Eagle

Don't use a bead blaster or a wire wheel on a 2.5L with a plastic valve cover.

No. It sounds like a lube additive. No. Specifically, a Detroit TrueTrac is good but may require riding the brake to get it to engage. The TrueTrac is a gear-operated limited slip. Any clutch-type limited slip is engaged at all times until the traction difference between the two wheels becomes too much and causes the clutches to release. The clutch types are nowhere near as effective as the TrueTrac. In reality, for use in the front a locker is much more effective than a limited slip. On the street in 2WD a mechanical locker is never engaged because you're never putting power to the front diff, so in daily driving it's completely "transparent." I've known serious off-roaders who strongly advocate locking the front axle before doing the rear because they feel it's more beneficial. Whatever might be in there is NOT factory. The factory limited slip was a Dana Trac-Lok. I just checked the Reider Racing web site, and there is no Trac-Lok offered for the Dana 30. That was my recollection, but I wanted to confirm. http://www.reiderracing.com/danatraclok.htm Please let us know what you find when you open it up. BYW -- are you certain it's a Dana 30 front axle? There's no chance a previous owner swapped in maybe a Rubicon "Dana 44"?

Losing everything when the ignition switch is in the ON position rather than the START position makes it sound like there's something amiss with the ignition switch. Which is NOT at the key -- they key is only a tumbler mechanism, the actual electrical components are in a switch module at the base of the steering column. What about headlights? Do you also lose headlights when the key is turned on? If you plan to keep this truck for any length of time, it might be worthwhile getting a complete wiring harness from a junkyard and starting over. Inherited problems due to jackass wiring are exceedingly frustrating, and you never know when the next one is going to bite you in the posterior.

First, Grasshopper, eliminate the obvious. It is tempting, since you've been mucking around with wiring, to assume there's a wiring problem. But ... at 200,000 miles, your alternator is definitely past it's projected life span. I would first test the alternator to be sure it's producing enough current to keep the battery charged. Don't forget, you're running an electric fuel pump and electicrally-fired fuel injectors, as well as the ignition coil. All that sucks out a lot of power in a few miles. If the alternator checks out, then check to be sure the battery will take and hold a charge. In fact, maybe reverse it -- check the battery first, and then test the alternator if the battery is good.

The high pinion D30s don't need or use any special lube. You didn't read the tag, then? The fronts usually have a tag on the outside with the gear ratio stamped into it. Is that perhaps what you saw?

You should not have both lines going to the rear. You should block off the rear outlet on the combo valve/metering block and run a single line from the "nose" of the metering block to the rear. If you get premature lockup of the rear wheels, either use smaller diameter rear wheel cylinders or buy a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve from Summit Racing and put that in the single line to the rear.

Nope. It was definitely not bored through. BTW, I just replumbed my rear brakes. I plugged the lower (bypass) outlet and ran a single, new hard line from the "nose" outlet directly to the rear axle hose. It's amazing how much of a difference having rear brakes can make.

SOME 2.5s have a remote reservoir. I don't remember the years, but I have seen them with the same (visyally, valving may be different) integral reservoir as the 4.0L.

Guys, before you give out one-size-fits all advice -- all I see is that he owns an '89 with a 5-speed. It might be a 4.0L, which does hold 6 quarts with an oil change -- but it might be a 2.5L, which would be a quart over full with 6 quarts, and that causes the seals to blow out. Remember -- we're dealing with Jeeps. There are no absolutes.

You found one with a limited slip TAG? The factory never offered a front limited slip. What does this tag say and what does it look like? If the axle has a vacuum disconnect, having a limited slip in there would pretty well defeat the purpose of the disconnect. BTW -- limited slips suck for street racing. A couple of burnouts will wear out a LSD in no time at all.

You mean does 4-wheel disc limit the fkuid to the rear? No way -- a disc brake caliper requires a lot MORE fluid than a wheel cyinder for drum brakes. Also, disc brakes are not "servo assisted." Servo assist has to do with the way drum brake shoes are arranged. When you apply the brakes, the shoes try to rotate until they bind up against the pin, then they stop the drum. The geometry is set up so that in the forward direction they tend to draw the shoes into the drum harder. This is why the parking brake is more effective when you park nose downhill (forward) than when you park with the nose uphill (backward). My understanding is that ZJ and WJ systems for 4-wheel discs do not have any proportioning valve. In fact, I don't think any vehicles with 4-wheel discs have proportioning. So your WJ conversion might provide more braking to the rear than you want (as difficult as that may be to imagine after driving around with substandard brakes for awhile). Drive carefully when you first get it installed, and be mindful that the rear wheels may tend to lock up prematurely. Try some panic stops in an empty corner of a big parking lot and see how the brakes behave before you take it on the highway and forget about it.

