Eagle

115 miles on a dolly should be no problem but it's best to disconnect the drive shaft.

Yes, AMC used to sell complete bodies "in the white" (unpainted). For grins and giggles, some us in the Javelin/AMX Club sat down one weekend with a parts book and tried to figure out what it would cost to buy everything from the factory and build our own AMX. At the time, IIRC, you could buy a new AMX for around $5,000. The cost to buy all the parts came to around $25,000.

Which transfer case do you have? The '86 is different from all the other years of the MJ -- is there a vacuum switch on your console along with the 4WD lever?

I'm still getting daily calls from that company that wants me to "extend" the factory warranty on my vehicle. My newest is a 2000 Cherokee that was purchased in (IIRC) April of 2020, so it's 20 years old and has been out of warranty for 15 years. Wednesday they called FOUR times in one day.

It became axiomatic at NAXJA that "Friends don't let friends buy from Rusty's." I have seen Rusty's parts fail on trail rides. The tie rod end on my Rusty's adjustable track bar completely wore out in less than a year -- and that's with greasing it at every oil change. The factory track bar on my '88 Cherokee (which didn't have a grease fitting) lasted over 200,000 miles and 12 years, including several trail rides with NAXJA-NAC.

Cylinder walls "honed"? Not bored? Does this kit include pistons, or is it just a crank shaft? If you just put a 4.2L crank and rods into a 4.0L block, because of the difference in deck height you will have very high compression. To correct for that, IIRC, you will need special pistons. I think you would be better served to rebuild your engine as a 4.0L and, if you want a bit more power, just go for a bigger cam.

I don't have a photo and it's in a location that's not easy to take one, so I'll have to try a verbal description: Stand on the left side of the engine compartment. Manually manipulate the throttle. The "thingie" that snaps onto the throttle body arm is a steel rod, not the cable from the gas peddle. That rod points toward you, but it has a bend and it drops down (more or less out of sight) below the brake master cylinder and brake distribution block. Lean forward so you can follow it down. At the bottom end, it snaps onto a bellcrank (lever) that is attached to a pivot on the left side frame rail. The throttle cable from the gas peddle is attached to the other arm of this bellcrank. What I have experienced with mine is that years of exposure to salt and glop from winter driving caused the bellcrank pivot to partially seize up. Periodic shots of PB Blaster free it up and alleviate the fast idle problem. I have had to do this multiple times and it has always solved it for me. I've never had to deal with the IAC.

Ever hear of teleconferencing? Skype? I've been avoiding getting sucked into predictions about the aftermath of this, but one thing I expect (although I won't call it a "prediction") is that a lot of people and companies are going to have upped their game on telecommuting and teleconferencing, and the American workplace will look a lot different in six months or a year than it did before the SHTF.

No, the elitist in the example I cited was the selfish twit who thought taking his daughter to a school dance was more important than following the recommendations of the county health department -- recommendations that were made expressly to protect other people from people like him and his daughter. Recommendations become requirements when people don't follow the recommendations, and put other people at risk as a result. It's like the old saying in regard to the First Amendment: "Your right of free expression ends when your fist approaches my nose." No one has a right to put other people at risk by engaging in selfish (i.e. "It's my right to ___") behavior. Then there must be a lot of people in this country, and in this world, who don't have fully functioning brains, because there are a lot of people whose actions so far have forced the government to close things down. Obviously, you think that people can and should be trusted to do the right thing. I've been on this ball of rock long enough to know that people canNOT be trusted to do the right thing. They prove it every day. If you can't see that, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Button? There is no button associated with the kickdown cable. It's in the engine compartment, attached to the throttle body. Your problem is not "RPMs sticking," your problem is that your transmission is in overdrive and it's not downshifting to third when it should. The first thing to look at for that problem is the kickdown cable adjustment.

https://www.harborfreight.com/stud-welder-dent-repair-kit-61433.html?_br_psugg_q=stud+welder

In the case of a massively communicable disease, "most" people complying is not enough. In China, they traced something like 30 cases to ONE man who rode a bus, then transferred to a second bus. He didn't even sit near people. They've reviewed surveillance tapes from the buses -- people who were infected were seated six feet and more away from him. There is nothing "elitist" about thinking that people (as a whole) can't be trusted when "people" prove it every day. Take Spring break in Florida. Hundreds of students went to Miami in spite of the coronavirus, and were partying on the beach as if there wasn't any problem. And you can't say, "Well, it's their own fault if they get sick." Yeah -- it is. The problem is how many other people are those students going to infect? How about that father who has two daughters? The older daughter came home from college with symptoms, the local health department told the family to self quarantine, but the younger daughter really REALLY wanted to attend the father/daughter dance at her ritzy prep school -- so they went to the dance. Then the county had to monitor a couple of hundred people instead of a family of four. Who's the elitist?

