Eagle

Your camber is fubar. I don't have a '92 FSM but the '94 FSM can't be that far off. The camber spec is zero, with an acceptable range of +1/2 to -3/4 degree. Your camber is way out of spec. The shop that did the alignment should have told you that, and they should have checked the ball joints for excess play. Caster is okay. The set-to spec is 6 degrees, with an acceptable range of 5 to 9 degrees. I would have preferred to see the caster be the same on both sides, though. Again, I don't think the shop did a very complete job for you.

Good luck finding out. The FSM does not give spring rates, so any numbers you see posted are from unofficial sources and therefore suspect. A friend of mine found "220" stamped on the rear leaves off a Cherokee that had a traler tow package, so we believe the heavy-duty XJ rears are 220 pound springs. HD fronts should be in the same range, so maybe around 200? If that's heavy duty, 150 to 160 sounds VERY light for standard duty, except maybe on a 2WD 4-cylinder. I'm going to make a wild guess that MJ rear springs are around 220 to 250 pounds, but that's purely a guess. Best way to find out is to park on a level surface, measure the height to any convenient part of the body on both sides, then put exactly 100 pounds of anything (cement, planting soil, bird seed, anything in bags) directly over the rear axle on both sides. Measure again. If the drop is too small to measure accurately, make it 200 pounds on each side. That should drop you about an inch. Measure carefully, and then making it pounds per inch is a direct proportion.

Those numbers need plusses and minuses in front of them before they mean anything. Assuming your caster angles are plus, they are in the range to provide decent "tracking" but they should be closer to the same. Does the wheel pull to one side? The caster is adjusted by shims in the LCA frame pocket. The shop should know that, and should be prepared to shim the LCAs to get the correct setting, not just set the toe-in and give you a printout. Camber should be zero for both wheels. Either you need ball joints or you have other problems. It's not adjustable, except by using offset ball joints, but it ain't right.

I believe it's caused by a dirty IAC. The TPS may also play into it. I have had it several times on the '88 XJ, which is now up to 266,000+ miles. I've actually never cleaned or serviced either the TPS or the IAC. Whenever the high idle on startup starts to come back, I dump a couple of bottles of injector cleaner into the tank and that seems to cure it for another 6 or 8 months.

Roger - missed that. But the pumps carry the same Bosch p/n. That might very well be, although the HO engine I think runs at a different fuel pressure. Maybe they just use the regulator to control that. The fuel pump itself and the fuel level sending unit are two individual parts, but a lot of places either don't know that or don't tell you when you're ordering.

I'm using a Sun SuperTach II in my '88. Tap the signal off the coil pack. I believe the instructions for my tach said to take it off the wire from the coil to ground, but I don't remember now. It's been in there for four or five years.

The sending unit is definitely NOT the same. The 87-90 version has an ohm range of 0 thru 88. The 91+ sender has a range of 105 thru 5 (that's right, the polarity is reversed as well as the range being slightly different).

Doesn't matter how heavy your springs are. Simple physics. The rear axle is a fulcrum -- put the weight behind the axle and the physics of moment arms tell you that the whole chassis pivots around the rear axle, adding weight at the rear bumper and taking weight off the front tires. The principle is exactly the same as loading a trailer. You want 2/3 of the weight ahead of the axle so you have weight on the tongue, rather than putting the load on the tail and having the tongue always ready to pop off the hitch ball.

Bad idea. Behind the axle will push the back end of the truck down and take weight off the front, which compromises your steering. Put the weight either directly over the rear axle, or slightly ahead of it,. And be sure to strap it in so it won't slide. (There IS a story behind that bit of advice.)

Thank you, that be the one. Yes, definitely pricey, but also definitely VERY high quality stuff.

From U-Haul? Don't bet the ranch. The last time I needed a dolly I called around to three different U-Hauls before I found one that said they had a dolly I could rent on Saturday. So I showed up a 09:30, which is the time I was scheduled to pick it up, and the guy tells me my Comanche is too small to pull a car trailer. I said, "Yeah, that's why I rented a dolly." Well, he said I rented a trailer, and they didn't have a dolly. All they had for me was a trailer. "What about that one out front, chained to the column?" Oh, that one wasn't for rent. Screw U-Haul. I went 15 miles down the road and rented one from a local place that doesn't play games.

Two companies make them. One is (IIRC) named Flaming River. The other company is located in Norfolk, Connecticut, they advertise in the back of many of the 4WD magazines ... and I'm drawing a total blank on their name.

