Eagle

Ummm ... no, they don't. Unfortunately, those places that have SWAT teams are getting in the habit of using the SWAT teams for all warrants. There was a case last year of an accountant, who had no prior record and no indications of violence, who was under suspicion of some fairly minor offense. They sent a SWAT team after him and killed him in his front yard. He was unarmed and had offered no resistence. The BATFE is an agency out of control. Don't get me started.

I'm not sure what you lads are talking about, but if this is a complete vehicle with a tranny and bellhousing in place -- there is no way you can see the rear main seal. Period. It's inside the block. What ARE you looking at? Is this an automatic, and you removed the inspection cover from the bottom of the bellhousing? If so, what you can see is the rear flange of the crankshaft, to which the flywheel or flexplate is bolted. The rear main seal is forward of that, and out of sight.

It can't be done. I've driven the same engine in a friend's S10 pickup when it was new, and it was also an underpowered dog. There is nothing you can do to that engine short of a supercharger that will get it to maintain highway speed on upgrades.

Actually, wasn't the Command-Trac transfer case in 1987 an NP 207?

It directly interchanges with any XJ or MJ 1984 thru 1990. The part number changed effective 1991, but I have a 1993 trackbar in my '88 XJ and all it did was put the steering wheel off-center by maybe 1/8 of a turn. I have had the two track bars on the counter at the dealership and you cannot see the difference. So, basically -- you can use any track bar from any XJ or MJ. Not certain, but I believe you can also use a ZJ bar.

I didn't notice that you are in the Bahamas. Remove the air intake hose and post a photo of the "air induction device" so we can see if it's a carb or a throttle body. That looks like the intake hose for a TBI model, but a look inside would be definitive.

I suspect an open circuit. There's a plug in the wiring harness about 15" outside of the fuel tank. Three wires. The heavy wire is power to the pump, the black wire is ground for the pump and sender, and the third wire (purple?) is power to the sender. Unplug the connector. Turn on the ignition and the gauge should move all the way to one extreme. Not sure, but I think that's FULL. Then if you use a paper clip to jumper the connector from the sender power to the ground on the body side of the connector, the gauge should go to the opposite extreme -- which I believe should be EMPTY. Te sender is a variable resistor, with a range of 0 to 88 ohms. I think 0 ohms is EMPTY (which would be jumpered), and I think 88 ohms is FULL (and an open circuit would be infinite resistance, which is more than 88 ohms). If yours does this, there is probably an open somewhere in your wiring. The wires inside the tank are push-on connectors, so if the previous owner ever had the pump out of the tank, he may have fubarred the push-on connector. If your gauge doesn't react as above when you disconnect and then jumper the body side of the connector, then you have a wiring problem between the dash and the connector.

You may have nailed it. My '88 died this winter. I had a badly sprained back at the time, but I was able to change the CPS in the driveway. After I did that -- it still wouldn't start. I had it towed to the dealership and paid them (handsomely!) to install the wiring patch. It now starts perfectly.

Your friend is badly misinformed. The '86 4-cylinder IS a throttle-body injection system. Perhaps your friend doesn't understand what "throttle body" injection is, as opposed to "multi-port" injection. You have a single fuel injector mounted in the throttle body. You do NOT have a carburetor.

Yeah, it "falls" off -- under between 40 and 60 psi. Not exactly a cruise missile, but it makes quite a mess. I've had an oil filter gasket blow out, on a Toyota. Don't even want to think about the entire filter blowing off.

Except the '87 - '90 Jeep 4.0L with the metric threads. Never EVER use that filter on those.

Nope. The '90 is a Renix, and they have some sort of system check built into the start -- they all start "long."

I wish I had time to get you the wiring diagrams. I'm leaning toward ignition switch, but I haven't had time to look through the wiring book -- not that I could understand it if I did. (I HATE the Jeep wiring diagrams. I'm accustomed to the old AMC diagrams, where you could follow a wire from one end to the other without having to look at 17 different pages.) Is there anything in the ignition switch that bypasses a circuit when it's in the START position? We know the ballast resistor for the fuel pump gets bypassed during starts. That's not the issue here, since the fuel pump runs and pressurizes the system. But is there any other circuit, leading to the coil, that gets bypassed, that might have a fault in the bypass circuit?

None of this makes sense, so start thinking outside of the box. When it doesn't start, you have no spark. That could indicate a bad CPS, or a bad coil/ignition module. But ... neither of those two items are in any way affected or bypassed if you roll the truck down a hill and pop the clutch, yet if you roll it -- it starts. We're overlooking something very basic here. I don't claim to know what it is, but I'll be worrying about it this evening. Meanwhile, guys, stop tossing out the cookie cutter answers and think about what could cause no spark when cranking but allow spark for a drop start.

Yeah, the non c-clip is better. The shafts are the same size and the spline count is the same, so there's no strength difference, but there's no chance of a clip breaking and spewing the axle out the side, plus the c-clip axles had the crappy 9" brakes and the early ones had 10" brakes. The D35 are 10x1-3/4 so the swept area is probably about the same, but I think the 10" brakes are easier to work on and I'm convinced they stop better than the 9".

