Eagle

I used to carry a 31x10.50 and I would have said that was the largest that would fit. Wrong again.

THE biggest issue will be getting the oil pan off. You do NOT need to drop the tranny, so 2WD/4WD doesn't make any difference. In a nutshell, you drop the oil pan, remove the rear bearing cap, use a BRASS rod to punch out the upper half of the old seal, then lubricate (oil) the new seal and shove it up into place. Replace and torque the cap, with a dab of RTV on the two ends where the upper and lower halves meet, The '88 used a multi-piece oil pan gasket that's almost impossible to get installed and sealed up. Get the pan gasket for a '95. It's a much nicer, one-piece gasket and it does fit the older engines, regardless of what the kid at Pep Boys tries to tell you.

Our collective fingers are crossed ...

Careful. Adjacent 115-volt breakers in a panel are connected to alternate legs of the 230-volt service. When you pop in a double breaker for a 230-volt circuit, it's basically two 115-volt breakers with a pin connecting the two handles so if one leg blows, the whole breaker opens. Split breakers can only be used for 115-volt circuits, because both halves are connected to the same leg of the 230-volt service. If you wired a 230-volt device to the two sides of a single split breaker -- it wouldn't run.

Excellent! "I love it when a plan comes together" (Colonel Hannibal Smith, "The A-Team")

It certainly is something to worry about. If you look at the factory tow hook brackets (which are the same brackets used with the old factory "Hidden Winch" option), I believe they used all the original bumper mounting bolts plus added two or three more on each side. And the hidden winch was only a 5,000 or 6,000 pound winch. Drill out the bolts if you can, or grind off the old nuts and tack weld new ones in their place.

So if the prior owner was 60-70 years old, the vibration occurs at 65 mph? So a 40-50 year old owner would develop a vibration at 45 mph? Interesting. Anecdotal. My mother's new 1958 station wagon shimmied at 53 MPH in 1958. I was 14 then. My 1988 Cherokee shimmies at 54 MPH in 2008. I'm now 64 and the XJ has 280,000 miles on it. Somehow I fail to see any correlation, or reason for one, between the owner's or driver's age and the speed at which the shimmy occurs.

The periodic fluctuation is not indicative of either a bad sensor or a bad gauge. If it's not being caused by the aux fan cutting in, and it's not just at idle (indicating a bad fan clutch), it is most likely the gauge responding to opening and closing of the thermostat. Remember, a thermostat is intended to keep the temperature UP, not down. The thermostat stays closed until the coolant reaches the prescribed temperature, then it opens. There's a range of something like 15 degrees that the temperature then has to drop before the thermostat closes again. I think you are seeing the thermostat doing what it's supposed to be doing, except that it seems to be doing it a few degrees too hot. That's why I recommend replacing it. Get it from a Jeep dealer. It seems only the official Mopar thermostat has the air bleed vent in the top of the flange, and without that bleed hole you'll have a hard time purging air from the system.

That could do it. The TPS doesn't like to get wet. I'm not sure what inputs the AW4 uses when deciding when to shift, but knowing that the TPS for the AW4 has extra contacts that are not used with the 5-speeds, I'm pretty certain that TPS input is used somehow. Unfortunately, if you'll pardon an unfortunate pun, I suspect that you "hosed" your TPS.

Your inside breaker panel may or may not have space enough for one more 2-pole breaker (which you need for a 230-volt circuit). That blank knock-out at the bottom of the left tier may be able to accept a paired breaker, but you should remove the cover and check before proceeding. I like that junction box for the a/c circuit. As long as you can juggle use of the a/c and the compressor, I'd tap another set of conductors off that to an outlet in the garage for the compressor and call it good. You probably won't be unplugging the compressor a lot, so you could wire to it directly. I'd use an outlet anyway, and probably set it up with a twistlock plug and receptacle. It's a 50-amp breaker, so use heavy wire. 6-gauge will probably do the job. Just check what they used for the a/c circuit and match that. You won't want the compressor running all the time, so you should also consider wiring it through a heavy-duty disconnect switch.

Read my post above. The one you're looking at is only 2 HP, mine is 3 HP and can't keep up. Notice that they conveniently do NOT give you any specs on how many cfm this "gem" produces, and that's the critical spec that determines whether or not it'll keep up with your tools. Look for a spec on "Standard Cubic Feet per Minute" or "SCFM." If they don't tell you -- be VERY suspicious. Heck, it's a single stage. I believe that means, in compressor lingo, one cylinder. Ain't no way a 1-cylinder, 110-volt compressor is going to keep up with an air grinder. And I don't believe for one moment it's made in the USA. Pretty much all compressors today are made in China, and it doesn't matter whose name is on it. I may be wrong, but I don't think so (in this instance).

No aux fan? Try changing your thermostat. Does it tend to get hotter when you're stopped, and drop back to 210 when you start rolling? Or does it do this little needle dance while you're rolling down the highway at 65 MPH?

Happy Thanksgiving. MJ brethren. As we used to wish my 8th grade Social Studies teacher, "Don't eat too many turkeys."

