Eagle

And you consider a ZJ to be an "upgrade"? To each his own, I suppose. I don't want anything to do with ZJs.

OWL Wrangler tires on 15x7 6-spoke white "wagon wheel" style rims; gauges (tach optional); dual side mirrors; sport (3-spoke) steering wheel; Chief exterior trim; "hockey stick" door armrests; cloth upholstery; carpet instead of rubber floor mat. I think that's about it. What did I forget?

If you plan to tie the canoe only to the rack, then it has to be beefy. That really isn't necessary. I used to carry a 16-foot canoe on the roof of a pony car using just four styrofoam blocks clamped around the gunwales to cushion it on the roof. Lateral and longitudinal stability was from ties running to the bumpers. You can use a very light rack mounted in a hitch, because really all it does is support the weight of the canoe, and canoes don't weight much. You just have to tie the boat off to the chassis to keep it in place. That why a long time ago somebody invented this stuff called "rope." :) :cheers:

My '88 4.0L was a Chief. The previous owner stripped off most of the decals along the rocker panels, but you can see where the paint is more faded around the word Comanche Chief than under the letters. And the black tape on the hood is still there. Can I join? Please, huh, please?

Yes, they interchange both ways. But if the tie rod ends on the MJ linkage are worn out, you'd better replace them when you put the MJ stuff into the wife's ZJ or she will NOT be a happy camperette.

If your truck is really an '88 Pioneer and it had idiot lights, a previous owner has swapped out the gauge cluster because the Pioneer came with full gauges (except that tachometer was optional). If a previous owner got rid of gauges in favor of idiot lights ... one wonders why. Screwy wiring that would be hidden by the presence of idiot lights sounds like as good a theory as any.

Get a set of MJ main leaves, Explorer or old S-10 or Dakota main leaves, or even XJ main leaves, cut the eyes off the ends, and use those. Or go new. Rancho makes an AAL kit. They list the same part number for the XJ and MJ and their catalog says it produces 2-1/2" of lift in both. That's impossible, of course, so I called and spoke to their engineers. After some checking, the slide rule chick told me it's 2-1/2" in the XJ, and 1" to 1-1/2" in the MJ. Runs about $50 for the kit.

The FSM says to remove the lower dash panel. I suspect doing so makes the job a lot easier.

I wouldn't ever go to a Jiffy Lube just because of the way their ads used to pronounce the company name. I mean, really. Would you entrust your cherished vehicle to a shop that pronounces "lube" like LEEYOOOOB?

The 27-spline 8.25 started showing up around 1992, but as already noted it was only on vehicles without ABS. ABS-equipped XJs had the Dana 35. I have no idea of percentages, but I would guess that by 1997 or so "most" (whatever that unscientific term means) XJs probably had ABS, and therefore "most" would have had the Dana 35. I know that my dealer was typically ordering XJs for stock with ABS because most buyers wanted it. I had to special order to get my 2000 w/o ABS. Now that I have remarried and the 2000 XJ Classic has become my wife's "car," I wish I had gotten ABS. I don't like it and I don't think I need it, but she grew up in a land with no snow in the winter ...

Fill the bottle half way. Run the engine with the cap off until the coolant in the bottle starts to bubble. Shut off the engine and stand by. As soon as the bubbling stops, the coolant will start to suck back into the system. Pour more into the bottle, to keep the level about half full. Once it stops sucking in coolant, start the engine and repeat. It'll probably take three to four cycles to fully "burp" the system. Wear heavy rubber gloves and safety glasses when pouring in the coolant -- anything that splashes out WILL be boiling hot (+/- 240 degrees). I don't remove the temp sensor. It's lower than the bottle, so burping air from the head doesn't really purge the system.

There's your problem. There is nothing wrong with an AAL to gain a little height and extra capacity. The problems start when you try to get a BIG lift using an AAL, and become even worse when you try to do it with a half-length AAL. If the AAL doesn't have an arch that's pretty close to the same as the "native" arch of the other leaves in the pack, the new leaf is really working against the old leaves. The new guy is trying to push them up, and the old leaves are trying to push the new guy down. IMHO this is why the best of all AALs is the main leaf from a matching spring pack with the eyes cut uff. The arch matches, so everything works together. You won't gain mega-lift this way, but it also wan't sag out in six months. And the ride doesn't suffer. For example, I did this to restore the sagging rear springs on an '88 XJ I fixed up for an ex-GF. The vehicle started out about 1/2" lower than stock height, and I knew she wanted a Jeep to get into back country for accessing remote trail heads for hiking. So I put on gas tank and transfer case skid plates, and threw in a pair of main leaves from a junked XJ. The gross lift was 1-1/4", which was a net gain of 3/4" even after adding the skid plates. Other guys in NAXJA who have done the same on newer XJs and using newer donor springs (mine came from an '89) typically got 1-1/2" of gross lift. Once the XJ was done I drove it from Connecticut to Montana, and the ride was excellent. Slightly firm, definitely not harsh. Just the way I like it, in fact, and much better than it was before the lift.