"In My Not So Humble Opinion"

ANYBODY makes a better filter than Fram. As to why you have to convert to the horizontal filter mount, it's because the vertical mount uses a metric thread, and the oversize filter(s) you want to use don't come in the metric thread. If you have a '92, you already have the horizontal mount so that won't be an issue for you. Personally, I can't think of a single good reason for making the conversion. If you use decent oil and a decent filter, and change the oil at a sane interval, the normal size filter is plenty adequate.

The stock cat is 2-1/2" but the stock system from the cat back, including the muffler, is 2-1/4". Yes, the larger exhaust is hurting your mileage. The first replacement exhaust on my '88 Cherokee was a 2-1/2" cat-back with a Walker turbo muffler. I lost about 2 or 3 MPG and I could definitely feel the loss of low-end torque. It was the first time in my life I was actually hoping for an exhaust system to rust out, and that I celebrated when it was time to replace it. I went back to the stock size and I've been much happier.

Gawd, I don't remember. It's been a couple or three years since the last time I bought them. I just walked into Advanced Auto and ordered them. Whatever they gave me is what I used.

That vacuum cannister is what stores vacuum for the HVAC controls. If you have factory cruise control, it has a second chamber for the cruise. It is used on the HOs as well as the Renix, so "upgrading" to an HO engine won't eliminate it. The engine itself doesn't need it; it's not part of the engine controls. You have to be careful about stuff you hear. There are a lot of people out there who will happily tell you they know everything about Jeeps, and in reality they don't know the headlights from the taillights.

Run a compression check. Severe overheating can take the temper out of the piston rings. The engine will run after that, but it'll be down on compression, down on power, and always burn oil. Don't ask me how I know this ...

I may have mis-read the deal. Are you getting complete axle assemblies, or are you getting the differentials, gears, and axle shafts only? If all you're getting is the internals, then UNLIMTD is entirely correct. In fact, setting up used gears is MORE difficult than setting up new gears, because if you don't hit the original engagement pattern pretty much spot-on you'll always have noisy gears. So on top of the $225 for these parts, you're looking at maybe $75 for the Trac-Lok clutch kit, new pinion, carrier and axle bearings, and new seals. And a new crush sleeve for the pinion preload. Plus paying someone to do the install. Gotta be honest -- unless you do some hard-core wheeling, you don't really need the front True Trac. Rather than toss all that money at used stuff, if I were in your situation (which I was when I bought the '88 MJ) I would just buy a new True Trac for the rear D35 and pay someone to install it.

Be sure to use the new (95 and up) oil pan gasket. It's WAAAY easier with the new one-piece gasket than the old three-piece set that you had to glue together at the corners with RTV. If the NAPA listing doesn't show the new one as a supercede for the old style -- ignore the listing and buy the pan gasket for a 95.

I know some guys who do it themselves. I don't. The "gotcha" is that you have to have the pinion depth and the backlash set perfectly so the gear mesh pattern is correct, or you get noise and rapid wear. The "right" way to do it is to use a fancy gauge set to measure the pinion depth. I can't afford that tool. The shade tree method is to use white marking compound and "read" the gear engagement pattern, then adjust as necessary. That's what my friends do. My mentor is a long-time stock car racer, shop foreman, and later service manager for the AMC/Jeep dealership where I used to buy all my cars (until new owners booted my friend because they wanted to bring in one of their cronies as service manager). He did all my gear work. Once he didn't have access to the shop's gear setting gauges he refused to touch gears because he felt is was too much of a chance to mess up and expensive set of gears. So my position is, if Joe won't touch it ... I ain't gonna touch it. But the reality is, it ain't rocket science. If you're careful and you're willing to learn how to "read" the gears, I'm sure you can do it. Best approach would be to degrease, mark, and read the old gears before you take anything apart. That'll show you what they should look like. Then you just aim to duplicate that pattern.

Both the True Trac and the Trac-Lok are limited slip units, not lockers. The difference is that the Trac-Lok (which was the factory option) is a clutch-type limited slip. It WILL wear out over time (for me, the original in my '88 Cherokee lasted about 150,000 miles), and it requires a special additive to the differential lube for proper operation. The True Trac is a gear-operated limited slip. It doesn't wear out, it doesn't require special additives, and once engaged it's a bit more aggressive than the Trac-Lok. It also cost about $100 more. You mention towing. You should NOT tow with a locker. Period. If towing is part of your plans, go with a limited slip. The units you're buying will be very adequate for the use you describe. BUT ... $225 is barely the cost of a new Trac-Lok alone. If you're getting both for $225, they're used. I would not install a used Trac-Lok without replacing the clutch packs, and that's another $75 or so just for parts. Also, both these units are full differentials, so be sure they are the correct units for use with your gear ratio. I don't recall offhand where the carrier breaks are, but I have a feeling that one or the other of your axles has a carrier break going from 3.07 to 3.55, so if these came out of an automatic, one of them may not be suitable for your vehicle.