Eagle

How does WHAT pull out? Are you referring to the fuse? It's in the fuse panel, which is UNDER the dashboard. You just grab it between the thumb and finger and pull it out.

Here comes the Dutch uncle again: You guys are ALL overlooking the obvious - changing the tires eliminated the problem. Ergo, the problem is either the tires, or the rims. Just because you paid someone to balance the tires does NOT mean they are balanced. I have had to take some tires back three times before they finally got them balanced well enough not to shimmy at 55 - 60 MPH. Many years ago, I had a set of Dunlops on an AMX that one shop simply (the AMC dealer) could not balance. I had to forget the money I had spent and pay another shop to do it right. You are all assuming the problem here is death wobble, but with death wobble you have to nearly stop the vehicle to end the wobble. In this case, slowing down to 35 ends it. That sounds to me like "shimmy," not death wobble. And the speed at which it starts indicates wheel balance ... although a slightly bent rim could be a factor. A good balance technician would notice if a rim wasn't running true, but today there ARE no good balance technicians. Just minimum wage guys who are pointed at a tire machine and who think the machine always does a perfect job. Not! Is that what the technician told you? That's garbage. Balancing a wheel involves both the correct amount of weight AND putting the weight in the correct location(s). There is no such thing as a tire being "out of balance by 'X' ounces." If there's any weight at all on a wheel, it is often (but not always) possible to correct a balance problem just by moving one or more weights on the rim. If this is what the shop told you, IMHO it is proof positive that they don't know what they are doing.

Showoff! I doubt I could even see a .410 hull at 25 yards.

If you remove the fuse for the tranny controller, you are left with a transmission that you can shift manually ... with 1st, 3rd and 4th gears only (no 2nd). Try that, and see if it shifts cleanly when you move the lever from Lo to 3 to OD. If it shifts okay under manual control, the tranny should be okay and the problem is either the controller or the feedback from the TPS to the TCU.

That's quite a recoil in the first video. What the heck kind of cannon were you shooting?

I am perhaps the primary objector to TXT SPK, and the original post in this thread was NOT in text speak (well, except for the "any1"). The proof of that is that I could read it. THe 2.5L is an excellent engine, but not overly endowed with either horsepower or torque. If it's a 5-speed it probably has 4.10 gears, but the 4-speeds came with 3.55 gears. With a 5-speed, 4,10s are acceptable (but not great) with stock tires, but 4.10s are what we typcally advise for 31" tires with the 4.0L 6-cylinder. Personally, with a 4-banger I wouldn't go bigger than 30x9.50s ... or just 235/75R15s, which are very nearly as big as 30s, a wee tad narrower, and several dollars less expensive. If your goal really is mud, you might be better advised to skip the 2.5L rebuild and just get a 4.0L out of a Cherokee and put that in. It'll be more work, but the results will be more satisfying. As to axles, Cherokee and Comanche axles are identical except for spring perch location. In an '86, you most likely have a Dana 35, non C-clip version. There is a very small chance that you might have an AMC Model 20, which is a very strong axle that should be plenty adequate for mudding ... especially with a 4-cylinder. The D35 isn't a great axle, but if you don't really beat on it, it'll last you for awhile. The original D35 in my '88 Cherokee has been wheeled all over the northest and is now at 285,000 miles. The only maintenance was to replace the Trac-Lok at around 175,000 because the clutches wore out.

Friends don't let friends buy Rusty's stuff.

Bleeding the tube in the mechanical gauge is not necessary. It's a pressure gauge. It doesn't know or care if it's reading air pressure, water pressure, or oil pressure. It responds to pressure. Any air in the line will compress by the amount the oil pressure creates, and the pressure will then be the same everywhere in the tube. It appears from your description that you have oil pressure at driving speeds, just not very much. That's possible. I once drove a race car transporter from Connecticut to Maryland and back with a mechanical gauge that showed 7 psi at highway speed. That was (apparently) enough to keep some oil flowing and the oil was "oily" enough to keep things sliding inside the engine. I have no idea how long it had been like that or how long it lasted after that trip, but the owner told me before I left that the oil pressure was low and "don't worry about it" ... so I didn't. I still think your bearings are gone. It may already be too late, but if you catch bad bearings in time all you have to do is put in new ones. Once they wear away the babbit material, you have harder metal from the bearing shell wearing directly on the crank journals, and that can score the crank. At that point, in addition to needing new bearings you also need a new (or reground) crankshaft.

There are a couple of ways to eliminate the axle disconnect, and if you're having this done on your truck it would be a good idea to clarify up front exactly what "they" are giving you for your money. (1) The simple, quick-and-dirty way is to remove the vacuum shift mechanism, slide the collar (it works just like a synchro collar in a manual transmission) over to the engaged (or "locked") position, fix it in that position either by shimming with washers, moving the 'C' clip, or even putting a hose clamp on it -- then reinstall. The two-piece axle then remains permenently engaged. (2) Remove axle disconnect mechanism, remove inner and outer axle shafts, and replace with one-piece axle shaft. This requires finding or making an inner seal for the right side of the differential housing, because with the CAD the seal is located outboard of the disconnect. The downside to this is that the seal may be a special seal, which could be difficult to find if it needs replacement. (It can be even more difficult to find if you don't know what it is.) (3) Variation on #2, same procedure but replace with newer year axle shaft that has the larger U-joint at the outer end. This obviously also requires replacing the stub shaft that goes in the hub/bearing unit. Approaches 2 and 3 eliminate the CAD entirely, so they would call for a blank cover plate to replace the vacuum motor mounting plate.