Keep in mind that the WJ master is set up for 4-wheel disc brakes. You will most likely need some sort of proportioning valve for the rear. Since I don't trust the stock load/height sensing proportioning valve since mine blew out, and I also don't trust the XJ proportioning valve, I'd suggest a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve from Summit Racing.

Does anyone know where the cowl drain is located for the XJ/MJ? The leak into the driver's side footwell of my '88 MJ seems to be getting worse. My brother mentioned that when he worked at BMW the cowl could overflow into the passenger compartment if the drain got clogged. It's worth a look -- if I can find the drain. I had the cowl cover off a couple of times and I don't see anything that looks like a drain. Has anyone who disassembles these vehicles seen where the drain is located?

You don't have to remove the tranny to tighten the bolts, if they are loose. If the flex plate (flywheel) is cracked, you have to slide the tranny back to replace it. I did it without actually removing it from under the vehicle, using one of those Harbor Freight Tools manual transmission jacks. Don't have a clue. I've never heard of it as a problem with the smaller, 3-speed tranmissions, only the 4.0L with the AW4.

The fenders were included in my list

Are you sure? I know you have an '87, but some 87's were retrofitted with the ballast resistor under a TSB, and it may not be in the usual place. Does it start consistently and then die consistently after you release the key? If it does, you might try running a hot wire directly to the fuel pump just as a test, to see if it'll keep running when it's hot wired.

To make the conversion complete and correct, you will need: Grille Header Bumper Splash apron (not sure what it's called) Both fenders Both side marker lights Both parking lights Both flares ?? Both headlight bezels ?? What am I forgetting?

Does your truck have a fuel pump ballast resistor? If so, jumper the contacts and try it. The starting circuit bypasses the ballast resistor so when the key is turned to START the fuel pump gets a full 12 volts. When you release the key, the circuit feeds through the ballast resistor. That means if the resistor is broken, you can start because the fuel pump works, but as soon as you release the key you have an open circuit to the fuel pump ==> no power. The engine runs until it uses up the fuel already in the lines ... then it dies.

Are you asking about a "grille" conversion, as the thread title implies, or are you asking about converting to the '97+ Cherokee front end ... which is a LOT more than just a grille?

Have you ever owned a vehicle with a solid axle before? Death wobble is almost impossible in a vehicle that has independent front suspension, because there isn't enough solid connection between the front wheels to set up the destructive oscillation. And you'll virtually never hear of a Jeep with stock suspension, wheels and tires having death wobble -- the WJ export versions being an exception, and the factory fixed that quickly. So it isn't a case of selling a car with a problem inherent in the design, it's a case of owners making changes without understanding the potential implications. The biggest problem is bigger tires. A bigger, wider tire has a LOT more mass than the largest standard tire, which for an MJ (or XJ) was a 225/75R15. And ... the bulk of that mass is located farther out from the rotational axis than a stock tire even has material. So if the tire is slightly out of balance, that imbalance can play a much more significant role than imbalance in a stock tire would cause. I know others disagree, but I remain firm in my belief that 98% of the "cause" of death wobble is tire imbalance. Unfortunately, "But I just had my tires balanced" is not a sufficient response, because many of the minimum wage dopers running the balancer at Pep Boys or Joe's Tire and Liquor store don't really know how to use it, and they certainly don't understand that for a Jeep wearing El Humongo Terrain Destroyer tires "close enough" isn't even nearly close enough. Urethane is for on-pavement performance, where you want maximum steering precision. Think about how your control arms contort when one front wheel climbs a rock and the other one drops into a hole. The control arms TWIST. The rubber bushings help allow that twist by their flexibility. Replace them with urethane, which essentially doesn't flex, and you just twist the control arms more. If you're going to be going off-road, you really should be running after-market control arms with Johnny joints or something that's designed to rotate in more than one axis.

