Eagle

Drat! It appears that Beijing Jeep discontinued the XJ as of 2005. I am not a happy camperrrrrrrr.!!!

I wish we could find a way to import and sell Beijing Jeep Super Cherokees, and REALLY thumb our noses at Chrysler. The Super Cherokee is what they SHOULD be selling, rather than the Libertine and the Patriot.

If it's a long wheelbase -- it is not an Eliminator. All Eliminators were SWB. Vinyl bench seat sounds like base model. What does it have for steering wheel and instrument cluster? If it has an all-black, 2-spoke "station wagon" steering wheel and idiot lights -- it's a base model. If it has gauges (with or without tachometer) and a 3-spoke steering wheel it's at least one trim level above base. I don't know what that would have been in '91 -- in '88 it would have been a Pioneer, but in '91 it may have been Sport. Look behind the seat. Is there a carpeted panel on the back wall of the cab, up to the rear window, or is it exposed metal? That's another indication of a base model or an upper trim level.

Someone mentioned "overflow" bottle. On an '88 4.0L that is NOT an overflow bottle. It is a pressurized surge bottle. It should be filled halfway when colt. Whatever you do, DO NOT remove that cap when the system is hot. Repeat -- it is NOT an overflow bottle, that cap is your pressure cap and if you open it when the system is hot and pressurized you WILL get scalded. The best way to burp the system takes a few minutes. With the engine cooled down, remove the cap from the bottle and fill it to half full. Leave the cap off, or just start it on but leave it loose. Start the engine and let it idle for a few minutes. It speeds things up to partially block the radiator with a sheet of cardboard. As soon as it gets hot enough that you get boiling in the bottle, shut off the engine. Stand by with a bottle of coolant mix in your hand. As the system cools down, it will suddenly start to suck the coolant down out of the bottle. Pour more in as it sucks down, but don't fill it more than half full. When it stops sucking down, fill to the halfway mark, start the engine, and repeat. It may take three or four cycles to get most of the air out. After that you're good to drive it, just check the coolant level every morning and fill as necessary for a day or three until it's fully stabilized.

My bad. I read the initial post quickly and I thought you were running wheel spacers, not spring spacers. Gotta be tire balance if the other tires didn't do it. How much weight is on each front wheel, and how much is to the outside and how much to the inside? I've said before and I'll say again -- just because you paid a shop to balance your tires does NOT mean that your tires are balanced. An awful lot of the so-called "technicians" running those machines don't really know anything, and they rely on the machine to do all the thinking. "Close enough" when you're dealing with a solid axle Jeep is usually NOT close enough.

Even without a spare tire hanging back there, the frame makes a big 'X' behind/above the axle. I don't think an XJ gas tank would fit up into the space, so I think it would have to mount entirely below the frame. VERY susceptible to damage. Even if the top would fit inside the 'X' the XJ tank is deep and would hang down a lot lower than a spare tire. It's a possible solution for street use but not a good idea for off-road.

Why are you running spacers on the front? You shouldn't need them with those smaller tires. Try driving without them. Elimnate another variable. And +1 on having the tires balanced.

Are they an easy fit? Looked on the internet for a rebuilt one and found one for a 1968 for 265 plus 100 core charge w/12 month warranty. Rather have a rebuilt than used. I did put in a rebuilt gear from Les Schwab about 4 years ago.[/url] Unless the spline count or output shaft diameter is different from Jeep, it should be a bolt-in. The Jeep box is a Saginaw, and AMC used Saginaw boxes back into the 1950s.

Have never checked milage. Gonna have to. I do have the Aisin 4 speed, and I do slightly move and turn. They only thing I miss about PS, like my 94 Cherokee has, is the really short turning radius it has. The ratio for the XJ/MJ manual boxes is abysmally slow. It's 24:1. See if you can find an old AMC Javelin 6-cylinder in the junkyards. The manual steering ratio for those was 20:1. It's highly unlikely you'll find one, but the factory used to offer an optional 16:1 quick ratio manual box in the Javelin and AMX, too. My brother and I may be the only two people who ever actually ordered cars with that option. It was the dynamite setup for autocross and road racing.

I need the sending unit. Could you PM me the name and contact info for that supplier in NJ? TIA

Where? An XJ gas tank isn't a small item. There's no room on the left side, the drive shaft runs down the middle and the exhaust system takes up the right side.

+1 Not conclusive, but I have never seen one or heard of one.

Here's a link to a web page that may help you figure out what axle your "new" front axle is. http://www.lunghd.com/Tech_Articles/Sus ... Ratios.htm

Not saying I believe everything on the old web, but this one on JP's site claims to be an 87. It could be. I was wrong once before ... I think. Mine was an '84 -- hardly conclusive evidence of the last year for that style of grille.