Go for the 220-volt compressor. And don't get an "oilless." Get one with two cylinders, and a real oil sump. Remember that the ratings they put on compressors today are all lies. I'm still using a compressor I bought at least 30 years ago, probably more than 35 years. It's a 2-cylinder Sears Craftsman, 115-volt. The motor is a 3 HP motor, capacitor start. That was, at the time, THE largest compressor anywhere in the known universe that would run on 115 volts. Fast forward to today, and I routinely see 115-volt compressors advertised as 5 HP, even 6 HP. Yet they don't put out any more pressure or sustained volume than my old 3 HP Sears. The Sears is a horizontal. I think the tank is 12 gallons. Whatever it ism it is NOT enough to keep up with an air die grinder. It's great for a spray gun, okay for an air wrench or impact gun ... but woefully inadequate for anything requiring sustained air flow. Your idea about splitting off the a/c circuit is certainly viable. You could also tap off the dryer circuit, unless your family does a lot of laundry at the times you'd likely be working in the garage. You'll probably need a 30-amp circuit, which will require 8-gauge wire. If the circuit you're going to tap into has a 40-amp breaker, you'll need 6-gauge wire. Are there any unused knockouts in your circuit breaker panel? If so, you can probably add a dedicated circuit for the compressor in the garage and not worry about slaving off the dryer or the a/c. I just put a small sub-panel in my garage, because the main panel was filled up and I wanted a 230-volt outlet in the garage, as well as another 115-volt outlet circuit for the garage, and another one for the basement. I had a 50-amp breaker for the range, so I left that in the mainbox and wired it to be the main feed into the subpanel. Then I installed a 40-amp breaker for the range, a 30-amp breaker for the 230-volt circuit in the garage (that'll handle either a new compressor or a new welder, whichever arrives first), and a couple of 15-amp 115-volt circuits. And I still have spares to add a couple more circuits, like the attic vent fan I keep threatening to install.

You may need a viscous fan clutch, or you may need a radiator. What's happening is the primary fan can't pull enough air through the radiator to cool the engine. It gets to 230 and the auxiliary fan kicks in. That pulls more air, the temperature drops to where it should be ... and the cycle repeats.

You do NOT have death wobble. You have tire shimmy. Read other threads on death wobble. You do NOT accelerate through death wobble to see if it'll go away at 62-1/2 MPH. When death wobble strikes -- you hold on for dear life, stomp on the brakes, and pray to the deity of your choice that you can control the vehicle long enough to get it stopped. No, that is NOT an exaggeration. Your clue is two-fold: (1) it began when you changed tires; (2) it kicks in at 50 MPH and it stops at 60 MPH. Classic symptoms of wheel IMbalance. The reason the plow stops it is that the plow puts a lot more weight on the front wheels, so there's a lot more resistance to wobbling. It's just about impossible to bubble balance larger, wider tires. Heck, when you get into larger LT sizes, most shops can't even get 'em balanced right on their fancy, high-tech computerized spin balancers. Balance your tires correctly and you won't have any more problems.

I have been told more than once that the moon is made of green cheese. More recently, I have read right here on the Internet that the United States never landed anyone on the moon, and that the space station doesn't exist because anyone going into space would be instantly killed by solar radiation. It MUST be true, because I read it on the Internet. I own multiple XJs and multiple MJs. I have wheeled both my primary 1988 XJ and my primary 1988 MJ. All doors still close. Take it for what it's worth.

I don't, but several of my friends in the North Atlantic Chapter of NAXJA do. Clayton's old shop used to be just a couple of miles up the road from my brother's house, and I went over and lurked while they installed one of the kits for one of the NAXJA-NAC guys. It's a top-grade kit, and it works. What more can I tell you?

No.

As a certified "Tread Lightly!" Master Trainer, I'll have to disagree with you. Tread Lightly means doing as little damage and leaving as little impact as possible -- including simply not going certain places if you can't go there without leaving a severe "footprint" (such as not driving across boggy terrain during the wet season, for example). It also means things like not driving with a heavier foot than necessary for the conditions, not straying off the prescribed trails, not making multiple detours around the detours -- all that good stuff. Tread Lightly! certainly doesn't encompass cutting down trees to unstuck yourself. If the only way to get out of somewhere is to cut vegetation, the Tread Lightly! approach would be ... don't go there. It's about being responsible stewards of the land, not only to preserve the environment but also to preserve whatever level of access to it we currently have. Irresponsible wheeling just gives the rabid tree huggers more reason to argue that we should never be allowed to wheel, anywhere, any time.

They don't work for me.

Butyl adhesive.

He doesn't have a serpentine setup. I'll try to take pics of both the '86 and the '88 over Thanksgiving and post 'em up.

There is a fuse for the gauges. It is located in the fuse panel, which is beside/above the driver's left foot. The fuse you are looking for is located toward the bottom right corner of the fuse panel, next to the top of the hazard warning flasher can. It takes a 7-1/2-amp fuse. Check that first.

Measure again. A 4" lift typically moves the axle less than 1-inch, more like 3/4 of an inch. A 2" budget boost shouldn't shift the axle more than maybe 1/4 of an inch. Either you're not measuring correctly, the truck isn't sitting level when you measure, or you have other problems.