I don't think that's correct. And don't forget they reversed the polarity from 1990 to 1991. I think the older ones were 0 ohms empty and 88 ohms full, and the newer ones were 5 ohms full and 105 ohms empty.

There is about a foot of difference in the wheelbase. There is no way to put a short bed on a LWB chassis and make it look at all "right." Simply chopping the back of the frame isn't the answer.

Diagnosing sounds from written descriptions is almost impossible but it sounds like you are hearing the clutch release bearing.

There were no details, which is a good thing. It means the DA prefers to try the case in court rather than through the media, which is the way it should be. That also probably means he feels he has a very solid case. One of the alleged killers is the girl's ex-boyfriend. Talk about "With friends like that, who needs enemies?" The world today is such a sick place, it isn't even safe for teenagers to date any more. Back when I was that age, the only thing parents had to worry about was that some stud might get their l'il darlin' knocked up. Today, parents have to worry about date rape, drugs, gang rape, "good" old fashioned RAPE rape ... and now ex-boyfriends being so hinky about breaking up that they'll kidnap and kill the girl. Sick.

It wasn't my truck, but on one of the NAXJA North Atlantic Chapter wheeling trips in the Mohawk Trail area of Massachusetts Earle had one of the control arm brackets on his XJ tear off the frame. This was on an afternoon early in the weekend. Somehow we got it back to the campground, but it looked like he was done for the weekend and wondering howe to get his XJ from western MA back to RI. The next morning everyone was clustered around the truck and having no good ideas when a group of guys came through the campground on their way to the local fishing hole. There are a lot of wheelers in that area, so they stopped and asked what was going on. When someone explained, one of the guys said, "No problem. I'll be right back." Turned out he was a welder by trade and he had an industrial grade welder in/on his work truck. He came back about 15 minutes later, fired up the welder and crawled under the XJ, and half an hour later it was stronger than TrailMaster had ever dreamed it could be.

The Durango box is possible worth pursuing if you plan to do a lot of heavy rock crawling. For most uses, even moderate 4x4 on a frequent basis, the standard Jeep box with 14:1 ratio is more than adequate. Personally, I spend more than 90 percent of my time on pavement, and a large percentage of that on highways, so I am more interested in getting the best control on the highway. The ZJ box with the 12.7:1 ratio is the preferred solution for that. Either that or buy a 12:1 box from Borgeson.

I might have to remind my wife to carry the pepper spray I bought her for self-defense on her trips into NYC (as well as beautiful downtown New Haven. ... ugh). She never bothers to carry it, because when she did it was always buried at the bottom of her purse. Now we have TWO packs of coyotes roaming around the preservation and water company land behind our house, and the 'yotes have killed several small pets around town, as well as a couple of goats in the next town over. We're keeping her granddaughter's toy poodle, which weighs 5 pounds (officially, on the veterinarian's scale). She'd be just a tasty desert for a pack of coyotes and I'm concerned that the wife hears the coyotes at night, she knows there must be at least a dozen of them, and she knows that it's not recommended to let small pets out unsupervised even in the day time -- then she goes and lets the poodle out after dark. AARGH! If it were up to me, I'd be set up with a sniper rifle. However, apparently Connecticut for some inexplicable reason has awarded coyotes with protected status, so I'm not sure it would be legal to shoot one even if I caught it in the act of chowing down on our granddaughter's little poodle. Sheer idiocy -- coyotes aren't even native to Connecticut, how the [bleep] do they rate protected status? Jeff -- I saw the funny part.

The thing is, dropping the pan is a nuisance job, and a set of main bearings isn't THAT expensive. IMHO it just makes more sense to do the job all at once. You have to drop the pan to replace the oil pump ... why not just do the bearings while you're in there? Do the rear main seal while the pan's off, too. Then you'll have a motor that should be good for another 100k

I'm greatly relieved to know that my reputation is (temporarily) intact, but I wasn't intending to take in the totality of AMC vehicles in my response. The question was about an '86 MJ and that's what I meant by "the factory" -- the Jeep factory, in MJs.

Let's face it -- you have THREE oil pressure gauges saying you have next to no oil pressure. It's time to do something (besides buy another gauge). You need bearings and/or an oil pump. Both can be replaced with the engine in the truck, by dropping the oil pan.

AW4 is the correct name for it. If the guy at the shop doesn't know that, you might want to look for a different shop. Hint: The "AW" stands for Aisin-Warner. It's a Japanese transmission, not Chrysler.

There are just SOOOO many very old expressions that cover this: "It takes one to know one." "Birds of a feather flock together." And so on ... :banana: :brows: Just kiddin'. Really. Honest. No, no I was only kidding.

The XJ and MJ are identical from the firewall forward.

^^^ What he said. The so-called "open" system doesn't cool any better than the closed system. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The factory never sold the AMC 20 (or any other axle) with a locker. They did sell a lot of limited slips, and there's a good chance that's what is in your AMC 20.

I reckon it would sort of ruin your whole day to come out of the local Wal-Mart and find THAT where you left your car parked. :ack: