Eagle

I consider the optimum combinations to be 4.10 gears for 31" tires, 4.56 for 32" tires, and 4.88 gears for 33" tires. YMMV Keep in mind that 31" tires with 3.73 gears is exactly the same final drive ratio as stock tires and stock 3.54 gearing. 4.10s with 33s is probably going to effectively be about the same as a stock setup.In other words, livable but hardly optimum. Just checked my charts. In overdrive with the 4.10s you'll be turning 1965 engine RPM at 60 MPH. With stock 225/75R15 tires and an auto, 60 MPH is 1938 RPM. You'll be okay on the road, but you won't have a great crawl ratio without more gear.

Or the drive shaft is running at an excessive angle for the joints.

Actually, to torque it properly you have to start with a new crush sleeve ... every time. In real life, that's not what they do even at Jeep dealerships. The torque required to crush a new sleeve to get the correct preload is generally in excess of 300 foot-pounds. So the techs reuse the old sleeve and torque it to something less than a value that will cause it to crush further, but which WILL keep things nice and tight. Around 250 foot-pounds is what my tech friend told me. My torque wrench only goes up to 150, so if/when I get to do a pinion seal, I'll be shopping for a new torque wrench.

The dashboard will swap. The console will work but may need a bit of trimming at the back end. The seats will work, but you have to take them off the XJ pedestals and mount them on the MJ pedestals.

Yup, that sounds right on the money for a 4-speed.

Needle? You have an analog voltmeter that reads to half a volt? I think you need a digital meter. The pulses are going to be faint and quick ... I doubt that an analog meter can even swing the needle fast enough to register them. However -- did you ever have this truck running? Do you know that the CPS mounting bolts are the correct, original bolts? The correct bolts have a solid (unthreaded) shank where they go through the flange of the CPS, in order to locate it accurately. If a previous owner dropped a bolt and replaced it with something out of his miscellaneous bolts pile, chances are it's threaded full length and doesn't hold the sensor in the correct relationship to the flywheel.

While I certainly don't agree that the 258 was a turd of an engine, I DO agree that a GM 3.4L V6 is a much easier and more logical swap for the 2.8L, since the block is the same and all the mechanical stuff is basically bolt-up. The GM injection and ECU can be run basically stand-alone and use the Jeep harness for the gauges and chassis. One consideration is that the 2.8L has an externally balanced crankshaft, meaning an eccentric weight in the flywheel (or flex plate). The 3.4L is "zero" or "neutral" balanced, meaning it doesn't have the eccentric weight. I believe you have to use the Jeep flywheel, so it'll have to be rebalanced.

It's supposed to be 80,000, per the factory. That's what the count-down timers were calibrated for.

I wish someone could explain that to my wife. All she sees is more MJs in the yard than I can drive (or repair) at one time, and she flips out. I think my only saving grace is that they were here before she arrived, and she may just understand that there's a message in that ... As to the "totalled" bit -- I don't understand how the insurance company can dictate anything about a buyback. I own a 1988 MJ. Some dweeb drives into it and does $2500 worth of damage to it. Yes, I understand that if the truck has a book value of only $1000 they don't want to spend $2500 to repair it. But the fact is, if the truck had a book value of $2550 they'd have to pay the $2500 and I keep the truck. So if the book value is only $1000 -- give me the $1000 and leave me alone. I ain't signing my MJ over to some insurance robber.

You should be able to go to 235/75R15 with no rubbing, or a 30x9.50-R15 with very minor rubbing where the tire rubs the lower control arm when the steering is turned all the way to one side or the other. Just remember that you're dealing with a 2.5L 4-cyl, 4-speed. It's a reliable engine, but it's not a ball of fire. Personally, with that setup I would not go any larger than 225/75R15, and I might decide if I was having a "sane" day to stay with 215/75R15s.

Okay, it's an '86 2.5L so that means it has the same coil pack and ignition (RENIX) as the 4.0L models from 87 thru 90. First off, are you wiring a factory tach, or aftermarket? A factory tach should work when plugged in, there shouldn't need to be any wiring. So, assuming it's aftermarket, the instructions for the Sun Supertach I put in my '88 said to connect the black wire to ground (duh!), the red wire to battery voltage (preferebly a fuse that's switched by the ignition), and the green wire to the NEGATIVE terminal on the coil. Perhaps you are connected to the wrong side of the coil?

Go to a political forum if you want to talk politics. Seriously.

Somewhere someone posted what the CPS should put out when you crank the engine over. Basically you disconnect the CPS and put a digital multi-meter between the two terminals. I think it's supposed to generate 0.5 volts or something like that. An '87 will be like my '88, with the wires from the CPS to the ECU going through the C101 connector on the firewall. The factory has a kit to bypass that with a replacement harness direct from the CPS to the ECU. I'd recommend it.

I don't appreciate your sense of humor. The BA 10/5 is a Peugeot tramission, made in France. Since when are the French shooting at us in Iraq? Why don't we stick to discussing Comanches on this forum and skip the gratuitous political insults -- especially if you don't even know what you're talking about.

That's a D35. Definitely NOT a Chrysler 8-1/4". Without the connecting rod, you have no way of knowing if the load/height sensing proportioning valve is set to allow maximum or minimum pressure to the rear brakes. The procedure to recalibrate it requires, in addition to a rod of the correct length, a replacement spring that isn't available. Personally, having exploded the proportioning valve in my '88 in a panic stop, I don't trust them. I have eliminated the one that blew up (no choice!), and I will also eliminate them from all my other MJs as time permits. I can live with too much rear brakes. I cannot tolerate no rear brakes.

Welcome aboard, Mate. I've only been to Nova Scotia once, and I never made it to the Cape Breton part. Gotta get back there one day.

Why would a bad speedo drive gear suddenly decide to work after driving 4 miles? It's an electrical problem. Clean all connections, check the fuse.

My grad school roommate was even more of a gearhead than I was -- to the point that friends would ask him (sometimes even PAY him) to negotiate car purchases for them. His ground rules were simple: Tell me how much you're willing to spend. If I think your bottom line is reasonable for what you want to buy, I'll negotiate for you. But you have to promise me that your bottom line IS your bottom line -- if I tell you to walk out ... we walk out. If the seller sees that you're at all flexible on what you "said" your bottom line is -- I can't help you. In this instance, I would NOT make the guy an offer. I would decide how much I was willing to spend for that truck. I would then go in, talk to him, explain to him that the old 2.5L 4-speed, 2WD is the least desireable model possible for a Comanche, which is not an especially desireable truck anyway (that's your story ... DO NOT tell him that you're a member of a Comanche forum and you've been searching high and low for one for five years!), so .... like ... "What's your bottom line ... really?" If his bottom line is within a couple hundred of yours, tell him you've got 'X' to spend and if he'll take it he has a deal, if he doesn't take it God only knows how long he'll have to wait for someone who's willing to buy an underpowered orphan of a truck. If he won't go for that, hand him a paper with your phone number, shake his hand, and walk out.

Yeah, and tire balance has always been my culprit (except in the WJ, where it was warped rotors), and for someone else it's insufficient caster... There is, unfortunately, no one thing that anyone can point to and say that THIS is the definitive cause of death wobble.

The Wrangler transfer case is "clocked" a couple of degrees more than the MJs. It should still clear the floor, but it may be a slight interference fit. Also, the transfer case shift linkages are totally different. You'll have to use the MJ linkage, unless you want to butcher the floor pan of the truck. One of the shift arms on the YJ linage goes up where the MJ arm goes down (or maybe it's the other way), so pay attention to how your linkage is set up before you start taking things apart, because you'll need to figure out how to put it back together.

There's a special 2-sided tape for this purpose. If there's a professional auto paint shop near you, they will certainly have it. If not, try the chains like Auto Zone, Advance/Shucks/Checkers, or Pep Boys.

The base pedestals for the MJ are totally different from an XJ. Bolt spacing is the LEAST of the problems. Use the pedestals out of the MJ.

Nope.

Yep. Not enough caster. When you lift, the control arms swing down and back, reducing the caster angle. Caster is what makes the steering self-centering. BTW -- 1/8" toe-in is too much. P.S. BTW -- what the heck kind of a shop changes out ALL FOUR ball joints and doesn't do an alignment? You really need to find a shop with a clue.

I have an '88 2.5L and it also has the 4-speed with 3.54 gears. That was the factory setup. To you youngsters that seems like it's churning a lot of RPMs, but in fact it seems that way only because y'all grew up in an age of overdrive transmissions. "Back in the day" American Motors routinely sold cars with manual trannies and no overdrive that were geared even steeper than that. My '68 Javelin had 3.15 gears, but the tires were E70/14s -- MUCH smaller diameter than even the relatively small tires that were stock on a 2.5L MJ. My brother's '69 AMX had 3.54 gears -- and the same E70/14 tires as my Javelin. My rig ran to exactly 72 MPH at 3,000 RPM and would run that all day long at 22 miles per gallon. My brother drives faster than I do -- he routinely cruised at 75 MPH, which would have put him at almost 3,400 RPM. Put in a tach. IMHO as long as you keep your cruise to not much more than 3,000 RPM and try not to go over 4,000 for your shift points and short spurts, you'll be fine.