XJs are set up to be flat towed. Tranny in Park, transfer case in neutral. Personally, for a trip of 3-1/2+ hours I would pull both driveshafts to be sure. If you drive easy, the stock front bumper is okay if you attach the drawbar right next to the support brackets. I've done it; a friend and I hauled an MJ from New Bedford, MA, to my house in CT. All but a few miles at each end of the trip was Interstate highway and fairly level going. But be sure you take it easy, or you'll rip the front bumper right off. They aren't very strong. Don't forget to unlock the steering column in the XJ!

There is no significant difference between/among a 1054, 1157 and 2057. In fact, I think there's yet another that will fit the same socket and provide two filaments of contrasting brightness. There's a small wattage difference from one number to the other, but they'll all work. 1157s are usually easier to find than 2057s.

It did leave the factory. That was a take-out from an MJ ... the owner replaced it with an XJ combo valve. No, I haven't sliced another to see if it has the same problem. I only have one more, and I'm not willing to cut it apart. I suppose I should just probe and see how deep the hole goes. I recently posted the text from the FSM on bleeding the MJ brakes. The second line is a by-pass line that is active only if the front brake circuit loses pressure. In that case, the slider in the top of the front combo valve moves and allows fluid to flow through the by-pass circuit (which, of course, was blocked in the MJ front combo valve I sliced in half). Bleeding requires opening a bleed screw on a front caliper to simulate a front brake failure, allowing the by-pass circuit to be bled. Then you close the bleeder and bleed all four wheels normally.

All it does is lower the shift point, which is harder on both the engine and the tranny. It was supposed to help fuel economy. When they dropped it in 1991, they just hard-wired the tranny for the "pwer" setting. Don't waste any time looking for one, you don't need it.

If anyone wants an XJ shell to make into a trailer, let me know. I have one that's already stripped and soon to be cut up to haul to the transfer station in small pieces. That one would have to be a shorty, though, or else you'd have to patch the roof because it had a sunroof that I cut out to give a friend in NAXJA who rolled his XJ at Paragon a couple of years ago and smashed his sunroof. The other one is waiting for me to pull the engine and drive train and has a solid roof. Both are 4-doors. Both were hit in the front and are fairly straight in the back. (The second one has a bent driver's side A pillar, I think, but would be fine if built like the one in the Australian photos.)

Call my dealer on Monday. (860) 274-8834 Press '3' for Parts, and ask to speak with Todd. Todd is THE Jeep parts guru. If he can't steer you straight, it probably can't be done.

The simplest solution is a 2-bbl carburetor off a pre-smog engine. Holly and AutoLite used to make a wide variety of "lay-down style" (low, like a 4-bbl form factor, rather than upright that won't fit under the hood) 2-bbls, and you should be able to pick up rebuilts or even new aftermarket clones reasonably. Just pick one for approximately the same size engine. Don't get one from a much larger engine or it'll be jetted too rich.

The problem is, then they won't fit. In many applications (such as the control arms) you'll be building in clunks that you'll never be able to get rid of. The preferred solution (IMHO) is to use the correct bolt, and use it with anti-sieze. If you anti-sieze both the threads and the shanks, you should never snap anout bolt or bit.

Don't blame Jeep for what a previous owner broke, or failed to maintain. My '88 XJ I bought new in early 1988. It has just over 266,000 miles on it now. The original clutch lasted 204,000 miles, and was replaced only because the release bearing got noisy. The original Trac-Lok lasted 150,000 miles. The valve cover has never been off. I'm just about to put in the second replacement radiator, but the original lasted something like 185,000 miles (in New England). I've replaced one front hub/bearing unit -- the other is still the original. All driveshaft u-joints are original. There's nothing wrong with your Jeep. Fault whoever didn't take care of it before you got it.

You just have to love Harry's (if that's where you went). How many XJs and MJs did they have?

CPS (Crankshaft Position Sensor)

All my info is second-hand on this. Some reports say the swap required mild reshaping with a body hammer. Other reports say a section of firewall had to be cut out. And one guy said there was no problem. I have two scrap heaps in the yard that I hope to cut up into small pieces. The plan is to save both firewalls and compare them. One's an 86 and the other's an 87.

Oh, I know the hard way that they are metric. It's just that at my advanced age, remembering what I ate for breakfast is hard enough. Remembering what size bolt I pulled out of a control arm last year is a miracle. Rough equivalents: 3/8" is actually 9.x mm 1/2" is 12.7 mm. XJ rear spring u-bolts are 12 mm. Thinking they were 1/2", I once tried to use a reversed lug nut to replace a lost nut in a u-bolt. It would appear to thread on okay, but when it came time to tighten it, obviously it just spun. 14 mm is 9/16". The same XJ from which the guy lost the axle u-bolt nuts, he also lost the 14mm bolts that go through the shackle and the spring bushing. I couldn't find anything close in 14 mm but I found the right length in a 9/16" grade 8. I had to polish the bolt shank and tap it through with a hammer, but they worked.