Eagle

LOL!! That is hilarious! :clapping: Willy Why do you find that amusing? She was nominated for Emmys three times and had several highly acclaimed roles. Farrah was NOT a typical, air-head blond. She was a serious and accomplished actress with a lot of talent. You just stopped looking when you got to the smile and knockers. Shame on you.

In a word ... yes. He is supposed to be a professional. Professional glass guys replace windshields on old cars as well as new. You are assuming, of course, that he caused the cracks by simple hand pressure rather than sloppy use of the tools (I don't agree ... I think it's obvious the damage was done by the tool). Even if that's true ... he as a professional has a responsibility to protect the rest of the vehicle around what he was working on.

I like the whole truck. They set their trucks up on HUGE rubber in Iceland because they go riding on the glaciers and the snow is deep and soft.

First, there is no excuse for using a Sawzall to remove a windshield in the first place. Second, the installer is supposed to be a professional. HE should know that a 20-year old vinyl dash cover will be brittle and HE should work more carefully to allow for that. The dashboard wasn't cracked before he started work. It was badly damaged when he finished. He owns it. No excuses allowed for horrendously poor workmanship. The damage he created was ENTIRELY avoidable if he had any skills whatsoever at what he was doing.

If it had NO cracks in it ... how do you figure it was junk already? That's like my doctor telling me I'm 65 years old, so it's no problem if he doesn't give the right medicine because I was going to get sicker anyway. You're not being "honest" with an approach like that -- you're being a sucker.

ZJ V8 coils will give you approximately 1" of lift. The XJ "Up Country" front coils are the same part number as ZJ V8 coils. But coils will not help you with rubbing. Where tires larger than 31s rub on the front of an XJ or MJ is the lower control arms. Replace those with the LCAs from a WJ Grand Cherokee, and the problem goes away. The WJ LCAs have a bend t clear the tires. And run OEM Jeep rims. They allow the 31s to stuff up inside the flares. Aftermarket wheels all have less backspacing (stick out farther), resulting in the tires hitting the flares and the sheet metal. On OEM rims, 31x10.50s will cycle through the full range of suspension movement without hitting. The LCA rub is on sharp turns, not "articulation."

Diode? Are you thinking of a 1991 or 1992? The OP has an '89. I'm not aware of any diode in the aux fan wiring for a Renix MJ.

http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum= ... &ck=&ch=ne This story is ridiculous. I'ce seen Jeeps drive through ponds so deep the driver had to sit on the back of the seat and push the accelerator with a stick, and I've forded lakes wide enough that the exhaust was under water for at five or ten minutes without interruption. If the engine can breathe, it'll exhaust just fine with the pipe under water. If it can't exhaust ... the engine stops running. Somethin' ain't right ...

I'm on the third windshield in my '88 Cherokee and I had the cracked windshield in the '88 Comanche replaced when I first put it on the road. All were done by a guy from a local glass shop and he came to the house and did it in my driveway. There was no damage to the dashboard, and no suggestion that any damage even might be possible. I watched him work -- I can't even imagine how the putz could have done that, except that he must be an incredible putz who simply has NO pride in his work whatsoever, and doesn't give a rat's patootie about his customers vehicles. This would be like your wife calling Triple A to change a flat tire, the guy puts the jack under the gas tank and makes a hole in it, then drives off and says "Sorry. S**t happens."

I agree. They are windshield installers, not dashboard installers. The entire dash has to come out and be replaced as an assembly. There are a LOT of wires and vacuum controls and various "thingies" that can get messed up under there. "Sorry" is not an acceptable answer. They damaged it, they pay to repair it. But you should have it repaired by a shop that knows how to do it -- which means a dealer, in this case, and if that costs their insurance company a few bucks, too bad for them. Their premiums will go up, but that's the price they pay for being stupid. If they balk, report them to your state's Motor Vehicle Department and Department of Consumer Protection. If they mess things up under the dash, you'll be chasing gremlins for months if not years. Don't mess around -- play hardball.