That suggests that your truck already has the bypass harness installed. so i can just splice my new cps into those wires and solder them or should i put the connector back in but leave it running directly to the computer and call it good? The CPS has to be replaced periodically. It should be good for about 100,000 miles, but the original on my '88 Cherokee (which I bought new, if you haven't been here long enough to know that) lasted 175,000 miles and the second one lasted ... a LOT less. If you hard-wire it, every time you replace you'll be cutting the harness apart. Plus, the test for it requires unplugging it and using an a/c voltmeter, so if you solder it you can't test it. I would get the correct connector and solder that to the harness, and keep the connector on the new CPS intact.

Death wobble is complex, but a loose component cannot initiate a wobble, and that's why I don't regard them as "causing" death wobble. All you're doing when you tighten or replace such components is help the system mask the death wobble. You haven't eliminated what makes the tires wobble in the first place -- you're just applying a stronger band-aid. The original WJ Grand Cherokees had a consistent problem with death wobble in the export versions -- stock. They resolved it by replacing the front springs with a different rate. That changed the harmonic, so when one of the P245/70R16 tires started bouncing, the spring's natural frequency didn't match the frequency of the bounce. No harmonic ==> no death wobble. Tightening or replacing components may alleviate death wobble; I don't dispute that. What I disagree with is saying that the loose components "cause" the death wobble. The fact that I could drive around for six months with a bad track bar clearly disproves that. If the track bar could cause it, I should not have been able to make it to work in the morning.

So, considering the fact that you can hold a wrench at about the age of 2, we can correctly assume that Eagle is at least 52 years young. :D "At least" :cheers:

Check the four bolts holding the flex plate to the torque converter. If they have gotten loose, they can make some strange noises. The other possibility is that the flex plate itself is cracked. The crack is usually semi-circular, around the outside of the reinforcing ring where the bolts attach the flex plate to the rear of the crankshaft. With the inspection cover removed from the bottom of the bellhousing you can usually see the crack if you pry (gently) on the flex plate with a pry bar, but you may have to turn it a couple of times to get the crack in a position where you can see it. It's not readily visible -- if it's there, you will have to look hard to see it. The clue for either of these conditions is if it makes a knocking sound at idle, but if you put the tranny in drive and apply a slight amount of throttle with the brakes on, the load dampens the noise and it goes away. However -- the noise for these conditions is more of a knock than a grinding noise, so I'm not entirely certain this is the answer in this case.

I beg to differ. Track bar, control arms and tie rod ends are NEVER a "cause" of death wobble. I drove around for six months with a very badly worn track bar (like more than a quarter turn of free play at the steering wheel) and never had a hint of death wobble. Same with worn tie rod ends and LCAs. What causes death wobble is whatever sets a tire to "wobbling" -- usually that's poor tire balance, or it might be warped brake rotors (in which case you get DW only when braking) or a bump in the road. Loose steering components cannot "cause" death wobble, they are just less capable of damping it out once it starts. However, it's also important to be sure we're really talking about "death wobble" and not just plain old, garden variety wheel shimmy. The term death wobble gets used so often on Jeep boards that many people assume ANY wobble in a tire is death wobble. Not so. Death wobble is when the shaking in one front wheel gets transmitted to the other side, that wheel also starts shaking, and the shaking is of a frequency that each wheel harmonically reinforces the shake in the opposite side until it gets so bad that you literally cannot control the vehicle. I mean exactly what I wrote -- with death wobble, you cannot control the vehicle -- you can only slam on the brakes and pray you slow down before you run off the road or hit something. That's why it is called "death" wobble -- 'cause if you don't fix it, you're gonna die. Anything else is just wheel shimmy. Shimmy is not a good thing, but it's limited to one wheel and is almost always caused by tire balance. You can drive with one wheel shimmying -- I've been beside cars on the highway and you can see one front wheel jumping up and down, and the driver just keeps motoring along as if nothing is wrong. That ain't death wobble. The reason most balancers only spin to about 60 MPH is that 50 to 55 MPH is the magic window where balance causes shimmy. If a tire will spin up through 55 without starting to shimmy -- it's balanced. The front tires on my '88 XJ are slightly out of balance right now. I get a slight shimmy at 55 MPH. I do not get death wobble, and at 65 it's as smooth as silk. This is not peculiar to Jeeps -- 50 to 55 has been the window for shimmy for as long as I've been playing with cars, and that's about 50 years.