Eagle

:agree:

A wire wheel will destroy them. They are aluminum, not steel. Head over to Auto Zone or Advance or Shucks and get a can of Aircraft Stripper. Use that to remove the peeling clearcoat. Then get some good aluminum polish (like Mother's, or even better the stuff they sell at commercial truck stops for the big rigs) and some 000 or 0000 steel wool and use that to polish the aluminum.

For reference, the Rancho catalog shows the SAME long AAL for the XJ and the MJ, and they claim 2-1/2" for both. That didn't make sense, so I called Rancho and spoke with a product engineer. She didn't have an answer so she put me on hold and went off to talk to a real engineer. When she came back she said the catalog listing is a misprint. It gives 2-1/2" in an XJ and 1" to 1-1/2" in an MJ.

No.

30x9.50s on those rims will not hit the flares, but they will rub the lower control arms.

The holes in the spring plates are already oblong, so they could use the same plates with either axle. All you need is the correct u-bolts. Keep in mind that XJ and MJ u-bolts are metric. The XJs used 12mm, the MJ used 14mm. Your local spring shop probably doesn't stock metric materials, so you'll need to use an SAE alternative. Technically, 9/16" would be the closest equivalent. I tinker with both XJ and MJs, so I've settled on using 1/2" u-bolts for everything. (Larger than 12mm, smaller than 14mm.)

I brought home a truck with no handle. It was easy to reach into the hole and pull the rods by hand -- no tools needed. FWIW, someone posted awhile ago that a handle for some other compact pickup (S10 maybe?) fits and is available through the various parts chains. Does anyone remember what the cross-listing was?

Y'all are missing the fact that it died while running. I think there's something more going on than a starter relay or solenoid.

The seal is a bead of urethane sealant. Are you looking for the trim gasket?

Keep in mind that the lever is pulled straight back from 2WD to 4PT to 4FT. Then the lever has to be pushed sideways, toward the tranny tunnel, before the lever can be pulled back to N and 4Lo. I've never watched from underneath while the shifter was run through the positions, but doesn't the lateral movement engage a different lever? Or is it only a detent to prevent accidently going farther than can be accomplished "on the fly"? Of course you can select N and 4Lo with the case out of the vehicle, or the vehicle not running. The only reason it helps shifting to those positions if the vehicle is rolling SLOWLY is that they are not synchronized, so if things don't slip into place when you pull the lever, a 1 MPH roll will allow things to slip enough to engage. You won't hurt it shifting by hand -- if it doesn't want to go, turn the rear driveshaft manually and see if that lets things align.

Then my Jeep Comanche FSM is wrong. The crush sleeve (which they call a collapsible spacer) is discussed on page H-46 in how to replace the pinion seal, it is shown in the exploded diagram on page H-50 (part # 15), it is mentioned on page H-52 under removing the pinion, it is stated on page H-60 that "The collapsible spacer controls the pinion bearing preload. Do not reuse the old spacer, Use a replacement spacer only." and installation and torquing of the collapsible spacer to set preload is discussed on page H-60.

The D44 does use a crush sleeve, and if you over-torqued it you have to buy a new sleeve and a new seal and a new pinion nut and start over. The instructions are the same as I posted yesterday for doing a Dana 35. You don't measure the torque on the nut. You measure the preload by how many INCH-pounds are required to turn the pinion. You do this when the center section is not installed, so you aren't turning the rung gear, only the pinion. BTW -- no amount of over-torquing the crush sleeve should have affected the backlash, since the pinion depth is controlled by shims inside the housing, and the crush sleeve is on the outside. If the backlash changed, there was something wrong with the assembly before you put the torque wrench to it.

It cuts out until warm,(and if you go into full lock on reverse) and idles at about 700 revs - generally you can hear it struggling and it does "hunt" - just recently the battery light comes on at speed (60mph) too so am guessing my alternator may be failing too?... (however I think the guy who had the truck before me put a different alternator on as there has been a new bracket put on to hold it?.... There is also a bottom end rattle on the engine which I was told was related to the timing - it also runs on a little after the inginition is switched off ..... I can't even find a spec in the FSM but I think 700 - 750 RPM is the correct idle speed, so you are not idling "way too low." And a low-end rattle is usually an indication of bad rob bearings, not timing issues. Timing on these engines is not adjustable, anyway. It sounds like you have other issues.