True, but I question even that. If one of the ten has the beer virus coming in, all ten might have it going out. Maybe it's because of the people I associate with, but I'm actually a bit pissed off that some people don't want to limit personal interactions. I talked to one of my high school classmates yesterday -- she's staying at home. A friend across town isn't a senior citizen and isn't in any of the high risk classifications, but he's keeping himself and his family buttoned in. The thing is, we (the United States) started all these precautions about a month too late. The better we control the ways it can spread, the sooner the pandemic will burn itself out and we can start trying to get life back to normal.

Took me awhile to find this. Not at all the same: https://comancheclub.com/topic/42952-dakota-taillights/ On the other hand, here's a post from a guy in Finland who says he made them work. Unfortunately, his photo links are dead. https://comancheclub.com/topic/42525-dakota-tail-lights/

Reality check: I think it's admirable that he wants to get a J truck, but he is NOT going to find one that's running and rust-free for anything close to his budget.

Not all the Renix tachs were adjustable. Don't forget, the '86 2.5L is a Renix. The adjustable tachs are the ones in the "Type 2" clusters. The Type 1 clusters did not have the potentiometer.

Do your research. Then do more research. I failed to do step 2, and bought one that wasn't worth the price of admission. Controls were wonky, instructions were virtually non-existent, and it had an internal short (or loose) circuit. One thing I figured out, after buying one that didn't have GPS, was that for insurance protection (which was the whole point of wanting a dash cam), you want one that includes in the display the date, time, your speed (keep that right foot under control when recording1), and GPS coordinates. Many of the better ones have those features, but not all of them.

Is it really 30 seconds? Have you timed it? We're trying to help you diagnose by remote control here. If we're going to help, we need accurate information, not hyperbole. Is it really 30 seconds, or does it just feel like 30 seconds?

Could you clarify what you mean by "hard starting"? According to your signature, you have an '88. Are you aware that ALL the Renix vehicles require a comparatively long crank time while the ECU figures out where everything is? According to my fuzzy way of understanding it, the Renix ECU has no memory. Unlike later years, the Renix ECU doesn't "learn" anything and then store it so it can be ready to rock-n-roll at the next start. It has to begin from scratch, each and every time you start the engine. That requires several full revolutions and a few seconds to happen.

Pumping the gas peddle does NOTHING with fuel injection. That was something we did back in the days of carburetors -- pumping the skinny peddle activated a thingie inside the carb called the accelerator pump, which shot a heavy squirt of gas into the venturi.

Common problem. Your truck is a Renix, correct? Idle Air Controller (IAC) needs cleasning, and/or the throttle bellcrank on the left side frame ear (below the master cylinder) needs a shot of PB Blaster.

Unfortunately, from an insurance perspective it's not worth fixing it. Two (or three?) years back I had a fairly minor fender bender in the 2000 XJ. No frame damage. Right front fender, radiator, bumper, header. I don't think the grille was touched. Repair estimate from the shop my insurance company recommends was $4,800 ... and the blue book on the 2000 Cherokee Sport at that time was about $4,500. They didn't care that it was in showroom condition and had less than 40,000 miles on it. They went by book value, not by "aficionado" value. In the end, the shop worked with me and lowered the estimate a tad (I had used them before, so they were willing to be a tiny bit accommodating) and the adjuster for the company appreciated my situation with the vehicle and he tweaked his valuation a bit, and it got repaired without a salvage title. But it was VERY close. I think Jeep Driver is being kind with a guess of $8,000 to repair your MJ -- it could easily run more than that, and the insurance company is going to go by straight book value. For a 30-year old Comanche, that's probably about $500. A salvage (or repair) title is a title. If you don't plan on selling the vehicle -- who cares? You can still register it and drive it. If you decide to sell, a salvage/repair title will bother buyers who don't know anything about cars, but those people aren't the people who will be buying a 30 (or 40) year-old Comanche. People who would look at an old Comanche will either now enough to evaluate the vehicle and not the piece of paper, or they'll bring a friend who knows what he's looking at.

What was the backlash on the original setup, before you took it apart? And since you don't have pics of the original setup, we don't have a baseline. Remember, you are not setting up a new set of gears, you're replacing a carrier. Your gears have a wear pattern on them and that's why I and others advised you to carefully check and record what you started with, because the most important thing is to get it back to the same pattern of engagement that you had originally.