Eagle

Good luck cleaning the carb -- unless somebody messed up your truck, it's throttle body injected.

An '88 MJ with a factory Dana 35 in the rear should have a threaded steel fill plug. Chrysler didn't change over to the plastic plugs until 1990, at the time they changed to c-clips.

Congratulations to you, and felicitations to the bride.

Yes, absolutely. Been there, done that. I drove an older XJ across the country, leaving a trail of oil behind me. Connecticut to Montana, about 2200 or 2300 miles IIRC. I used a full case of oil. It was almost literally a question of stopping at every service area or interchange to check the gas and fill up the oil. Fortunately, on the 4.0L the rear main seal is a two-piece unit that can be changed just by dropping the oil pan -- no need to pull the transmission.

Is there a different part number for the AX-15 internal slave than for the BA 10/5 slave? I didn't think so, but I've never actually looked them up. It's hard to tell from the photos if the two bell bousings are the same depth. In the overhead photo they look the same, in the photo from the left side they don't. If they are the same, then the clutch and slave/bearing should be the same. Bleeding the hydraulic clutch in an XJ or MJ can be ... "difficult." Are you sure you got it bled completely?

Nope. Not horrible, but not good. I had bought a set of 3.73 gears with the intention of running them in my XJ with 30" tires. Things changed, and they ended up in an MJ running 31x10.50s. The true final drive ratio (as evidenced by RPMs at MPH) is exactly the same as a stock automatic with 3.54 gears and stock 225/75 tires. 3.54s with 31s won't even get you back to the equivalent of stock tires with the 3.07s/ 3.73s are a good choice with 30" tires. IMHO 4.10s are about optimum for 31s in a multi-use vehicle, and you can go to 4.56 if the vehicle doesn't see a lot of highway cruising.

I have posted the procedure two or three times. I know it's impolite to tell folks to use search, and if I had more time I would search it for you ... but I don't have time at the moment. It's here if you look for it.

Tacky. Audiovox also makes (or "made," as of 12 years ago) a model that uses an OEM clone turn signal stalk for the control, just like the factory units. I have one in my '88 XJ. It worked great for ten years, then the plastic housing for the drive adapter at the transfer case broke and left me with no speedo. Removing the adapter and reverting to the speedo cable going directly to the quill got the speedo back, but obviously no more cruise control. I keep meaning to contact Audiovox about a replacement adapter, but I necer remember during the day when I'm near a phone.

How do you get the old ones out? I have a rear door on an XJ that has a busted hinge pin I'd like to replace. Do you just insert a 1/4" punch and flail away with a 3-pound Ford carburetor adjusting tool?

If you want to be able to get decent highway fuel mileage AND have a half-decent off-road crawl ratio, you need an overdrive, which the 3-speed auto doesn't offer. The ideal would be an AW4, but finding the right bell housing is virtually impossible. So ... the alternative is a 5-speed manual. If you know how to drive a manual tranny and don't mind shifting, then by all means do the swap.

1-5-3-6-2-4

The standard AX-15 bell housing may mate up. A friend of mine recently put an AX-15 behind an AMC 390 in a Hudson street rod he built. The only problem he had was finding a pilt bearing or bushing (I don't remember which he used) that fit both the crank and the transmission input shaft.

Some forum softwares are open to administrative hacks that allow for certain designated users to encounter various annoyances in thier use of the forum. The delays you experience when logged in may be accidental and coincidental, or they may be just what you suspect -- your punishment for not being a good boy. As a test, drop by a public library some evening and log in under a new user identity from the library. See if you have the same problems. Then log off and log in as yourself and see what happens.

Doesn't make sense. The first fuse could not have been good, or you would have had smoke under the dash with that in place. And the resistor pack is under the dash on the passenger side, so that's most likely where the smoke was coming from. It sounds like you have a short in the resistor pack. I note your post said "resistor" (singular), but there are multiple resistors. The slower fan speeds are controlled by resistors of different values. Full fan speed doesn't go through a resistor. Worst case scenario would be you hot wire the fan with no resistor, and you then have an all-or-nothing situation. But I would start by removing your resistor pack and trouble-shooting that.

My tire/gear charts don't get into any low-profile sizes. The smallest tire I worked up figures for is a stock 215/75R15. Assuming the 3550 has an overdrive ratio of 0.75:1 (I'm too lazy to check), here's what I get: At 50 MPH, 4th gear (1:1) would be 2224 RPM and 5th would be 1668 RPM running stock 3.54 gears. Same gears at 70 MPH ==> 3114 RPM & 2336 RPM ------------------------------- Jump to 4.10 gears At 50 MPH, 4th gear would be 2576 RPM and 5th would be 1932 RPM Same gears at 70 MPH ==> 3607 RPM & 2705 RPM ------------------------------- Jump to 4.56 gears At 50 MPH, 4th gear would be 2865 RPM and 5th would be 2149 RPM Same gears at 70 MPH ==> 4011 RPM & 3008 RPM -------------------------------- Those tires are rated to turn 754 revolutions per mile. You can get the tevs per mile for any other tire size you're considering and just do the math to convert those RPMs to the different tire size. It's a direct proportion.

They're asking $1100 for THAT? That wiring harness hasn't been butchered ... it's been massacred. $500 tops, if it starts and runs. Otherwise, he should pay you to remove it from his premises.

An automatic is "better" than a manual for hard-core rock crawling, but even that can be done with a manual if geared correctly. For fishing trips and fire roads, IMHO an automatic doesn't offer any advantages. I've run some moderately tough trails in both my XJ and the '88 MJ ... both have 5-speeds. The XJ even still has the factory 3.08 gears.

Sorry, but no. The AMC V8s share the same bolt pattern as the 4.0L I6. The 2.5L I4 and the 2.8L V6 use a smaller, GM bellhousing pattern. They are not interchangeable.

The hands-down best (in terms of ease and "bang for the buck") swap is the GM 3.4L V-6.

Or, as they might say south of the border, "Cajones grandes"

Ah, so. In that case, the driver IS responsible.

As if the AX-5 is some sort of super tough transmission. :D But at least it has 5 speeds. "Back in the day" American car manufacturers did thing bass-ackwards. They put 4-speed and then 5-speed trannies behind the biggest engines, the engines that had enough torque and power to go from a standing start to 200 MPH in a single gear, but behind the smallest econo-motors they only put a 3-speed, meaning it was never possible to get anything close to optimum gearing. If you wanted more gear for acceleration, the engine was racing at 50 MPH, and if you wanted less gear for highway cruising and fuel mileage, first gear wasn't low enough to get started on even a modest upgrade. That's the major drawback to the 3-speed auto, all discussions of "strength" aside. You HAVE to run tall gears to keep the highway RPMs at all reasonable, and that means the tranny and torque converter are working overtime to go uphill or to haul any load.

I disagree. If there's a spotter, the driver is supposed to do what the spotter says (or signals). Spotters are for situations in which the driver can't see what's going on. If there's a boo-boo in a spotter situation, the spotter is responsible. If you can't accept that ... don't ever volunter to be a spotter. Them's the rules.

No, the drag link runs from the pitman arm to the right side knuckle. The tie rod runs from the right side of the drag link to the left side knuckle.

Plain vanilla NGKs.