Sorry -- my bad. I thought we were discussing dana 35 rears. I completely missed the D30 mention in the opening post.

What plans? Chop it off, weld a 'Y' to the front ... done.

What is "way too slow"? How are you measuring, and what RPM does it idle at?

Is that from the Ford FSM for the 8.8? It can't be from the Jeep FSM because the Dana 35 axle does not use preload shims. The only shims on the pinion are for adjusting the pinion depth. The preload is set by collapsing the crush sleeve. I have the original MJ FSM. It says the same thing as the '88 Cherokee FSM. That's direct from the book, step-by-step. There is NO mention of the actual torque on the pinion nut because that's not the way the FSM says to check it. However, friends who worked in Jeep dealerships have told me that it takes a lot more than 250 ft-lbs to collapse the sleeve to get the indicated rotating torque.

I've never heard of bleeding a master without looping lines from the outlets back into the reservoirs. Putting your fingers over the holes? That sounds to me like a great way to spray brake fluid all over the engine compartment. How difficult can it be to take two short lengths of brake line and make up loops that run from each outlet up into the reservoir?

It takes considerably more than 210 foot-pounds to initially crush the sleeve, but you want to be sure you don't go too far because then you get to install a new sleeve and start over. I believe the torque required will be in the 350 foot-pound range, but the fact is that's not what you measure, so I don't know if anyone has quantified it. You have an inch-pound torque wrench? The actual measurement is how much resistance there is to rotating the pinion with no carrier installed in the housing. That's measured in inch-pounds. (Sounds like you already know that.)

I ran a ""high performance" turbo muffler cat-back system on my '88 XJ for awhile. My brother managed a Speedy muffler shop and he talked me into it. BIG mistake. It sounded okay, but not great. There was a noticeable loss of low-end torque, and gas mileage took a hit of about 2 MPG. It was the only time in my entire life (all 66 years of it) when I actually wanted an exhaust system to rust out so I could justify replacing it. Get a standard OEM replacement from Auto Zone or Advance with the lifetime warranty and call it good.

With a 2" lift you can probably get away with running stock shocks. If you decide to buy Monroe, though, do NOT buy the Sensatrac series with a lift. The Sensatrac has grooves machined inside the bore near the center of the vertical height so that at normal ride height some fluid bleed bast the piston, making a softer ride. As the piston gets farther toward either compressed or extended, the grooves disappear and the shocks stiffen up. If you run those shocks with a 2" lift, the shock will ride at the top of the grooves and as the suspension compresses (on bumps) the pistol will move into the grooves rather than out of them, resulting in a mushy ride and poor handling. You're better off going one line cheaper, or getting the Reflex series, which use different technology.

Long arm conversion.

:agree: Dealer one-off, not designed to happen. I seriously doubt, in fact, that it was done at or by a dealership. The guy who did it might have worked at a dealership in the day, but I cannot imagine any dealership being willing to incur the potential liability of doing a swap like that.

If you capped one side of the rear brakes, there may be air in there and you have no way to bleed that side. Like the man said ... fix it, don't play with it. And by the way -- if your truck still has the rear height sensing valve, be sure you follow the correct procedure for bleeding, or you may never have brakes.

I have been pondering the same question, and my conclusion is that unless you need a 4-door cab, the only viable solution is another MJ. Realistically, the other compact PUs are junk. A friend of mine bought a NEW Toyota PU a couple of years ago. It was only rated to carry 800 pounds! None of the small pickups have any capacity at all. If you need a 4-door, I think I'd look at a Dodge Dakota -- it's in an intermediate size class that it pretty much occupies by itself. But any used PU ten years old or less that isn't a candidate for the scrap heap is going to be selling for $10k or more. For that kind of money, you could buy an MJ with a decent body and have the engine rebuilt as a preemptive strike, and have the equivalent of a new truck -- for probably half what a ten-year old used one would cost.