Well, to pick nits a bit, the CPS, by whatever name, is only one part and fulfills only one functions. The 'Fuel Pump/Gauge Sender Unit' is two parts -- a fuel pump, and a gauge sending unit, that fulfill two totally different functions. And, since the two parts are (or "were") sold separately, it's extremely confusing to refer to a fuel pump as a sending unit. I can buy an MJ fuel pump down the road at Auto Zone. It comes with no gauge sending unit, and they can't supply a sending unit -- with or without a fuel pump attached.

1984-1986 XJ Wagoneer. I had one. I think it's still alive (barely) in Massachusetts.

Just my opinion, but while keeping the TBI is less work in the short term, converting to the MPFI will give you better performance and probably better gas mileage. Since you were unhappy with the performance before, why do it over again? Here's the skinny on the 2.5L engine (copyright, me -- permission to reproduce is NOT granted)

That's the problem. I made the rear springs for my championship autocross car that way, but I wore out a lot of hacksaw blades. Are those 3" XJ springs out of the vehicle? If so, what's the arch on them? I think Rancho's catalog is available on-line, and IIRC in the back of the catalog (or maybe in the catalog itself) they list specs for replacement (stock) springs. I'd be interested in comparing the free (unloaded) arch of a stock MJ spring with the arch of those 3" Rusty's XJ springs. I'll bet they're actually pretty close.

That's news to me, and I used to hang around the Jeep shop all the time when the Cherokees first came out. I also ordered my Cherokees new from the factory and I have never seen a front LSD offered. Got a link to your source?

Got any local stock car tracks in your area? A VERY looooooooooong time ago, the girl I was dating came into possession of a classic 2-seat AMX. However, it wasn't stock -- instead of the stock 14x6 5-spoke painted rims, this one had 14x7 chrome rims by the same company and in the same spoke style as the factory rims. And one of the rims had been trashed by vandals before she bought the car, so she had a 3-wheel AMX. I took the damaged wheel to the shop that made rims for the stockers who ran at the local tracks (we three or four around here in those days). They looked at it and said, "Yeah, no problem." Their solution was to take a stock Ford cop car rim and cut the center out of it. Then they cut the trashed rim away from the AMX center (which thankfully was intact) and welded the AMX center into the new rim. They said if the original rim had been intact and all we wanted was to widen it, they could also have just sliced it and welded in a spacer ring. For the AMX wheel I then took the repaired rim to a chrome plating shop and had it plated. Came out great. Working on alloy rims is dicey. Steel rims are a lot easier. Just make certain that whoever does the work is set up to true the rim before they give it back to you. Otherwise you'll be like Bill Cosby's famous "woogley woogley cart" going down the road.

Explanation, please? The sending unit is a float on an arm, and two push-on spade connectors. There are no supply tubes or any other kind of tubes on the sending unit. Are you perhaps referring to the fuel pump?

a) The photo is too out of focus to read the tag B) can you take a photo of the complete diff?

Nope. Absolutely not. XJ springs sit basically flat in the vehicle. MJ springs (stock) have a couple or three inches of arch at unladen curb weight. Match up a Comanche main leaf with the other leaves out of an XJ and you'll have the other three leaves pulling the main leaf DOWN. You won't even get normal MJ curb height. With Rusty's crap 3" "lift" springs ... you might get stock height. For reference -- Rancho sells the same add-a-leaf for the XJ and the MJ. Look in the Rancho catalog and it says this same AAL provides 2" to 2-1/2" of lift in an XJ or an MJ. That's impossible, of course, since one is SOA and the other is SUA. So I called Rancho and talked to one of their suspension engineers ... who talked to another suspension engineer ... who brought in a third suspension engineer. In the end, they said the catalog is wrong, it provides about 1" to 1-1/2" in the MJ and 2" to 2-1/2" in the XJ. Sou you're looking at taking springs that will lift an XJ a half inch more than this AAL, and using the parts with a STOCK MJ main leaf. I don't think this is a great combination.

Good luck. The 1988 electrical manual is a separate book, it's fairly large (although not as large as a full FSM), and even my dealer doesn't have one. And they were selling Jeeps back in 1988.

Wahoo, does your '88 still have the big C101 connector? If so, it'll be a LARGE electrical connector block high on the firewall inside the engine bay, directly in front of the driver. All '88s had it. There was a TSB out for cutting it out and splicing all the wires -- if yours has been updated, you'll have a metal tab/shelf there that looks like a mistake 'cause it's not holding anything. That's where the C101 connector goes. The point being -- if you still have the C101 connector, your dash harness is completely separate from your engine room harness. You can replace one without touching the other. Actually, I think the dash harness may be separate even without the C101 but I haven't gotten that deep into the under-dash wiring yet.