Okay, somebody has to do it, so I will. As heretical as it sounds, I am going to recommend that you NOT lift it. By all means, do the 4WD conversion. But ... a 4WD MJ at stock height is actually a pretty formidable off-road machine. And you can run up to 31x10.50-15 tires with NO lift. So ... why lift it? Once you lift it, everything starts to be affected, and everything that's affected needs money thrown at it or else you have a butcher job. Just take something as simple as the track bar -- that's the bar in the front suspension that keeps the front axle centered under the truck. When you lift the chassis away from the axle, the bar swings down in an arc. That causes the axle to be moved sideways relative to the chassis. A 3-inch lift will shift the front axle toward the driver's side of the vehicle by about 1/2" to 5/8". The cheap way to "fix" that is to drill a new hole in the axle mounting bracket. But ... you only get one chance. Miss, and any additional holes will just make Swiss cheese out of the bracket. The correct way to deal with it is an adjustable track bar. That'll set you back a couple of hundred bucks. Then you should have longer (preferably adjustable) control arms. You should have longer sway bar links, and you may need to drop the sway bar mounts. You need longer front and rear flex hoses for the brake lines. You need to extend the rod for the rear brake proportioning valve, or the rear brakes won't function correctly (or at all, in some cases). You need longer shock absorbers. You can find 3-inch lift kits selling for a few hundred dollars. They aren't complete. You can't do a 3-inch lift right for a few hundred dollars. All those kits leave out some parts that should be included to do the job right. Frankly, at 17 you have other, more important things to spend money on -- like girls. Plus, that truck looks like a really nice truck. Unless you are regularly doing hard-core wheeling that requires the added height -- I just see no point in starting down that road. Make it 4WD, put on a set of good 30-inch tires, maybe toss a locker or TrueTrac limited slip in the rear differential, and enjoy the truck. I bought an '88 MJ that had a 4" lift in it when I bought it. I hated it. If you'll pardon the expression, it rode like a truck. It handled badly. It steered badly. The height was perfect for breaking down the outside corner of the seat every time I got into or out of the truck. I drove it (and wheeled it) that way for a couple of years, then I finally took the lift out and swapped it for some engine parts. Best move I ever made. I like the truck much better at stock height and, since there's no legal wheeling around here and Paragon in PA has been closed, there's just no need for the lift. And at stock height on 30s or 31s, it'll still go virtually anywhere it would go before.

What doesn't work? It doesn't bolt into position, rod connections are different, or ___?

I don't remember which year, but the stock MJ shackle is identical to the shackle used on one of the older (mid-80s???) full-size Chebbie pickups.

The '96 seats are totally different from yours. Not just the height -- the pedestals are different in how the seats attach, and how the pedestals attach to the floor. Probably not the best choice.

So you need a 27-spline Chrysler axle shaft. The XJ used that axle from about 1992 to 1996, I believe.

There's a Harbor Freight store right near you now, on the Berlin Turnpike (okay, just off the Berlin Turnpike) at Route 9. Won't they ship it there and not whack you for freight?

I second what Pete wrote. A roll cage is made from structural grade tubing. Harbor Freight sells a PIPE bender. Incompatible.

Very likely, an engine builder who is accustomed to working on Chevrolet engines where you don't crank the valve keeper nuts down tight but have to adjust them. If the builder left them loose on the Jeep engine, they may have been loose enough to let a rod pop out. On the Jeep engine, the bolts that hold down the rocker arms and bridge should be torqued to 19 foot-pounds.

www.car-part.com

This is basically the info I was looking for. So using extra (cut-off) MJ main leaves as AALs gives about 2" of lift -- that's about what I expected, since doing the same with an XJ yields about 1-1/2". If the Exploder mains don't generate lift, I would expect that using XJ mains in an MJ pack would behave about the same. Thanks

Pete, I believe you've done more than just about anyone in regard to "home brewed" rear springs. A friend of mine has just rejoined the ranks of Comanche owners. The truck he just bought has standard rear springs, and the second leaf on one of them is broken. He plans to use the truck as a truck, so we're looking for ways to beef up the factory springs to about the equivalent of the Metric Ton springs -- on a budget. I'n not sure if he's looking for some lift, or wants to keep it at stock height. I gave him a pair of springs I have that also have one broken second leaf, so between the two we'll be able to rebuild one pair of stock springs. Then we're debating using either cut-off XJ main leaves as add-a-leaves (that's my suggestion, because I think it'll increase the capacity without adding much lift) or the cut-off main leaves from the extra pair of springs I gave him -- which will generate some lift, but we don't know how much. Could you post a capsule summary of the various permutations and combinations you have tried -- and the results vis-a-vis lift? Or, if you have already done so, does anyone have a link to the write-up? Thanks

You have to wonder how that could happen, since the 2.5L is an AMC engine and there is no adjustment on the lifters. You crank 'em down against a shoulder on the stud. I would do some careful checking before running the motor again, or you could do more serious damage.

If you decide to change to an AX-15, remember that not all AX-15s have an external slave, so you might be changing a tranny to put back the same type of slave you have now. They started using the AX-15 in mid-1989 but they didn't move back to the external slave until 1994. I would just buy a factory slave for the tranny you have and install it.

Think of it this way: That brace involved material, engineering, and labor to put there. Those things cost money. AMC/Chrysler/Jeep was in business to make money. If they hadn't though the brace was necessary, they wouldn't have put it there.

An '86? The original radiator, if that's what's in it, is 23 years old. It doesn't owe you anything -- replace it. It was done ten years ago. My '88 Cherokee is on its third radiator right now, and my '88 MJ is on its second.