YJ D30s are also high pinion, but of course they are set up for leaf springs and would require a lot of fabrication for use in an MJ. Any XJ front axle through early 1999 will be high pinion. I know the 2000 and 2001 XJ are low pinion ... not sure, but I think the change was a running change mid-year in the 1999 model run.

If the drag link and track bar are not parallel you get bump steer. Not an issue on the trail at low speed but very disconcerting (and possibly unsafe) on the street or highway.

No. This is a common misunderstanding. The housing, tubes, ring & pinion, and shaft diameter are exactly the same between the two. The difference is that WHEN a c-clip axle breaks the shaft, there is nothing to retain the hub and the portion of the axle outboard of the break, and they can "walk" out of the axle. The older non-c-clip design has a bearing retainer that keeps the axle in the tube and the wheel under the vehicle. (Can't be driven that way, however.)

No cutting necessary. I ran 31s with a Trailmaster lift that was somewhere between 3" and 4". I hated the lift and took it out. I can still run the 31s, even at stock height. Without trimming. The key is that you MUST run factory Jeep wheels. They have enough backspacing to allow the tires to stuff inside the fenders. Run aftermarket rims with less backspacing, and the tires will whack the flares when the suspension compresses.

WHAAAAAAAAAAT? Josh -- 3.55s is what Jeep should have used with the 5-speed and stock tires. 31x10.50s and 3.73 gears results in the same final drive ratio as 3.55 gears and stock tires. It's barely adequate for 31s, and 4.10s would be a whole lot better. For 33" tires you need at least 4.10 gears, and you'd be a lot happier (even for a daily driver) with 4.56s.

Ummmmm ... I hesitate to point this out, but y'all DO know, don'tcha, that the self-adjust feature doesn't work worth patooties even when it works at all? You know those little slots on the brake backing plates, beneath and to the front and rear of the wheel cylinders? Those are there, guys, for the sole purpose of adjusting the brakes. You stick a tool called a "brake spoon" into the slot and turn the star adjuster wheel to expand the shoes until they just barely make contact with the shoes. THEN you adjust the parking brake. If the brakes aren't adjusted manually first, you'll never get the self-adjusters to work, even with new wheel cylinders. The self-adjusters are not intended to adjust the brakes, they are intended to maintain] the adjustment once you have set it manually.

In that case, I'd suggest pulling the plug in the "nose" to remove the piston and spring, and clean out all the crud that's likely in there. BE CAREFUL -- the pring is under a LOT of compression, and if you let it go that cap will fly out pretty hard. There's a rubber O-ring toward the back of the piston. You need to ensure that's clean, and the recess it fits into is clean. Keep the O-ring if you want the thing to proportion. If you remove the O-ring and spring, and assemble with the pistol pushed all the way forward into the plug, you'll have full braking power to the rear wheels all the time.

+1 for Logan Steel. And they are (or at least were) open on Saturday mornings for people like us to wander in looking for scrap and asking dumb questions ...

Yep ... what he said ^^^

I wouldn't trust a Dana 35 with anything larger than 31" tires. People have gone larger with the D35, but then it becomes a question of "when" it's going to break rather than "if" it's going to break. If you're on a budget, just get a Chrysler 8.25 from a wrecked XJ and flip the spring pads -- or just move them if you're going high enough that a spring-over gets you to the correct height. It'll be cheaper than the Ford 8.8 and you won't have to adapt anything. You should be able to cut off the stock spring pads and re-use them, but if not you can get the best spring pads available through the Mopar Performance catalog for about $10 a pair.

Okay, then the next question is did you open up the XJ combo valve and clean all to gunk out of the proportioning pistol chamber before you installed it in the MJ?

After talking on the phone with one of my NAXJA mates, it comes back to me that I have actually sold two MJs to NAXJA NAC members. That's really out of character for me, I should be hanging on for dear life.

Yours sounds like the switch on the column. The original question in this thread sounds like the circuit breaker in the dash switch is getting lazy.