slinger isn't needed, the engineers at AMC/Chysler/Jeep went to the trouble and expense of using it. They don't use ANYTHING without a reason if it'll save 2-1/2 cents per vehicle.

OUCH! Your a tougher man than I am. If that had happened to me, I think about now I'd be keeping myself "heavily medicated" and I'd be in no condition to be posting on some Internet forum.

WOBBLE! Not "wable" BRAKES Not "breaks"

Let's get terminology straight. Wheel shake or shimmy is not always (and in fact usually is NOT) "death wobble." Death wobble is a particularly violent shaking, not just of one front wheel but BOTH front wheels. It is SO violent that you literally cannot drive or steer the vehicle. The ONLY thing you can do is hit the brakes, hold on ... and pray you can stop before you crash. It usually requires coming to almost a complete stop before the shaking goes away. If you have a shake at 50 but you can still get it up to 80, you do NOT have death wobble. You have wheel shimmy. Have your tires balanced. Seriously -- "death wobble" is called that for a reason. When it hits -- you KNOW you're going to die.

Heh ... I thought LAST week was the week from [bleep]. That was only until we got to THIS week. What's left of my brain is totally fried (and not on any extralegal chemical substances, either).

You might want to hit a junkyard and have them cut out the upper windshield brace for you ... the member that runs across the top of the windshield. The one on that MJ has a fairly sharp kink in it -- it may be difficult to get that straightened out enough to mount a windshield without leaks. The XJ roof skin is different, but I think the structural brace is the same. If you remove the entire roof skin, you should be able to weld in enough of the XJ brace to eliminate the kinked section of the original truck, then hammer out the dent and reattach the roof skin.

I'm 92.37% sure they're 10mm ... but I don't remember the thread pitch.

The upper/outer corners don't line up. The early fenders have a flat, straight chamfer at the transition from the vertical sides to the flat top next to the hood. The early header has a small beveled section to match this. The new style is rounded (radiused) rather than chamfered. You can make it work. Before mounting the new header, you fill in the inside of those upper corners with Bondo. Then you mount the header, and shave down the outside of the upper/outer corners to blend in with the old fenders.

Ditto the above for Connecticut.

Yeah, the ratios on manual steering boxes are what brought me over to power steering. The AMC boxes were 24:1 in the larger sedans, 20:1 in the Javelin and AMX (yes, you could actually buy an AMX with manual steering), and the Javelin and AMX had an optional quick ratio competition box that was 16:1. All my Javelins and AMXs were set up with the 16:1 QRM box. I can't even imagine trying to drive something with a 28:1 ratio.

I'm not 100 percent positive but, considering that the XJ and MJ were AMC designs, and AMC used GM/Saginaw steering boxes in all their vehicles, I strongly suspect that a box out of a Javelin, Hornet, Gremlin or Concord would fit -- and might even be a better ratio. The ratio for the MJ manual box, IIRC, is 28:1 -- which is so ridiculously slow I don't think I could even drive one. I'd fall asleep while turning the wheel to go around any corner on the road.

I paid $500 just for a solid bed. I hate the idea of parting out an MJ rather than fixing it, but you could easily make back the $500 by parting it out. However, how easily (and how well) it could be repaired depends a lot on where the tree hit, and how mashed it is.

Who locks the glove box? I haven't locked the glove box in any vehicle for at least 35 years, probably closer to 45.

Nope. More likely either the shoes were set up too tight and dragged, or (perhaps more likely) the parking brake cable(s) are rusty and the parking brake doesn't release all the way.

Anything can be done ... by those with the knowledge, experience and equipment to do it. A tree fell on my brother's '78 full-size Cherokee Chief during a hurricane about 25 years ago. He had it fixed and you couldn't see that it had ever been hurt -- but it cost him well over a thousand dollars, in 1985 dollars. If you don't have experience doing body work, I'd say you should pass. Unless you can buy it cheap and afford to have it fixed professionally. You're not talking a shopping cart door ding here. The roof has an outer skin, backed up by internal ribs for structure. If you don't get it perfect, the doors won't close and seal, and you'll always be living with leaks and wind noise. Any chance you could post a couple of photos?

The deal is that the 2.5L uses the same timing chain and gears as the 4.0L, but the 2.5L has a slightly lower deck (and cam) height. Which means that the 4.0L timing chain is just long enough to have slop in it when used in a 2.5L. Rather than use two different timing sets, AMC simply decided to add a tensioner to the 2.5L.

Front fenders for the 84-96 XJ and 86-92 MJ are all the same.

The new adapter wasn't an upgrade. Chrysler just wanted to stock fewer filters, so by changing to an SAE thread they could specify the same filter they used on other vehicles. The new filter is the same size as the old one and they filter the same (if you buy the same brand of filter).

But they aren't. There is a transmission wiring harness to the TCU (which mounts under the dash on the passenger side -- did you at least get the TCU?) that you will have to install. I'm a 5-speed guy, personally, but I'm pretty certain the tranny harness is free-standing and does not require cutting and splicing the vehicle harness.

Is it possible that a previous owner already changed it to the non-metric filter adapter> How does the filter sit when installed -- horizontal, with the mouth facing forward, or vertical with the mouth down and the filter tipped slightly outward at the top toward the passenger fender?

Unlike the MJ, the XJ uses a front combination valve that provides the proportioning function. Inside that distribution block just under the master cylinder there is a spring-loaded plunger with an O-ring. That's the proportioning valve, and as best I can figure out the way it works is to NOT allow any brake fluid to the rear unless/until you really stomp on the brakes. My '88 XJ also has no rear brakes. My game plan (as soon as I get a free afternoon) is going to be to remove that nut from the front of the combo valve, which will reveal the plunger and spring inside. (Remove carefully, that spring is STRONG!) I will then remove the spring, take the O-ring off the plunger and set the plunger fully into the cap plug, then reassemble and bleed the rear brakes. That should give you better rear brakes than you ever thought an XJ could have.

The question was about the AX-4, not the AW4.

To you. Someone else reading this thread might want to know what RPM he would actually be running with a specific tire and gear combination.